This one is an oldie but a goodie - an easy way to skyrocket your web site's pagerank.

Load up Photoshop. Create an image file with a few pictures of trophies and stars in it. Throw that logo in a simple web page and upload it to your blog. Using Google, generate a list of websites you would like links from. Send emails to the owners of those websites, congratulating them on the nomination / winning of an award for best blog/best software/best photography/etc. Make sure to include the html code for the logo image you created in the email, as well as a link to the page the website owner can reference so visitors can "verify the award status".

Image grabbed from Successful Software Blog post on a very similar topic

Congratulations, you have just built hundreds of relevant, one-way, high quality links to your website for free! Watch your search engine rankings soar!

The "award show" back link strategy has been adopted by everyone from search engine consulting firms (SEOMOZ and their Web 2.0 awards), to made-for-adsense download sites (see this post for a great anecdote on this subject)

I personally have no problem with online award shows, as long as they actually review the blogs/websites in question, rather than just giving away "five star" ratings to whomever signs up. Award show operators should also "share the link love", meaning they shouldn't try to prevent reciprocal linking by embedding award winner's URLs in images or excel/pdf files.

If you're going to be benefiting from my link to your award show, the least you can do is show me some love in return.