Greetings Cherokee County!

The new site launched today with little fanfare and even fewer problems.

It was designed over the course of two years by studying a plethora of local and state government sites across the country, monitoring analytical data on site usage and modernizing the infrastructure. A lot of attention was paid to the user experience and hopefully you will be able to find all the resources from the old site (plus all the great, new information) within three or fewer clicks. The most popular destinations on our page can be found quickly by clicking on the I Want To... link at the top of the page. Access to broad topics can also be found on this main toolbar.

We've added a ton of helpful information on the Community page and the Newcomer's guide to Cherokee County. The Business tab offers easy access to the Development Authority and Chamber pages as well as direct links to the Development Service Center and the Business License Database. Public Safety information is a few clicks away from the main menu and anything you needed to know about the structure of Cherokee County can be found under the Government banner.

Make sure to check out the Events Calendar which for the first time combines the Cherokee Government events page with the Arts Community calendar put together by ChooseCherokeeArts.org. You can find instant access to all the entertainment offerings in the county and single click to ticketing and event information.

Web2.0 has made it to the county site as well. One of the best ideas in recent years is to utilize employees, citizens and customers of Cherokee County to help spread the word about important information and events. You can now subscribe to the RSS feeds of individual departments or to the county at large to have recent news sent directly to you. Also at the bottom of every page you will notice a share tab that lets you instantly add interesting items from the county site to your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (and lots more) social networking sites. Each department now has the ability to manage their own department pages so information can flow from the source to the intended audience without the bottleneck inherited from the previous workflow system.

This is only the first of many planned upgrades as we continue to grow the site and come up with great ways to serve our county. Have fun exploring and please let us know of any issues, concerns or ideas you may have for your new county site. As always, thanks for helping make Cherokee County a Great Place to Live, Work and Play.

- Cherokee County

(concerns, questions or general website information please contact Michael Haines, webmaster mhaines at cherokeega dot com)