Wednesday 23 November 2011

Website of the Year 2011 Announced

Building on the success of last year's awards, The Good Web Guide held its awards reception once more at The Royal Institution of Great Britain. Web movers and shakers gathered to hear the legendary Jo Malone announce the winner and runners up. Jo Malone commented on Twitter that she "was so inspired by all the stories of great companies last night."

 
The crowd-funding site, WeFund scooped Website of the Year 2011

WINNER - Website of the Year 2011

Founder of WeFund, Michael Troughton expressed delight and surprise at winning the award, commenting: 

"We're so happy to win this award. Wefund only launched a year ago and so to be recognised in this way is a real boost for us. The site was designed and built by the extraordinarily talented team at thegreatweb.co, who have worked tirelessly on the site from the beginning. It owes its success, however, to the hundreds of artists, musicians, actors, film makers and designers who have got the word out there and used it to finance their projects. We're starting year 2 full of confidence! Thank you!"


RUNNERS-UP - Website of the Year 2011

This year's awards were opened up to include two runners-up, which were also announced by Jo Malone at last night's reception. Designer dress rental service, Girl Meets Dress came in second place while rare tea specialist, The Rare Tea Company was placed third in the awards.

Xavier de Lecaros-Aquise, one of the co-founders of Girl Meets Dress said, "With the appeal that The Good Web Guide has, being recognised by the site is a great way to celebrate the consistent hard work our team has been doing this year."

Henrietta Lovell (a.k.a The Rare Tea Lady) and founder of The Rare Tea Company commented, "If you put your personality and enthusiasm into your website, your customer will be as excited and passionate as you are about the products. We're delighted that this has been recognised by the GWG."


THE PRIZES

1st place - WeFund won:

* £1,000 cash, plus £500 of GWG advertising on the Website of the Year Award channel.
* A press release (£500) prepared by Kenyon Communications with full media distribution.
* An app development consultation (£500-600) with leading agency, Grapple Mobile.
* A photoshoot portrait session (worth £1,150) with CatmonPhotography

2nd place - Girl Meets Dress won:

* A digital marketing training course (£594), run by Emarketeers.
* A two hour cookery class (£800), followed by a sit-down meal for a group of eight people at Cookery School at Little Portland Street.

3rd place - The Rare Tea Company won:

* Two hours free singing for eight people (£180) at any Lucky Voice venue.

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE

Each year, we open up the shortlist to our readers to let them choose the site that they think should win. Their choice in The People's Choice Award 2011 was none other than cheap parcel delivery service, Parcel Monkey, which won a magnum of award winning Ridgeview Merret Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs (worth £80) from Sparkling English Wine.


THE JUDGES

Winning site, WeFund and runners-up, Girl Meets Dress and The Rare Tea Company were picked after a long deliberation by a panel of four judges. These included: Alison Cork, homes expert, journalist and founder of HomesandBargains.co.uk; Craig Tregurtha, Editor of The Times Digital; Lynne Franks, founder of the SEED Network of empowerment programmes for women and B.Hive business lounges for women (in partnership with Regus); and Will King, founder of multi-award winning shaving brand The King of Shaves.

ABOUT THE WINNERS

WeFund: Launched in October 2010 by former lawyer and internet entrepreneur, Michael Troughton, WeFund was set up in response to public funding cuts to the arts sector. Its goal is to create lots of mini-patrons and, through their collective power, get new creative projects off the ground.

Girl Meets Dress: Entrepreneurial couple Anna Bance and Xavier de Lecaros-Aquise founded Girl Meets Dress in online dress rental service which allows you to hire designer dresses and accessories from over 150 of the best international designers for as little as 5% of their retail price.

The Rare Tea Company: A specialist in rare teas that are sourced in small quantities from the best tea gardens and plantations in the world, fans of The Rare Tea Company say its tea is unrivalled. Henrietta Lovell, the founder, is on a mission to de-bag Britain and get more people using loose tea.

Parcel Monkey: Gives users access to cheap courier services for parcel delivery in the UK, Europe and over 250 international destinations and works with key service providers including City Link, DHL, Parcelforce, Royal Mail and Nightfreight, offering cheaper deals.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award is now in its third year and aims to champion small web-based businesses.

CONTACT

To find out more about this year's award: Arabella Dymoke: a.dymoke@thegoodwebguide.com
020 7402 6412

Wednesday 24 August 2011

The Prizes - Website of the Year 2011

Due to the success of last year's award, we have opened up the awards to include second and third prizes, which, we hope, will honour and help give recognition to the close runners up to Website of the Year 2011. The prizes are as follows:

FIRST PRIZE

* £1000, plus £500 of GWG advertising on the Website of the Year Award channel.


* A press release (£500) prepared by Kenyon Communications on the subject of their choosing, with full media distribution.


