Tis the season for casting your vote, and this very simple concept has become a corner stone of social networking. Much like twittering so people know what you’re up to, blogging or sharing your favorite music, people like to give their opinion about topics that matter to them. Whether it’s the xBox game of year, funniest cat picture, or news stories; every vote counts. Each vote can boost or hurt the prominence of a topic because rankings are updated real-time, and can drive traffic to your site. Unlike traditional ballot elections, new visitors see your vote before they make their decision, broadening your influence. Nor does it have to be a silent vote; everyone can step up on the soap box and comment.

You get a vote, a voice, and an audience. And, possibly a virtual ego.

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Ten years ago, selling websites was, for all intents and purposes, easy. You needed a royal blue shirt, charcoal grey pants, business cards, and a promise. Everybody needed a website but only a few companies and individuals were providing the service effectively. It was an Economics 101 lesson in supply and demand. Almost everyone was self-taught and had barely any experience under their belt. Luckily, expectations for websites were lower back then. A site could be published with merely a home page, five pages of static HTML content, a spinning “e” email icon, and some blinking text. The client would practically jump for joy. It gave us all time to learn and practice.
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When engaging a developer to create your new site, you will be asking questions such as “How long will it take?” and “How much will it cost?” Well, I want to make sure you ask one other very crucial question, and when it comes to buying your new site, it’s the most important question. Ever.“Will the HTML and CSS that you deliver for my website be W3C standards compliant?”

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Let’s visit a fictitious venture for the sake of telling a simplified story:

Imagine for a moment that you’re a passionate, veteran chocolatier. After years in the making, your pet project is finally a reality: you’ve invented the World’s Best Chocolate bar, hands down.

We’re talking a chocolate bar of astounding caliber. When people eat it, they have a taste experience so profound it verges on spiritual. Everyone who tries your chocolate raves about how great it is; and that “without a doubt, they’d drop $10 on a bar,” which is a good thing considering the high cost in making one.

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“Fast” Eddie Chambers is a young, promising American Heavy Weight boxer. He needed a website up, and true to his name, he needed it up fast! Leland Hardy, of NewYork.com, contacted Graphics.net on behalf of “Fast” Eddie; he requested we turn around a great looking site—in just 5 days. Needless to say, we were completely up for the challenge. Our team hit the turbo, and with Leland’s regular and timely feedback, we went live with the Phase 1 build of www.FastEddieChambers.com as of last night. This Phase 1 build is a simple site for Eddie’s fans to follow his rise to stardom.

Now that the heat is off, we’ll focus on implementing some robust Phase 2 features, which will allow Eddie’s management to better engage and market to their fan base.

We designed the logo for our sister company, SEO.com. President Dave Bascom was quite happy with our services, so he chose us to design their new web site. There were some specific challenges to meet for this site: the guys at SEO.com needed a new site relatively fast, so we created a phased launch strategy. While we worked on Phase 1, we also made provisions for additional features and SEO tools, which we scheduled for Phase 2. Ahh.. multi-tasking… our wives would be proud.

This was a great project, and we’ll be rolling out a case study shortly.

Over the last three months, we worked closely with the team at Software.com to create a well-designed and user-friendly website. Their executive leadership needed this new website in order to move forward as a serious player in their industry; after all, the challenges a heavyweight competitor like Software.com is constantly faced with are immense. With an abundant amount of content and product, they required an eloquent display to capture their visitor’s attention and develop a relationship with them.

Mike Bell, CEO of Software.com, is stoked with the outcome: “…today is the first day that I can proudly and eagerly direct people to our site to ‘check us out.’ Thanks for your hard work, long hours (including weekend hours!) and great skill. Software.com officially enters the playing field today – and we do so with a powerful new site with world-class design - thanks to Graphics.net!”

The new site is just Phase 1. Our team will work closely with Software.com to execute many other strategic initiatives—so stay tuned!

Check out our work at www.software.com

CEO Mike Cummings named his company after what they do best—Reliable Home Maintenance (RHM). The intention of Mike’s online presence is to reflect the company’s professionalism that is exhibited by his company at street level.

Once Mike employed our services, we began our research in RHM’s current branding, their competitors and their target market. We also wanted to take into consideration RHM’s business success and their steady growth. What they needed in a website was to inform and engage potential new clients; in addition, the site was to serve as a contact for potential new staff.

As a result, we combined a clean aesthetic with an easy-to-navigate site that would quickly communicate to potential new customers and employees that RHM is a reliable, honest service provider and employer. Working with the team at RHM was a great experience, and we look forward to more projects with them in the future.

Check out our work for RHM at www.reliablehomemaintenance.com.