In order to keep afloat during the recession, companies working online need to continue spending money on advertising, even if they adopt a different tact, it is believed.

Paul Elliott, the Business Link advisor for the East Midlands, said there is always a major temptation for small businesses in IT to hack away at budgets for training and marketing, when in reality both may be more important than anything else.

He explained that in order to maintain a strong presence online, people may want to use e-marketing as a cheaper alternative and not simply cut the budget for self-promotion completely.

Mr Elliott added: "With e-marketing, it is easy to keep your campaign refreshed much more so than print, so ensure it is refreshed and interesting for people each time they revisit your site."

Business Link is a non-political organisation that is dedicated to helping businesses to innovate, improve, and grow while becoming more competitive.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.