The polls are closed and the votes are in! Time to tally them up and find out our Homepreneur of the Year…

Thank you everyone for sending in your emails, Tweets and even snail mail! We received hundreds of votes and messages of support for our intrepid finalists.

Later this month, we will announce the grand prize winner, who will be flown to Vancouver, Canada for the full red carpet treatment and a complete website redesign package!

The judging panel has a challenging decision ahead of them to determine the winner. They will be taking each of the following criteria into account:

• innovation and originality
• entrepreneurial ‘spirit’
• revenues generated through home-based business
• prior experience and success
• business sustainability and scope
• electronic votes via Twitter/email

Stay tuned to find out who the winner is, and congratulations again to all of our truly inspiring finalists!

Wendy Lau of BlueWonderCloth.com, our Small Business Makeover winner, made the trek down to our offices last week to meet the CityMax.com team and give her online presence a shot in the arm.

Nine years ago, Wendy started selling environmentally friendly cleaning products online as a part-time distributor. She quickly grew to the point where she actually bought out the original owner four years ago and now runs the entire business!

We were excited to meet Wendy, who’s been with CityMax.com since we were just three people huddled in a tiny office. She’s already had some serious success, but Wendy told us she now wants to “make more and do less.” Sounds like our kind of challenge!

Our experts sat down with her and talked custom re-design, local search marketing, and search engine optimization for her site. Wendy even got to check out our daily huddle and meet our two dogs. All in all, it was a great start to the makeover - stay tuned to see what Wendy’s finished makeover looks like!

Presenting the finalists for 2009 Homepreneur of the Year! We were overwhelmed by the amount of amazing entries, and thank you all for your submissions. You have some truly incredible small business website success stories and made it hard to pick just eight finalists!

From the Pet Tag Prince to Grandma Cuddles, these finalists come in all shapes, sizes, and ages! Now it’s up to you. Check out their stories on the voting page and help us choose who should be the Homepreneur (home-based business owner) of the Year!

Thank you for all your entries! The contest is now closed and we’ll be announcing the winner shortly.

In celebration of Small Business Month in Canada, we’re giving away a small business website package and a full day of one-on-one consulting with our team of online marketing experts, including Dean Gagnon, a co-founder of CityMax.com and one of BIV’s “Top Forty Under 40”.

If you’re the lucky winner, you’ll be invited to spend the day at CityHall, CityMax.com’s legendary headquarters, located in the heart of historic Gastown, Vancouver BC.

Once there, you’ll receive one-on-one consulting on:

• How to Get MORE Targeted Traffic to Your Website
  
• The Secrets to Converting More Visitors into Leads & Sales
  
• Easy, Inexpensive Ways to Generate Free PR for Your Business

The winner will also receive a custom-designed CityMax.com website or a complete makeover of their existing CityMax.com website from our award-winning in-house designers.

This full day of consulting and web design with our team of coveted experts is valued at $10,000, but in celebration of Small Business Month in Canada it’s free to the winning entrant!

Put your hands together for October’s delicious Website of the Month, Calexicocart.com! Founded by three brothers in New York City, this site is selling “mind-blowing” tacos, tortas, and other yummy Mexican dishes. These guys are hungry for success and it shows – they’ve recently been featured on ABC News, New York Times and in other top-tier media. Great job Calexico - maybe you could send us some burritos?

If you’d like to be featured as Website of the Month, please send a short description of your CityMax.com site and a link to websiteofthemonth@CityMax.com.

Would you like more visitors to your website?

If you and your business are featured as a CityMax.com success story, you’ll get those extra visitors you’ve been looking for – without spending any money!

As the owner of a thriving business, you’ve got a great story to tell and we’d like to help you do it. We’ll be featuring several of our successful customers over the next while and we’d like to invite you to get in on this great opportunity.

As a bonus, if your story is chosen, you’ll not only get free website traffic, but maybe even free publicity through TV/radio/print coverage! We’ll also add 6 months to your website subscription, for free.

If you’d like to share your story, take our online survey! Just click this link:

CityMax.com Success Story Survey

Can’t wait to hear how you did it!