Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK are not making enough use of the internet to boost their business, a new study argues.

According to Mediasurface, 61 per cent of UK SMEs think that their company's website does not accurately reflect their own brand identity.

In fact, one in ten (11 per cent) SMEs were found to not even have their own site, meaning that they could be missing out on profitable business opportunities and sales.

Recently, a study from Verdict Research suggested that online sales could triple by 2011 in the UK, highlighting how important it is for SMEs to make sure their web presence is effective.

"With Web 2.0 increasingly being covered in the media, it was interesting to see that 41 per cent of SMEs surveyed had not heard of it, implying that the message may be getting through to larger businesses but not as efficiently to the smaller business community," commented Andy Peart, the chief marketing officer at Mediasurface.

"Emphasising this point, of those SMEs that had heard of Web 2.0, only 37 per cent felt that it would have a positive impact on their business.

"There is still a great opportunity to show SMEs the true value of effectively managed web content and to illustrate that Web 2.0 is all about using the power of the web for business advantage," Mr Peart concluded.