Awards (Giving and Getting)

Getting

I have a few friends that struggled day and night to get recognized by the major awards (Cools Site of the Day, Point Top 5%, Cool Sighting etc.). Finally, they got Point Top 5% and they thought they had really hit the big time. When the link came up they expected their traffic to hit the roof. They were sorely disappointed when at the end of that first day they received a total of 15 hits as a result of the award.

Now granted, if they had received Cool Site of the Day, they probably would have had one stellar day, but most awards do not perform this well. Cool Site of the Day is also quite difficult to get and the effects only last one day. (There is a bit of trickle as a result of their archives, though.)

Some awards will give you a big boost for one day, some will give you a slow consistent trickle (the Point Top 5% award did continue to trickle in about 15 hits a day).

Given all this, I would still recommend trying to get as many awards as possible. Awards will increase your traffic somewhat, but more importantly, they will increase your websites credibility. When someone sees an award on your page, they are automatically brainwashed into thinking that the site is good. It's inevitable, the site will be far better received. More people will bookmark the site and more people will come back.

There are hundreds of sites that give awards these days. I would make a habit of trying for at least one every day until you have them all. If you are turned down by one, keep trying until you get it. Be persistent.

A good place to start is "Award-It". You can automatically submit to about 200 awards there for free.

Giving

One of the smartest things you can do is offer your own award. Create a snazzy small graphic that people can place on their sites with pride. Ensure that they link the graphic back to your site. Boom! Instant free
advertising.

I would advise against giving out a simple "cool site" award. There are far too many of these around. If you sell widgets give out a "best widget site of the web" award. The chances of your award being seen by someone interested in your widgets is increased dramatically.

I did this with my original website "Hot Rod Your Head."

I started offering the High Octane Award and got a slew of submissions.

After I distributed about 30 or so awards, I noticed a pretty noticeable influx of hits as a result (it was already a site getting about 2,000 hits a day - much more than that now, but every little thing helps).

It varied from site to site, of course, but it was a nice chunk.

I still offer the award and it's still a good source of traffic. At that site, I get about 150 hits a day as a result of those links alone. Some of you out there could probably use that.

The effectiveness of that award, though, is based on it's validity. I don't just give it out to anyone. If you do that, it loses value.

My award helps give the recipient sites some credibility and also gives them some traffic as well. The section featuring the awardees is pretty well trafficked and the sites listed there get a lot of hits as a result.

A win/win solution is the only way to suceed on the web. If you don't help others, they probably won't be willing to help you