And all you have to do is use their free webpage editor, which rocks anyways. All pages made with synthasite are eligible for the competition, the results will be presented to the public on January 5th next year. But there’s actually a lot more than just plain old money at stake: especially pro-bloggers dig all kinds of buzz for their persona/projects, so this sounds like a nice deal:

Winners will receive (a) a free SEO lesson, performed by SynthaSite CEO and SEO Expert Vinny Lingham, (b) $1000, (c) be featured in a SynthaSite press release, in the SynthaSite newsletter and posted to Vinny’s blog, and (d) be able to post a “Best SynthaSite” logo on the winning Web site(s) (collectively, the “Prize”). Awards will be announced no later than January 5, 2009. The approximate value of the Prize is $4,500.

The names of the winner will be announced on January 5th 2009, the competition began today. In case you haven’t tried Synthasite yet this is a good opportunity to take a closer look at an interesting online service: while many providers specialized in free blog hosting, Synthasite chose a different approach. After the (free) registration the user can build his or her own page in a pretty advanced online editor. This tool not only allows for custom structure but also interactive elements like a shop, a video gallery, various forms and widgets. Design and features are widely customizable. When publishing a page, the owner can either stick with a Synthasite subdomain, buy a dedicated domain for $15 per year or download the whole page to host it elsewhere.

Synthasite’s editor screen

Besides the great usability, there’s one feature that really makes synthasite stand out: there are no third party ads. That means a webmaster can chose to use ads for his project, but Synthasite never interferes with banners, pop-ups and the like. I’m not sure how these guys pay their bills by the end of the month, but obviously the service is making enough money to start the contest. So if you’ve been looking for a quick and simple way to build a non-standard homepage from scratch, Synthasite might perfectly suit your needs anyways. And if you’re planning to enter the contest, you should keep the criteria in mind:

All entries will be judged by a panel of experts based on the following equally weighted judging criteria: visual appeal of site, focused purpose, and/or innovative use of widgets.

Good luck! Even though I’m generally not a big fan of third party infrastructure (you never know what might change), I must admit that this is a pretty nice idea – I’m curious about the winners, since I’m a mediocre designer at best, I’ll skip this one.