Midphase, Inc, a premier web hosting provider, found that nearly 60% of their SMB customers had been affected by the recession with 58% indicating a revenue drop from between 5% to over 60%.

One of the main reasons cited by 46% of this group is the challenge in finding new customers.

Midphase surveyed over 3,000 of their customers and currently hosts over 120,000 websites. “We feel this is a true cross section of American Internet users,” says Marc Bollinger, Midphase General Manager.

The statistics indicate that many people are dealing with the recession by creating new revenue streams specifically through online businesses. The Midphase survey found that 60% of respondents are supplementing their existing income with a web presence. This fact is supporting by the finding that 47.7% claim that their web presence will represent less than 10% of their income.

“People are going online to make money. A motivated individual can have a new business up and running in a matter of days; and we’re providing the tools to do it. 71% of the respondents said they looked at three or more hosting companies before selecting Midphase and 70% claimed that our products and services were important to the success of their businesses. This indicates our customers carefully selected a hosting partner that would enable them to succeed,” adds Bollinger.

Generally the respondents felt that their online initiatives would grow over the next 12 months, with 56% predicting a 5-10% increase; 20% predicting a 10-20% increase and 12% predicting a 25-50% increase.