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.
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 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.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.