In this paper we prove that the best constant in the Sobolev trace embedding $H^1(\varOmega)\hookrightarrow L^q(\partial\varOmega)$ in a bounded smooth domain can be obtained as the limit as $\varepsilon\to0$ of the best constant of the usual Sobolev embedding $H^1(\varOmega) \hookrightarrow L^q(\omega_\varepsilon,\mathrm{d} x/\varepsilon)$, where $\omega_\varepsilon=\{x\in\varOmega:\mathrm{dist}(x,\partial\varOmega)<\varepsilon\}$ is a small neighbourhood of the boundary. We also analyse symmetry properties of extremals of the latter embedding when $\varOmega$ is a ball.