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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.
About the Author:
Lauri Harpf
http://apromotionguide.com |
