There are thousands of people out there on the internet just waiting to take
a look at your site. These people want to give you an award if your site
measures up to one or more standards. Each of them has a different set of
criteria that they are judging.
- Occasionally you will run across someone who just says "take my award".
These really are not awards as your site is not judged. Unless the award
"plaque" looks cool, I wouldn't bother as there is no real value.
- Many awards are passed out to any site after a brief review. Basically, if
the site loads it gets an award.
- Others require the site be good and on a specific topic. For example,
"Best Star Trek Site" would be one of these types of awards.
- The better webmasters who offer awards ensure that the winning sites meet
specific criteria. These awards are not hard to get as long as your site is
reasonably good.
- There are some highly coveted awards out there - these are hard to get as
your site must be good.
- And finally, the cream of the crop are awards given out by the very high
traffic sites, newsletters and magazines. These are extremely desirable, but
generally are much harder to get.
Why are all of these people doing this? Several reasons. Many people, myself
included, see it as a way to get to see some pretty cool sites. In addition,
granting awards usually requires a reciprocal link. Having lots of sites
link to your site will increase something called it's "popularity", which
helps to improve the ratings in some search engines.
So, once you've finished your site (and make sure it's relatively complete),
it is time to try and get some of these awards. Now, some webmasters feel
that awards are useless. I disagree. Awards are very useful. The better
awards can boost traffic as much as a top listing on Yahoo, and at the very
least they improve a site's popularity.
Here are some good reasons to apply for all of the awards that you can find.
- It's an ego boost. Presumably you've spent lots of time building your
dream web site and it's nice to be recognized. A note of caution, however:
most of these awards are not judged very harshly. It's nice to win but
unless it is one of the top 100 or so awards it's probably not saying much
about your site except that it's not too terrible.
- Many awards sites will link to pages that win their awards. This can
improve traffic. Don't count on much, but every little bit can be helpful.
More importantly, having more sites link to yours can improve your
popularity in search engines, which is occasionally used to give you a
higher rating.
- Having lots of awards looks very good. Most visitors don't know a good
award from an easy one, so having a page listing dozens or hundreds of
awards makes your site look like it's very cool indeed.
- If you look at my awards pages at http://www.internet-tips.net/awards.htm
you will see that I've also included the text of the emails from the award
programs. These are good testimonials as they provide a reason why the award
was won. This can serve to add credibility to your site and the information
that you present (and the product you may be trying to sell).
It's pretty simple to submit to the awards sites. Simply locate them (and
there are some good resources listed at the end of this article), read the
instructions and enter the data. If you win you'll hear back from them in a
few days or weeks. Generally at that time you will receive an email with
instructions on how to add the award to your site. Usually there is also
some advertising included (it's part of the price that you pay).
Unless you find an award that you really want, I would suggest limiting
submissions to those awards that will give you a link back to your site. A
major part of the reason to go through all of this trouble is to get more
traffic. The only way to achieve this is to get that back link.
My advice is simple. Spend a few hours each week scanning through award
listings such as those at the bottom of this article. Submit your site to
perhaps thirty or forty awards. You will win some of them. This should
become part of your standard weekly promotional activity.
The gain will be that you will feel better about your site (assuming, of
course, that you win any awards), your popularity will rise, and perhaps you
will gain some small amount of additional traffic. At the very least, the
people who are judging the awards will have to visit your site at least once
to check it out.
Additional Resources
Our awards code of ethics
http://www.internet-tips.net/Winawards/awardsethics.htm
Website Awards Worksheet
http://www.internet-tips.net/Winawards/awardsworksheet.htm
Revisions to the Worksheet
http://www.internet-tips.net/Winawards/awardsworksheetrevisions.htm
Daily editorial - January 10, 2001 (Make A Web Site That Wins Awards)
http://www.internet-tips.net/Daily/20010110.htm
Join the Web's Best Awards webring!
http://www.internet-tips.net/Bestwebawards/Joinring.htm
So you want to run an awards program?
http://www.internet-tips.net/Awardmaster/awards000.htm
Win An Award for your site
http://www.internet-tips.net/Winawards/Winanaward.htm
About the Author
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets. This
website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your internet
profits, enjoyment and knowledge.
Web Site Address: http://www.internet-tips.net
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Daily Tips: mailto:internet-tips@GetResponse.com