Also, it is a good way to promote your site and enhance visits, especially from the target audience. However, the attitude of winning an award is wrong. Yes, there are some awards that can easily be won by almost any site whether it is truly earned or not. Sites that would have difficulty winning any other award except for reciprocal purposes normally issue these awards. A site should be developed with your target audience in mind and should be synergistic.
Content needs to be rich, fluent, and grammatically correct.
Graphics should support your content and not be over powering or distracting. Ease of navigation is very important with access to key areas available on every page that you want people to visit. Animation and plug-in requirements can be a problem. Many of the awards, including the better ones, will have criteria against too much animation and plug-ins. Additionally, sites that utilize midi and wav files can jeopardize being considered for awards if there is not an option to turn off the music by the visitor.