Manchester Digital Awards 2015 – The Rundown

Stephen McCance October 12, 2015

A rundown on the 2015 Manchester Digital Awards by Red Cow Media.

As a new feature for 2015, we are starting up the Manchester Digital Awards, and we don’t mean we’re judging the best digital agency in Manchester (there are enough of those awards already). We are looking at how businesses utilise their website and social media channels. In October we’re judging the best bars and restaurants in Manchester, the 4 categories are:

• Best new restaurant
• Best cocktail bar
• Best burgers
• Best beer

So without further ado, here are the rules and how businesses will be judged throughout the awards season.

The businesses will be judged in the following 5 ways and given a score out of 20 in each category. All of our members of staff have had their input, the results collated, and the mean score taken in every category. We have then picked the top 10 results and will award the winner with a badge to display on their site.

Design & Look

We take everything in to account from how up to date/out of date the website is and how in-keeping with the brand the website is.

Usability

This includes everything from how easy the website is to navigate to whether it is designed for mobile use and how easy it is to actually click on buttons/read text (this is the important bit).

Features

Does the website have anything interesting on it, or something useful for visitors? This could include an online booking system, a particularly good payment gateway or a piece of interactive content.

Blog

Being an SEO company, we know how vitally important a blog is to a website so we’re always shocked to discover the amount that don’t have them. We first look at whether there is a blog and if there is, how good the content going out on it is.

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goole+, Pinterest and Instagram are all taken in to account in this category. We take a look at whether there are any feeds on the website, sharing buttons, follow buttons and if the channels themselves fit with the rest of the brand. Finally, we evaluate how good the content going out is and whether it is posted too often/not often enough.

If you’d like to enter your business to a specific category or get in touch to find out how your digital presence could be improved then please don’t hesitate to get in touch!