Someone has sent in their site to be reviewed as part of your awards program. If you've done everything correctly, this should happen several times per week or even per day. You could review them as they arrive, or you could set them aside and do it once a week or on some other schedule. This is completely up to you.Okay, so you review
site and it meets all of criteria for your program. The site has good content, links (at least those you checked) seem to work, HTML looks okay and, well, it's just a pretty good site. What do you do now?
This depends upon how you are running your program. I've seen some sites which simply send a very quick email with awards graphics and a simple link - and that's all. Not very satisfying, really.
Then again, I've received awards from other programs which go all out. I remember receiving a long email which informed me I was a winner, went into all of exact criteria which I passed and failed, and left no doubt in my mind as to why I received award and rating that I got. So what do you need to do at a minimum?
- You need to inform winner that he has received your award.
- Congratulate him or her for their accomplishment.
- Attach their awards graphic or inform them as to it's location.
- Request a link back if that's something you desire from your program.
This is bare minimum, and it will serve purpose nicely. Personally, I like to send an email which congratulates winner and says some good things about his site. For example, I might mention that page about their pet was especially cute, article on how they survived some disease was meaningful or gardening tips were especially useful. The point is simple - by including such details I'm showing that I did actually look at site, which makes award more meaningful.
I prefer sending plain text messages as opposed to stationary or HTML. Yes, I know that stationary looks great, but not everyone can read them. All email clients can read text messages.
