TIPS and TRICKS
Winning website awards
Website awards are small, sometimes animated pictures that have a little bit of text and some cute graphics in them. They are a bit like trophies from sport events - one would easily believe that they have no actual purpose and are just designed to look good and to make the owner proud of himself.
Is it that simple? Well, if it were you wouldn't have to read this article. Website awards actually have a function, but the way they work is not quite common knowledge. Even many webmasters who display awards on their sites don't have a clue on what is actually happening.
Let's start by looking at this topic from the award winner's side. What does he actually get? Well, first of all he receives the graphic that the award distributor has made. Only on rare occasions it has any value; unless the site that gave it is extremely known and respected, the graphic alone will not raise the prestige of the winning page.
Second, the winner usually receives a link from the site that gave the award. The value of this link depends on where it is placed and how much traffic the linking page gets. If it's a prominent link on a busy site, it's worth something. If it's a tiny link on a low-traffic site, it won't do the winner much good.
Alright, we've pretty much covered what the winner gets. But does the person who gives out awards get anything, or is he left empty handed? Sometimes it is better to give than to receive, and I feel that this is one of the cases where the rule applies.
If done right, giving out awards can be a good promotion method, as it has two major positive effects. First, it creates a link popularity boost as it is possible and even common to pass out cut 'n paste HTML-code along with the award itself. This code is then used to install the award to the winner's site and to link it back to the site that gave the award. Most award winners seem to comply with this linking procedure without giving it a second thought.
This boost in link popularity helps the person that gave the award in appearing near the top in search engines, especially if he is wise enough to give the awards mostly to sites that deal with similar topics as his own site. The relevancy of the links is important due to search engine algorithms - read the link popularity article for more information.
Distributing awards also creates some visitors through the awards visible on the winner's websites. Sure, not many people click on an award, but if you give out 1000 of them and every one gets clicked just twice a month, that's 2000 visitors/month for the site right there!
Who's really winning?
In conclusion, the person giving out awards usually benefits more from them than the one winning the award. If you're planning to apply for awards, prefer big sites that offer a prominent link on their site for winners. If you want, you might also try to win smaller awards just to gain some links. I wouldn't even think about placing the actual awards on my site; the real prize is the link that can be gained from the site that gives the award, not the award itself.
On the other hand, if you're planning to hand out website awards, it might be a good idea. There are plenty of webmasters out there who haven't read this article and will gladly accept just about any award, place it on their site and link it to your site.
The only thing you'll need is graphic skills to make the award picture and a set of linking instructions to pass out to the "lucky" winners. It might be wise to limit the sites that can apply for the award to the ones with a similar topic as your site so that you will gain a lot of relevant, not random, links that will help you in your search engine related promotion efforts.
To find awards you can win (keep my advice in mind and don't be fooled by the pretty award pictures), visit Award sites and Website awards. If you're giving out an award of your own, you may also submit it to those sites in order to drive more award-hungry people to your site.
