Forum Moderators: phranque
He got an award from a magazine he pays huge $$$ for advertising, so they gave him a "best product page" award. The magazine is not the most important one, but it has a good sounding name and the graphics for the award looks nice. Also they gave quite a lot of big, big companies awards too (which they probably didn't care about) but could display their logos along with the other big-advertising-bucks-awards on their page thus adding "credibility".
So I want an award too. If possible, for free :-) Any chaps or magazines or blogs or websites or directories or whatever there desperate enough to give "awards" to anybody who can't run fast enough to avoid them?
Sometimes, bad publicity is good publicity, but to me, it sounds like it would not help you.
Magazines usually have a high credibility, so try to make the most your appoinment!
I'm in no real time pressure any more, and I'm going to weigh the available options very carefully. For the moment, this magazine shootout seems to be the best option. We'll see.
Cereate an award site give the award to some big PR sites,eventually you will get a decent amount of backlinks and inbound PR. Once you have it just tighten you "judging criteria" so you only give out one award a month per page and and more effectively transfer PR to websites of your own choosing.
Doesn't seem to me that THEY follow your strategy, but there might be some out there who do. It's an interesting concept even though I'm not sure about moral implications.
However it seems that a surprising high number of SEO-companies are in the "award business" themselves...
Valid html? Then add a 3C tick logo to show that --
I always think when I see the tick that the site is rather amateurish and doesn't really add any value to your average consumer.
You're good enough with web design... INVENT a new association/commission/magazine from scratch. Give it a REALLY cool sounding authoritative name. Set up (on its own domain) a website. List it on DMOZ. Official looking, lots of good industry info. A nice, conservative logo. Good-sounding catch phrases. A photo of this month's magazine showing...
Your company's website of the year!
Setup some tough criteria. When your competitors apply, send them nice "you almost made it" emails.
Make sure the award logo looks really good on your site. Enjoy all the positive chatter at trade shows.
Certainly a lot of work, but maybe I should consider it if only for the fun :-)
Imagine that your big competitor researches your award and publishes the story on his web site, or tells everybody at the trade show, how easy it is to get such an award, and that your business habits are similar
Given the background pm's given us on the competitor's award, he could also do the same thing. Though for either person, that could just come off as backbiting, which may be an even bigger turnoff for the customer.
