Best News Web Site Trends Detailed in New Report from the Web Marketing Association

April 5, 2007; 02:21 AM
The Web Marketing Association, host of leading web site awards competition WebAwards, released the Internet Standards Assessment Report (ISAR) to help the news industry learn to create more effective and engaging web sites.

"As the standard of excellence for web sites continues to increase, consumers (and WebAward judges) are increasingly picky about what they consider to be an effective web site," said William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association, Inc. "The effectiveness of news sites remains largely with their credibility of being perceived as a reliable source of news. Syndication also plays an important role in news Web sites -- allowing them to reach beyond the page and provide content for other web sites."

The WebAwards competition judges news web sites on seven criteria that combined create award-winning web sites:

•    Design
•    Innovation
•    Content
•    Technology
•    Interactivity
•    Copywriting
•    Ease of use

As it would be expected, with news sites it's all about the content.

According to the ISAR study, content and copywriting are news web site's strong points. They tend to have the lowest scores for design, innovation and ease of use.

The 2006 WebAward for Best News web site went to Avenue A I Razorfish for NYTimes.com

Other past winners include:

•    2005 BusinessWeek Online for BusinessWeek Online web site
•    2005 Variety for Variety.com
•    2005 CNET News.com for CNET News.com
•    2004 BURST! Media for Christian Science Monitor

Companies and organizations wishing to have their news Web site evaluated against the ISAR Index and be considered for a WebAward, which can help boost a Web site's credibility and marketing efforts, can learn more at www.07webaward.org.

To request your copy of the 2007 WebAward ISAR report, please visit: http://www.webaward.org/isar_report.asp.

The Internet Standards Assessment report and the 2007 WebAwards are sponsored by the following leading organizations: 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.

2007 WebAward Call for Entries

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 that the Internet Standards Assessment report is based upon. The news industry represents an important category in the WebAward competition, and the Web Marketing Association will again be honoring the Best News Web site of 2007. The deadline for entry is May 31, 2007 and the WebAward Web site is located at www.07webaward.org.