Web Marketing Association is Looking for the Best Web sites in 96 Industry Categories

April 2, 2007; 04:04 AM

The Web Marketing Association is now accepting entries into its 11th annual international WebAward Competition. The WebAwards is the standards-defining competition that sets industry benchmarks and recognized the best web sites in 96 industries. The deadline for entry is May 31, 2007 and the WebAward Web site is located at www.07webaward.org.

"Even the most amazing web sites remain invisible without the proper recognition," said William Rice, President of the Web Marketing Association. "The WebAward competition not only recognizes the best web sites on the Internet today, but our participants get valuable feedback from our experts judges to help make their web site better in the future".

The WebAwards competition judges website entries on seven criteria: design, innovation, content, use of technology, interactivity, copywriting and ease of use.

Participants receive not only their score for each criteria, but the average for their industry and the overall WebAwards to provide them benchmarks for their own web development efforts.

Judges are leading Internet professionals that are selected from hundreds of nominations every year. They volunteer their time and talent to help improve the standard of excellence of Web development. Most judges have participated in the WebAwards for several years.

Judging for the 2006 WebAwards will take place in June through August, with winners announced in September. Judges will consist of a select group of Internet professionals who have direct experience designing and managing Web sites, including members of the media, interactive creative directors, site designers, content providers and webmasters, with an in-depth understanding of the current state-of-the-art in Web site development and technology.

Participants in the 2007 WebAwards will receive:

•    An independent evaluation of their Website
•    Valuable feedback to help benchmark your efforts and it relationship to its industry.
•    A free copy of the 2008 Internet Standards Assessment Report when published

If your site wins a WebAward, you will also get:

•    A beautiful image plaque or certificate of achievement to display proudly
•    Higher visibility for your company
•    A great marketing opportunity to promote your site to the media
•    Links to your site from the highly ranked WebAward site to help SEO
•    Best of Industry winners will also receive a free press release distributed by PRWeb.

The competition's highest honor, the 2007 WebAward "Best of Show," will be given to the one site that the judges believe represents the pinnacle of outstanding achievement in Web development. Last year's Best of Show winner was NewYork-based Big Spaceship (www.bigspaceship.com), for its outstanding work "TBS: Department of Humor Analysis" web site at www.tbshumorstudy.com,

The Web Marketing Association will also recognize the interactive agency winning the most awards in the competition with the "Top Interactive Agency" WebAward. The 2006 Top Agency award was presented R/GA (www.rga.com), taking home 19 WebAwards.

Sponsors
The 2007 WebAwards are sponsored by the following leading organiztions: Burst Media, PRWeb, Misukanis & Odden, Small Army, SimpleFeed, ExactTarget, ad:tech conferences, NewsUSA, eComXpo, MediaPost's OMMA conference, TopRank Online Marketing, Creative Chocolate Printing Company, OTOlabs, Internet World UK, Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster Radio, Rovion's InPerson and eMarketer.

About the WebAwards
Now in its 11th year, the annual international WebAwards competition sets the standard of excellence in 96 industry categories by evaluating Web sites and defining benchmarks based on the seven essential criteria of successful Web site development. The goal of the Web Marketing Association, sponsor of the WebAwards, is to provide a forum to recognize the people and organizations responsible for developing some of the most effective Web sites on the Internet today. Entrants benefit from a Web site assessment by a professional judging panel and the marketing opportunities presented to an award-winning Web site. For more information, visit www.07webaward.org.