* A full SEO audit (£750) and follow up consultation with SEOptimise.


* An app development consultation (£500-600) with leading agency, Grapple Mobile.


* A photo shoot with a professional photographer (TBC)


SECOND PRIZE

A digital marketing training course (£594), run by Emarketeers.


A two hour cookery class (£800), followed by sit-down meal for a group of eight people at Cookery School at Little Portland Street.


THIRD PRIZES

Two hours free singing for 8 people (£180) at any Lucky Voice venue.



TO ENTER OR NOMINATE A SITE IN THIS YEAR'S AWARDS, CLICK HERE

The Judges - Website of the Year 2011

Our Website of the Year 2011 winner will be picked by MD of The Good Web Guide, Arabella Dymoke, and a panel of qualified judges. These include:

Alison Cork. Alison Cork is a home expert, journalist and TV presenter best known for her weekly columns in the Daily Telegraph, Independent and Evening Standard and as the Home Expert for ITV's This Morning. In 2005, she founded Homes & Bargains, the place to find quality homeware at affordable prices.

Craig Tregurtha. Craig Tregurtha was appointed Editor of The Times Digital in 2010. Previously he was Deputy Sports Editor of The Times and Sports Editor of The Sunday Mirror. Craig began his career working on local newspapers in Sussex and Northamptonshire before joining The Sun as a sub-editor.

Lynne Franks. Lynne Franks is an author, entrepreneur and lifestyle guru. Founder of the SEED Network empowerment programmes for women, she recently collaborated with Regus, the world's largest work space provider, to launch the B.Hive network of businesses lounges for women.

Will King. Will King is an award-winning entrepreneur and founder of multi-award winning shaving brand The King of Shaves. Author of 'How to Build a Great Business In Tough Times - The King of Shaves Story,' he is also regarded as one of the UK's leading practitioners in the use of social media from a company and brand perspective.

TO ENTER OR NOMINATE A SITE INTO THIS YEAR'S AWARDS, CLICK HERE.

Tuesday 16 August 2011

Website of the Year 2011 open for entries


The Good Web Guide is now taking entries for its third Website of the Year Award, aimed at small businesses and organisations. The awards provide an excellent way for online enterprises to gain recognition.

There will be one winning site and two runners-up, who will be picked by a team of qualified judges according to set criteria.

WEBSITE OF THE YEAR 2010

Last year, delivery auction website, Anyvan.com beat over 1800 others to scoop our Website of the Year Award 2010. Founder of the site, Angus Elphinstone comments:

Winning Website of the Year 2010 was a fantastic moment for us and gave us a great sense of achievement for what had at that point been over two years work. The recognition we earned from winning was, has been and continues to be huge for us, not to mention the national recognition that we received. As you will see we proudly 'fly' the award prominently on our homepage.”

ENTER THE AWARDS

Entrants have until 30th September to nominate a site (which can be their own). A shortlist will be released on 10th October and the winning site and runners up will be announced at the 2011 Awards Reception in London during Global Entrepreneurship Week (14-20th November 2011).

Could YOUR website be our Website of the Year 2011? Enter the competition and find out more here.

Thursday 18 November 2010

And the Website of the Year 2010 is...

This week, over a hundred movers and shakers in the web world gathered at the Royal Institution in London for The Good Web Guide’s Website of the Year 2010 Award Reception, which took place as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week.


ANYVAN SCOOPS WEBSITE OF THE YEAR AWARD

Shipping & delivery company, ANYVAN.com, was announced as the winner by ex-BBC Dragon, Doug Richard, who commented:

“Entrepreneurs see problems and manufacture opportunities. They come up with innovations the world has never seen before, and they put them to work. AnyVan.com saves money, time and natural resources by connecting those who want to ship something with those who transport things for a living. A simple thought… a simple online solution… a critical change in the logistics of transport, not just for London, but the UK.”


ABOUT ANYVAN.COM

Set up in October 2009, the idea for ANYVAN.com came about one and a half years earlier while Angus Elphinstone, aged just 25, was running a delivery business, White Van Gentlemen. After spotting a gap in the market for cheap nationwide deliveries and shared vans – known in the industry as part loads, he registered the url and began planning the business. 25% of vans travel empty in the UK and 50% travel half full, meaning a lot of air is transported at large cost to transport companies, wasting unnecessary fuel - it wasn't difficult to get the couriers on board with the idea, and ANYVAN.com was born.

Angus expressed delight and surprise at winning the award, "Winning the award was beyond our expectations against such tough competition! As the ANYVAN concept is such a new service our greatest challenge to date is communicating the concept and winning this award will without doubt add further credibility to the ANYVAN brand. Thank you The Good Web Guide."


