VOTING is now open for the 2025 contest. Voting ends for 2025 on midnight 10/1/25.  Votes stay open all year for this ongoing contest, however we promote it on social media late summer of each year.  All voting after 10/1/25 will be applied to 2026 votes.  
Remember, you can vote in any single categories, or as many categories as you like, and you do not have to vote in ALL categories unless you want to.  If you decide to return to vote in other categories later, just sign back in on the VOTE page, but you cannot sign in and vote over and over in the same category - those votes are auto-rejected.  ​We are giving away a prize for our 5th anniversary year, 2024, to a lucky winner among those who vote in the most categories, so stay tuned about that prize. ​

INFORMATION

​Why have an annual BEST OF contest for the lake area?  The local community is a fantastic gauge when it comes to what businesses are the best of the best in their opinion.  As for us - we believe ALL Smith Lake area businesses are the best, so it's just a fun community survey each year to see what businesses the community feels has delivered customer service at a premium level in that year.  It's all just for fun, so jump in, VOTE and support your favorite local businesses!  It's a great way to thank them for all their hard work each year.

VOTING:  
A few things:
  • We are NOT responsible for your votes or how many you get - that's on YOU!  
  • We do not give anyone any vote at all, our team DOES NOT vote in the contest - sorry we're too busy with a magazine.  
  • NO ONE is guaranteed a placement EVER for any reason.  Community response dictates winners.  
  • We have had category winners win from as little as 12 votes apart to winners as high above others as over 1k votes.  Some categories receive more votes than others by a huge margin in a given year - you never know what the public wants to vote for!  
  • We suggest you grab the social media posts when we start them and repost them to your own feeds and rally your troops to go vote - otherwise you're not guaranteed to win.  At least try, it doesn't hurt to try.  A business MUST be nominated into the contest by votes, even if they have to go in and issue a vote for themselves to start that process.  

DURATION:  The 2025 contest officially began JANUARY  1, 2025, with votes endi OCTOBER 1, 2025 for publishing on social media by the end of the year or early the next.  We usually like to post near the annual event, so it could be nearer MARCH 2026.  However, voters can actually vote all year long each year.  We promote the contest late each year and push votes to the next year that come in after a voting deadline.

HOW IT WORKS:  
First of all, the contest quickly got WAY too big for us to handle.  By year two (2021) we began using a 3rd party marketing company to handle ALL the contest entries and reporting - they perform a lengthly, several-months-long and multi-stage verification process that weeds out "cheat" or repeat votes which are auto-disqualified by the software  So no need to do repeat votes!  If you attempt them, the system simply auto-rejects them.  

HOWEVER, you can return to the voting ballot at any time within a given year, with your same email, to add votes in other categories where you have not yet voted, but again you simply CANNOT vote more than once in the exact same category under the same email address.  Only the 1st vote counts then rest are auto-rejects.  

Other things that  will disqualify a vote are:  incorrect/false/cheat/fabricated emails or phone numbers - those are checked by the verification process along with VPN and IP address accuracy, so no need to waste time by putting in false information.  Sadly, your time would simply be wasted.  Just do it right, or not at all.  That is what helps your favorite businesses.

PRIZE ACCEPTANCE (for all levels/categories of prizes):  For each year since inception of contest, for a given award period, winners MUST contact us within 30 days of first announcement of winners on social media to facilitate acceptance of prizes or they will be forfeited for that year.  

2024 Contest Sponsors:

Brought to you in 2023 by The Lakeside Life Magazine,  GoTees Screen Printing & Embroidery, TowBoatUS-Smith Lake.  

