diamondgrl - 3:25 pm on Dec 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

Definitely try to make a business case. You also may find that hard to do in many cases.

Unfortunately, there is some level of rational financial thinking in the case of many of these bad business sites. Many, although certainly not all, local businesses really will get far more of their customers other ways and their energy and money is best spent on a yellow page ad or getting listed elsewhere on the web in local directories (and not through building their own site, which requires customers to know about them).

It's just a reality of most small local businesses - there's far too little time and money to spend on speculative image-enhancement in a medium that is most effective in garnering an audience from a wide area, not a local one.

So try it, but be realistic yourself about which businesses might be likely to take you up on your offer.