Have You Got What It Takes?

by John Etling, Co-Webmaster
Everything You Need to Know About the Giant Panda^©
1 August 2000

So you want to offer a website award to people! One that stands out as a quality awards program. Do you think you have what it takes? I hope to help you answer this question from my own personal experience and, unless you have been giving awards for a long time, I hope to open your eyes a bit.

While I do not profess to be an expert on this subject, I would like to attempt to give some quality advice to those starting out and to those wishing to climb up the ratings chart and gain respectability as an award worthy of achieving.

Getting Started

Make sure your website is complete or at least complete enough that a visitor would not know it isn't. Anyone who wants to enter the serious arena of award giving must make sure his own site is at top notch form before demanding perfection from someone else.

The next things you need to build a quality awards program are desire and a total understanding that it will take up a lot of your time. Commitment is 50% of the battle. You'll find out in short order that you will be doing more work on your awards program than on the remainder of your site. Constant tweaking of the awards criteria, winners lists, images and so forth are all part of the process. Don't build an awards program and expect it to take care of itself.

Focus Your Award

There are a lot of award programs out there that award many things. You must decide what your main focus will be and build your criteria around that issue. It is preferable to award in an area where you have a better than average knowledge. Understand the effort involved before you decide to focus your award on that area. In other words, don't offer an award for Flash technology if you have little to no actual experience in building Flash sites!

Why? If your site stands out as one of the best of its kind and your award centers on your knowledge, a lot of award seekers will ask you what they can do to bring their site up a notch or two. Or they may ask, "How'd you do that?" You are looked up to as a mentor and guide. Many of these same people already know they cannot win your award, but they want your attention and your help. An application is a sure way to get your attention.

The Panda's Pride^® awards program focuses primarily on CONTENT. While, design, functionality and other less critical items hold a 40-45% scoring weight, CONTENT is our primary concern. A site containing excellent content but a poor design and unclear navigation will not keep visitors at the site or inspire them to make that all important return visit. More to the point, it will prevent the visitor from applying for your award.

Ask For Advice

At the risk of being offended, ask the Webmaster of any quality awards program to review and critique your awards criteria and your site in general. Take nothing personal and heed the suggestions, especially if more than one Webmaster remarks on the same item or issue. They learned as we all must learn — by asking for and taking advice from the more experienced and educated award givers. They were willing to learn.

After some serious pressing of the Level 5.0 sites, I was finally and gently guided to the right path. I recall a response made by one of my now staunchest supporters and probably the one who has helped me the most to date. After many times being given surface level information, I asked her, "What finally made you help me?" Her answer took me by surprise: "You were finally willing to listen and learn. You humbled yourself and realized you had a lot to learn and became open-minded." WOW! What a concept!

As one author said in a previous article: "These award givers (referring to the Level 5.0 programs) don't need the reassurance of a panel of judges behind them — they have grown into their roles as advisors and as judges of excellence. They have earned their recognition by virtue of the time they have invested in their craft." Use that experience and notice the keyword — "advisors."

Follow Your Own Lead

As stated many times in these articles, do not demand something that your site itself cannot adhere to. If content is what you demand, then your site must contain content that meets or exceeds your own criteria. There is nothing worse than an awards program demanding perfection, and you find tons of inconsistencies in the site. It makes you wonder: "How can this person be so demanding when his own house is a shamble?" Don't demand what you yourself cannot lead by.

Thus I go back to my earlier point. Make sure your own house is in order before you criticize someone else's. Never demand a minimum standard which your own site can't meet or surpass. Be an example, not a deterrent.

Some No-No's

Through trial and error, I have learned a few items that should be totally avoided. First, never come across as the "authority" on anything. You can be specific in your criteria and still keep a friendly atmosphere. This was our biggest downfall during our start-up period. It was, I believe, 50% of the reason for our failure on our initial upgrade request at Award Sites! The other 50%, I feel, was a combination of our lengthy criteria and not totally meeting our own criteria.

Second, keep your criteria reasonable, short and to the point. Our criteria — 5 pages long at one time — is now streamlined to 2-1/2 pages. Many award seekers have been going after the "upper level" awards for a period of time and have seen the same basic guidelines laid out time and again. Why make them read it all over again? We offer an alternate path to more detailed criteria for new award seekers who do not have a clear understanding of what is expected or who do not understand the terminology.

One of the items we include in our 2-1/2 pages of criteria is the actual score sheet that our panel uses to evaluate each and every website. I feel it best to let the requestors actually see how they are evaluated and what specific items our panel members look at.

Be Nice

We all are our own experts. We feel we have a great understanding of what it is we are looking for in good websites. So you want to convey to the visitor what it is you are specifically awarding and what you are giving points for or against. By all means do it in clear concise grammar, but try to keep it friendly.

One huge mistake I made when I first started out was to make my points of disqualification so clear and poignant that the reader got the impression I was a tough old bird. It seemed I was not flexible. To tell the truth, I wasn't, and it discouraged award seekers. I was lucky to get 3 requests a week! I honestly felt, at the time, I had the right idea and a solid program. My "out of the gate" level 4.0 rating at Award Sites! reinforced this. So I couldn't figure out why, with a decent rating, I didn't get the applications I had expected to receive.

I decided to study the more seasoned programs. I read EVERY Level 5.0 site's criteria and started to get the idea that effective and successful sites were all friendly. They still made their criteria or disqualification points very clear, and any infraction of those points would result in immediate disqualification, but I didn't get the impression they were tyrants.

I then asked a few fellow award givers to read my criteria and give me their impressions. I told them to be painfully honest. BAD MOVE! I was advised that I sounded exactly like what I did not want to sound like — my boss! The end result was a total rewrite of my criteria to make it more friendly.

Be Objective

The Panda's Pride^® panel currently consists of six evaluators. This allows us to evaluate a site from many viewpoints and to be more objective. Although not required by any ratings group, a panel lends credence and fairness to your awards program. Start out with a few relatives or friends. Then step out into the world after you have made "friends" with other Webmasters and invite them in.

Our evaluation panel includes one person in France, one in Romania and one in the Netherlands. The others are within the U.S. boundaries. While this much diversity is not necessarily a good or bad thing, we chose it because we wanted a worldwide opinion and the ability to accept applications from anyone in the world.

Having evaluators who are fluent in other languages is always a plus because it affords the opportunity to see and evaluate more websites. You are not limited to English speaking websites or to insisting that sites have an alternate section written in English.

Parting Shot

Rest assured, if you really want to create a quality awards program worthy of a serious rating, patience and time are two of the primary keys. Ask for advice, keep an open mind and be willing to take a few bruises along the way.