Send us a textWant more high‑quality links without playing whack‑a‑mole with paid placements or low‑value directories? We walk through a strategy that flips the usual script: stop entering awards and start running them. By becoming the awarding body in your niche, you can earn relevant backlinks from major brands, spark press coverage, and build durable authority that search engines and AI assistants recognise.We begin with why links still matter, especially as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity cite trusted sources. Then we compare two paths: paying to enter business awards versus designing your own programme. The first can help E‑E‑A‑T a bit, but links are often generic and pricey. The second lets you set clear categories, publish transparent criteria, and celebrate real winners in your vertical. Think “Best Value Broadband,” “Fastest Fibre,” or for ecommerce, “Best Electric Lawn Mower Under £200.” With a solid methodology and a public winners page, merchants proudly display badges, issue press releases, and link back to your site.We dig into the playbook: how to craft objective scoring, create a badge and media kit, write compelling winner blurbs, and build award pages that naturally attract links. We share examples from comparison sites that use awards to get merchant links that are topically spot‑on and hard to replicate. You’ll hear practical tips for scaling from a lightweight launch to full ceremonies, and why physical trophies and livestream announcements dramatically increase participation and coverage. We also cover outreach, PR timing, and ethical guardrails so your awards remain credible and defensible.If you’ve ever considered spending five figures on link buying, you’ll see how reallocating a slice of that budget to an awards programme can produce safer, stronger, and longer‑lasting results. By the end, you’ll have a step‑by‑step path to design categories, ship badges, and turn recognition into backlinks, brand searches, and press mentions that compound year after year. Enjoy the episode, and if this helps you rethink your link strategy, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a quick review to tell us what award you’d launch first.SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tipsTo get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me nowSee Edd's personal site at edddawson.comAsk me a question and get on the show Click here to record a questionFind Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & TwitterFind KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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