THE PRIZES

As winner of The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award 2010, ANYVAN.com will win:

* £1,000 cash to spend on the business and £500 of advertising on The Good Web Guide.
* A one-day photo shoot with Tim James from The Gray Gallery (£1,500)
* A full SEO audit and follow up consultation with SEOptimise (£750)
* A press release prepared by Kenyon Communications on the subject of their choosing with full media distribution (£500)
* Two hours free singing for 8 people at any Lucky Voice venue (£180)


THE JUDGES

ANYVAN.com was picked as winner of this year’s award after long deliberation by a panel of four judges. These included: Sophie Cornish, co-founder of NotOnTheHighStreet.com, Mark Glynne-Jones, founder of JumpTo Consultancy, JumpTo.co.uk and Jamie Murray-Wells, founder of GlassesDirect.co.uk and HearingDirect.com.

The final judge Sarah Beeny, founder of Tepilo.com and MySingleFriend.com was unable to comment on ANYVAN.com due to its partnership with Tepilo.com, but noted: “The Good Web Guide Website of the Year had some fantastic entries and there was some incredibly strong competition. It was a tough job judging the entries as so many of them got very high scores. The finalists all had some aspects which made them worthy of winning.”


HIGHLY COMMENDED

The five Highly Commended sites in this year’s award include:

* Ooh.com – “A great concept which is fun to browse and easy to use. It provides a fantastic platform to connect activities and events with people and their interests across the globe.” Sophie Cornish, NotOnTheHighStreet.com

* Made.com – “Appeals on a number of levels particularly for content and functionality. Discounted designer furniture with no compromise on quality, a fact underpinned by profiles of designers and production and nice touches when it comes to tracking orders.” Mark Glynne-Jones, JumpTo.co.uk

* Looklet.com – “Lets people define their personal style and visual identity online, connecting shoppers with their clothing designers worldwide in the process.” Doug Richard, founder of SchoolforStartups.co.uk

* TheSleepRoom.com – "A truly integrated site that makes it remarkably easy to find and buy quality beds, mattresses and bed linen." Arabella Dymoke, The Good Web Guide.

* Findababysitter.com – This user-friendy site helps parents to fulfill very specific childcare requirements without going through an agency, the idea being to save money. It is “developing a niche extremely effectively,” says Jamie Murray-Wells, founder of GlassesDirect.co.uk and HearingDirect.co.uk

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE 2010

This year, we opened up the shortlist to our readers to let them choose the site that they thought should win. Their choice in The People's Choice Award was none other than Netmums.com! A very big congratulations to the team.

ABOUT THE AWARD

The Good Web Guide Website of the Year Award is now in its second year and aims to champion start-up web businesses. The judges decided that this year’s winning site should have been trading for at least and have the potential for exponential growth. AnyVan.com is an interesting concept well executed with lots of real-time information available on the site and operates in step with our times, both on the economical and green fronts. It is hoped that AnyVan.com will gain lots of mileage from winning the award.

"The Good Web Guide once again showcases how an entrepreneur’s innovation and creativity can translate into important efficiencies and new wealth for the communities they live in.” Doug Richard, founder of SchoolforStartups.co.uk.

Tuesday 8 June 2010

How to Enter - Website of the Year Award 2010

Entrants have from 1 June until 19 September to nominate a site (which can be their own). A shortlist will be released on 4 October and the winning site will be announced at the 2010 Awards Reception in London during Global Entrepreneurship Week (15-19th November 2010).

Sites will be judged on the following criteria:

•Design
•Originality
•Content
•Interactivity
•Ease of Use
•Social Media Strategy (this isn’t a prerequisite for entry)

ENTER OR NOMINATE A SITE HERE

The Judges - Website of the Year Award 2010

There will only be one winner of our Website of the Year Award 2010. The winner will be picked by Arabella Dymoke, MD of The Good Web Guide and a panel of four qualified judges:

Sophie Cornish. Sophie is co-founder of Notonthehighstreet.com, a multi-award winning online shopping site, which supports over 1,500 small businesses. Launched in 2006, it now turns over excesses of £6.5 million a year.



Sarah Beeny. Sarah is founder of private property website, Tepilo.com and dating site mysinglefriend.com. A presenter for Channel 4’s Property Ladder, she has written several bestselling books on property and dating and is a regular writer for the national press


Mark Glynne-Jones. Mark founded the Jump To consultancy in 1994, after a career working with a number of the UK’s leading marketing and design consultancies, and clients such as Toyota, Panasonic and Heineken International, along with respected food brands Tyrrells and New Covent Garden Foods.


Jamie Murray-Wells. Jamie founded GlassesDirect.co.uk, the largest online prescription glasses store, while still at university. His new venture aims to halve the cost of hearing aids via his groundbreaking online test and buy website hearingdirect.com

TO ENTER OR NOMINATE A SITE IN THIS YEAR'S AWARDS click here.