The Best of Northwest Arkansas, invites, engages and allows you, our audience, to recognize the best businesses, organizations and people in Northwest Arkansas. Our focus is on businesses and entertainment that support, serve and do business in Northwest Arkansas. There’s no cost to be nominated for, voted upon, or to win. Winners are determined solely by the votes of customers and fans. Optional advertising opportunities do not guarantee winning.

Nominations and voting will take place online at votebestnwa.com

Nomination surveys require registration of basic information from the submitter for when we need to clarify an entry. We do offer you the opportunity to share your name and email with us so that we can keep you up to date on the program. You may submit your nominees in any given topic area and return to complete the survey any time before the deadline. Registration may be necessary for the voting phase to promote fair voting. You may be asked for your name and email address.

No. All nominations and voting are done online at votebestnwa.com.

The nomination period begins at 12PM on Monday, October 21 and ends at 5PM on Friday, November 1st We rely on our audience to supply us with the names of outstanding people, businesses and establishments in each of over 260 categories. Once the nominees are finalized, our audience is asked to vote on one choice in each category. Per our guidelines, you are allowed to nominate/vote once every 24 hours. ​​ Our audience and business owners nominate their favorites in the Northwest Arkansas area by selecting one of 9 topic areas (Agriculture, Eat & Drink, Education, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Motors, Services, Shopping, and Things to Do). Nominations outside of the Northwest Arkansas market area will not qualify for the balloting but are welcome to participate as advertisers in print and our digital destination. Nominating is as simple as entering a name and city in text entry fields. It’s best, but not required, to provide additional information on the nominee so that we can verify them (phone number, address, URL). Users are not required to nominate in all categories. You may return and nominate additional businesses any time before nominations close. Users are permitted to nominate a single business in more than one category. Businesses with multiple locations will appear as a single nomination for the voting phase. Nomination is required to be on the final ballot. Business associates and advertisers of NWA Media and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor. ​ Users are not required to nominate in all categories but must submit the nomination form by hitting the "submit" button at the bottom of the page. Users are permitted to nominate a single business in more than one relevant category.

For a category to qualify for the ballot, there must be a minimum of 5 separate businesses that are competing for votes. If a category is not qualifying, we will make reasonable accommodations to move the nominee to a relevant category. Once a category is qualified, we will ballot each individual business that has been nominated.

Businesses, organizations, or individuals that are nominated by our audience are placed on our ballot after they are verified. Should a business earn enough votes to be voted a Gold win, they may be required to complete a simple online questionnaire with basic business information including name, location(s), year established, business hours, phone number, web address (if any) and submit a photo of the business, organization or individual. There is no cost or obligation to participate. Be sure to download your free promotional assets to use on your website, social media, or business to promote your nomination during the voting period.

The regular voting period begins at 12 pm, Monday, November 18 and ends at 5 pm, Friday, December 13, 2024 at votebestnwa.com. Votes are tabulated by a third-party. NWA Media does not know the results of the contest until after the votes are tabulated. In each category, readers vote on their favorite nominee. Readers are permitted to vote in each category once per day. Businesses, institutions, individuals and schools are encouraged to promote the contest in order to gain nominations and/or votes. Competitive advertising, special offers, and campaigns are permitted; however, the producers at their sole discretion, reserve the right to exclude from the competition any businesses or individuals that engage in activities intended to “rig” or “fix” the voting process. Votes that are suspect may be disqualified in the count. ​ Use of bots, robotic, repetitive, automatic, programmed, vote exchange websites, vote “farming”, scripts or other automated means designed to circumvent “one ballot per person per day” rule, are not allowed. Contestants discovered using these methods for vote acceleration are subject to suspected votes being disqualified without notice, and the jeopardy of the Contestant being completely disqualified and removed from the competition. Contestants risk disqualification if they use promotions involving quid pro quo strategies, such as, but not limited to "vote for us, and we’ll enter you into a drawing" or "vote for us, and we’ll give you a discount." These approaches create an unfair advantage by incentivizing votes, which goes against the contest guidelines and can result in disqualification to ensure a level playing field for all participants. ​ Business associates and advertisers of the NWA Media and any other owner-affiliated company are not given special treatment, including but not limited to our presenting sponsor.

All nominations have to be verified prior to being placed on the final ballot. During the nomination process, we welcome all submissions. ​ Our ballot is a closed ballot, however, we will accept late entries into an established category by request. After nominations have closed, all late entry requests must be sent to support@bestnwa.com for consideration.

The names of the winners are posted and announced online at BestNWA.com on Thursday, March 20, 2025 and honored in our Best of Northwest Arkansas special winners' magazine that publishes on Sunday, March 23, 2025. In the event of a tie in any category, more than one winner or runner-up may be awarded.

The Best of Northwest Arkansas and the unique logos are registered trademarks of NWA Media and may only be used with express, written permission. Logos are licensed to winners at a marketing spend or direct payment of $1,995 or more. Best of Northwest Arkansas merchandise does not count towards the logo license spend. Contact us to request your logo.