Manchester-based w00t!media is celebrating after four of its clients featured in The Guardian newspaper’s ‘Top 100 Essential Websites’ list, which was published last week.

The digital sales house, founded in 2005 by Austen Kay and Dan McDevitt, specialises in creative advertising campaigns for entertainment and lifestyle websites. The clients w00t!media represents on The Guardian’s list are music websites Pitchfork and Hype Machine, gaming site Eurogamer and B3TA, an anarchic web magazine.

The list can be found here: www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/09/best-websites-internet.

“We’ve always specialised in working with influential but niche websites that really engage with dedicated audiences - The Guardian picked up on a lot we work with and have named them some of the best websites. Great news for our clients and ourselves,” said Austen Kay, Founder of w00t!media. “What makes w00t!media different is that we create bespoke advertising campaigns in a very innovative and targeted manner; instead of generalised campaigns, we are very specific and have an in-depth understanding of the client and its audience.”

The Guardian’s latest list of the top 100 websites also includes search engine giant Google, micro-blogging site Twitter, YouTube and virtual world Second Life.

w00t!media’s founders run the company as an antidote to what they see as bland and faceless ad-networks, choosing instead to exclusively represent a hand-picked selection of influential sites. Over the past 12 months, w00t!media have steadily increased their client portfolio and brought 4 new staff members on board as a result.