2024 Event Sponsors:

Picture
Trident Marina
Annual event to be sponsored for 2024 by Realtors Melinda Edwards and Brooke Edwards of Lake Homes Realty.
ANNUAL EVENT (to be announced):
We are planning the annual event for this contest, so please follow us and our event sponsors for more details:
SPECIAL NOTE TO BUSINESSES:  WELCOME!  You do NOT have to be an advertiser with the magazine in order to be entered.  This is an open contest for ANY & ALL businesses who serve the Smith Lake area and are Alabama-based businesses or near the North Alabama area and serving the lake regularly.  We encourage you to reach out to your fans to have them vote for you - it's YOUR responsibility to get those votes coming in.  If your business wins the vote fair and square, it WINS!
The community is always gracious, complimentary and congratulatory towards the winners!  

​This is an annual contest, so you will always have another year to win.  All categories are up for grabs, so get your tribe of fans together and have them VOTE.  

We wish you all the best!  

Should we add a category?  Other revisions to offer?  Call/text or email.
This annual contest is the copyright of The Lakeside Life magazine with its sponsors, established July 1, 2020.

PRIZES for 2023

PRIZE ACCEPTANCE (for all levels/categories of prizes):  For each year since inception of contest, for a given award period, winners MUST contact us within 30 days of first announcement of winners on social media to facilitate acceptance of prizes or they will be forfeited for that year.  ​
The Top 3 entries with the most votes overall, no matter the category, will receive the following prizes from The Lakeside Life magazine and the sponsors.   :
  • 1st Place - Half Page AD for 1 quarter of their choice in 2025 (worth up to $500*), PLUS a feature article (approximately 2 pages in the magazine) for their business (worth up to $1,200*).  If a winner has won in a previous year and the article has already been done, we simply boost their article with updates on the blog to run on social media, and the winner is provided with a link upon request.
  • 2nd Place - Quarter Page AD for 1 quarter of their choice in 2025 (worth up to $400*) 
  • 3rd Place - Eighth Page AD for 1 quarter of their choice in 2025 (worth $200*) 

*If winner happens to be a current advertiser, the amount will be deducted at the current commitment value scale for the award quarter or at value based on that scale for the size AD won.  

ALSO...
All Top 3 overall winners will be:
  • mentioned prominently in the printed magazine announcement about the event, on banners for the event, and on every post possible relating to the event 
  • Other prizes:
    • receive a certificate and a decal for your store window or vehicle
    • tagged on our social media pages announcing the win
    • featured in a spotlight on our social media pages during the following year
    • shown prominently for 1 year in a free AD on our magazine website on the MarketPlace page, the Business Index, and the "Best of Smith Lake" status page with winning badge placement 
    • shown as a sponsor for 1 year on our Facebook community group page "Smith Lake Community" 
    • receive a feature post on our social media main feed and at @smithlakebiz, and may tag us any time during the year for reposts to our stories - winners MUST "@" tag us on posts they wish to promote in this way.

AND...
1st Place winners in all individual categories:
  • are listed on the website FINAL results with live link(s).  1st Place winners will continue to show with live links for at least a year, and shown in website archives for up to a total of 3 years.  
  • Other prizes:
    • ​Winners can be shown with an added short bio provided by the winners for each of the top winners if desired. 
  • We will also happily push your social media reposts (as long as winners "@" mention us on posts they need reposted), and we'll place your WINNING badge in reposts and ADs if requested.

We hope to have more things to add in the future, so check back with us!  GOOD LUCK!  

VOTERS WIN TOO!!!
The voter who votes in all categories (if several voters do this, they'll all be entered into a drawing) will win a $100 cash card, $100 worth of gift certificate(s) from local business(es) and a free 1 year subscription to the magazine plus a free 1 year subscription for a friend, OR the voter may issue a complimentary quarter-sized AD to the business of their choice (total prize worth up to $250).  Other voters who voted in all categories but did not win the main prize, will still win a free 1 year subscription to the magazine.
NOTE:  Past Winners - if for any reason you did not receive a certificate and decal for your 2020-2023 wins, or have misplaced or damaged yours, please contact us and we'll get replacements to you ASAP.  And remember, your business name and link stays visible on the RESULTS page for at least 3 years retrograde - so double-check during the year if/when you have changes to your information to make sure we have your links correct.