Small business owners are increasingly realizing the importance of establishing an Internet presence. The purpose of the study reported here was to evaluate a sample of Web sites of small and often rural businesses and compare how well the Web sites met a set of 40 standards identified in the literature. In general, the Web sites scored well. The largest area of concern was the lack of variety of ways a customer could order or get assistance. Suggestions are provided as to how this information can be used by Extension educators.
Muske et al. (Sat,) studied this question.