Website Awards

As the entry deadline for The 2012 American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. approaches on March 28, we'd like to highlight 47 website awards categories that may be of interest to website design professionals and industry leaders. If you haven't already received your 2012 entry kit, you can download it here.

Categories for industry best websites include:

• Accounting
• Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations
• Aerospace & Defense
• Automotive & Transport Equipment
• Banking
• Business Services
• Chemicals
• Computer Hardware
• Computer Software
• Computer Services
• Conglomerates
• Consumer Products - Durables
• Consumer Products - Non-Durables
• Diversified Services
• Electronics
• Energy
• Financial Services
• Food & Beverage
• Health Products & Services
• Hospitality & Leisure
• Insurance
• Legal
• Manufacturing
• Materials & Construction
• Media
• Metals & Mining
• Non-Profit Organizations
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Pharmaceuticals
• Telecommunications
• Transportation
• Utilities

Our specialty web site awards categories include:

• Best Interface Design
• Best Software Programming/Design
• Best Writing/Content
• Best E-commerce Site
• Best Home Page
• Best Investor Relations Site
• Best Overall Web Design
• Best Online Press Room
• Best Training Site
• Best Video Site
• Best Facebook Page
• Best Google +1 Group
• Best LinkedIn Group or Page
• Best Twitter Feed

There is no eligibility timeframe for the best website categories - it does not matter when the site or page was first published.

Entries for these web awards should include:

• An essay of up to 100 words describing the site's purpose and achievements.
• A link to your social media site or a video of up to three (3) minutes that demonstrates the features and functions of your site if it is password protected.
• Optionally, you may list creative and production credits for your site - a list of the people and organizations that contribute to its development.

Here are some resources to help you submit your best of the web entries:

• Download our 10 Tips for Winning Web Awards in the Stevie® Awards tipsheet for tips and tools.
• Read past winners' entries for inspiration.  
• Watch How to Enter The 2012 American Business Awards  for step-by-step instruction.

Which of your favorite websites will you submit entries for?

We want to highlight 13 specialty website awards categories that may be of interest to web and interactive professionals applying to The 2012 American Business Awards. Our specialty web site awards offer recognition for innovative web design, outstanding commercial uses of the web, and successful social media outreach.

The ABAs are the top awards program in the U.S.A., and feature a wide range of categories to honor achievements in the workplace. The entry deadline is March 28. Get your entry kit here.

The ABAs' specialty categories for the best websites include:

• Best Interface Design
• Best Software Programming/Design
• Best Writing/Content
• Best E-commerce Site
• Best Home Page
• Best Investor Relations Site
• Best Overall Web Design
• Best Online Press Room
• Best Training Site
• Best Video Site
• Best Facebook Page
• Best Google +1 Group
• Best LinkedIn Group or Page
• Best Twitter Feed

The ABAs also feature 34 industry-specific categories for your web site entries.

Your entry submissions to these categories should include:

• An essay of up to 100 words describing the site's purpose and achievements to date
• A link to the site, which must be attached to your entry through our attachment/link uploading tool.  If your site is not publicly available (i.e. private or password protected), upload a video of up to three (3) minutes that demonstrates the features and functions of your site.
• Optionally, you may list creative and production credits for your site - a list of the people and organizations that contribute to its development.

There is no eligibility timeframe for these web site award categories; all sites are eligible for an award, regardless of start date.

How will your organization be highlighting its online successes in The 2012 American Business Awards?

Here are this week's best websites, apps, and blogs of note, to make your work life just a little bit easier.

Conversation Agent: Blog from Fast Company's Valeria Maltoni connecting people and ideas.
Dragon Dictation for iPadR: A free app providing accurate voice transcription and the ability to share messages via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. Versions also available for BlackBerry and Android.
Dropbox Anywhere: A free app that is the mobile version of this file synchronization program. Available for iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android.
GoToMyPC for iPad®: An app that enables fast, easy, and secure access to your PC or Mac from any web browser.
Save2PDF for iPad®: A $9.99 app that converts, merges, and creates PDF files on the. Available on Apple products only.

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The Stevie Awards don't just confer blog awards, web site awards, and such.  We also like to point you to notable blogs and sites that we think might be of interest to you.  Once a month in our Stevie Awards Update email newsletter we summarize "Blogs & Web Sites of Note," and here's what we offered in our February 17 edition. Once a month in this space we'll point you to several business-related blogs and web sites that we think might be of interest to you.

The Daily Beast/Newsweek: With attention focused on the recent AOL/Huffington Post merger, let's not forget another recent media merger of import.

The Daily What.at: A daily rundown of the Web's absurdia: see it here first.

The Consumerist: Not just product reviews or consumer complaints but also problem-solving, deals, tips, and news.

ZenHabits: Offering everything from productivity tips to ways to beat writer's block, ZenHabits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives.

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The Stevie Awards don't just confer blog awards, web site awards, and such.  We also like to point you to notable blogs and sites that we think might be of interest to you.  Once a month in our Stevie Awards Update email newsletter we summarize "Blogs & Web Sites of Note," and here's what we offered in our January 28 edition.

Brand You: Thank You Notes: Tom Peters once wrote 30 Rules of Implementation. The first one? Thank you notes. "Recognition, appreciation, nothing gets you further—and it also makes you a better human being." Watch this video from his The Little Big Things Video Series.

eHub: A constantly updated resource of web applications, services and sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0) and social software.

StockTwits: A Twitter community for people who are obsessed with stocks. Log on with your Twitter username and password, and view the latest conversations from investors and traders on the stock market.

Fx Twits: A Twitter community centered around finance that's focused on currency pairs. Want to know what’s going on with the American dollar against the euro? FxTwits captures Twitter discussions surrounding the exchange rate.

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We've just published a new tipsheet called 10 Tips for Winning Web Awards in the 2011 Stevie Awards.  Get it here.

It summarizes the 10 best ways to get recognized for your web site, blog, or creative work in the four Stevie Awards competitions in 2011 (which include The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service).  For the most part it recommends the web site and blog awards, interactive multimedia awards, and other categories that web folks should focus on, and outlines the general submission requirements for those categories.

Elite Editing is a New York–based full-service editorial company, offering proofreading, editing and writing help for businesses, academics and individuals through the website EliteEditing.com. The company earned one of the website awards in the 2010 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the global competition for women entrepreneurs, executives, and the organizations they run.  Company owner Jennifer Rotner accepted the Stevie at the awards dinner in New York on Friday, November 12 2010.  See her acceptance speech here.

EliteEditing.com allows users to upload documents and pay instantly so that, no matter the deadline, their work will be delivered on time and error-free. The site also functions as an extensive writing resource, offering an invaluable list of articles, links and writing tips that is constantly evolving, with new, original content added daily.

The next opportunities to win web awards and blog awards from the Stevies include the website and blog awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards, and the web awards categories of The 2011 International Business Awards.