Approximately two months ago, the “Canada, Get Your Business Online” initiative was launched. Supported by big names such as Google, the aim of the initiative was pretty self-explanatory; getting Canadian businesses to build websites. According to Google, 100,000 Canadian small to medium sized businesses were/(are) not online, a sharp contrast to the 80% of Canadian consumers who are online.
Whereas this initiative was definitely a step in the right direction, it may not have been the most effective way to address the online disconnect between Canadian SMBs and consumers. For those unfamiliar with the initiative, it offered both free website creation through a templated “What you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) website provider, and a year of free .ca domain registration, in addition to a few other perks.
