We all have them in our town. Mom and Pop shops that have been part of our communities since our grandparents were kids. The truth is these shops can be a nice piece of income for you on the side.

By now everyone has heard of the Internet and has an idea of what a Web site is. It’s almost as if your businesses don’t exist if it doesn’t have a .com after its name somewhere. However, most Mom and Pop shops don’t have a Web site. Mom and Pop are getting older and “don’t have time to fool with such nonsense,” But once Mom and Pop see the value in a Web site, even something small, they will gain interest. What I am going to explain is how a person, with even no Web developing skills, can land partnerships with these stores to give them a presence on the Web.

First you don’t want to tell Mom and Pop too much at once. Just give them a few benefits of having a Web site such as product exposure, directions to the store, etc. (And don’t forget to tell them how having email for customer service can keep that damn phone from ringing all day). If you want, make a basic sample page for them to look at.

Now that you educated the customer and they agree to try it, make an offer. Keep in mind that we are not creating the next Amazon or eBay here. We are making a simple page for a simple Mom and Pop store. When you decide on a hosting service (which I will explain next), take a look and see if they have a site builder. I know it’s not as cool as doing it all yourself from scratch, but Mom and Pop don’t care, and you’re trying to earn as much buck as you can for your time, so the easier, the better.

Keep the cost for them low, and give them maybe a 50% discount for the first three months. Trust me. It is possible to make a monthly profit by 1000%. Once the site is up for a while, show Mom and Pop other things such as media files and e-stores, and adjust the price for these services as you see fit.

Now that you have made the site choose a service to host your site such as go-daddy or yahoo. I currently use 1and1.com for my hosting needs. I pay $3.99 a month and that includes a domain, email, and plenty of space and bandwidth. See now how you can make a huge profit? Even if you charged only $50.00 a month, you’re making a profit of over $500 a year.

What is great is that these sites need very little updating, so managing multiple sites can be done just a few hours a week. Some of the sites I manage don’t ever update. They are happy enough with just a Web presence and email. This makes it very easy and gives you time to manage more sites increasing your revenue.

Have fun with it and thanks for reading.

Paul

[tags]mom and pop store, Internet, personal Web space[/tags]