Your event website has the potential to be the biggest driver of corporate event attendance. An optimized, functional, and user-friendly event website acts as the centralized online hub for your event. It’s where attendees can register, get information, and engage with your brand. 

With various digital marketing channels also playing a huge role in face-to-face, hybrid, or virtual event promotion today, optimizing your event website for registrations and attendance is crucial. These supporting channels can also help drive interest and numbers for your event, not to mention open the door to potential sponsorship, partnership, or vendor opportunities. According to Bizzabo, many event organizers are spending an increased budget on marketing their events.

However, you will only see the true benefits if your website functions as intended and is best positioned to succeed on its own merits while supporting your event marketing goals.

There are plenty of website builders and content management systems (CMS) that give event organizers many options to create a basic website without the need for extensive hard coding. However, using a generic website builder limits what you can do for event promotion. 

Specialized event management platforms like EventUp Planner’s event website builder provide built-in tools to boost registrations and attendance. Features like customizable registration forms, promo code management, and email marketing integration make it easy to optimize the signup process. Robust attendee management tools also help drive attendance by allowing for personalized communication.

Other flexible CMS solutions like WordPress can offer plenty of customization opportunities and third-party integration with plugins for CRM software, social media, and others. However, you will need to consider whether this is more prudent than opting for an end-to-end event management system that streamlines website creation, promotion, and event delivery in one place.

Many event attendees will find your website organically through search engines. Following technical and content SEO best practices ensures your pages rank high for relevant search terms and keywords that drive active and passive interest in your event, its content, featured speakers, topics, and so on.

Follow the tips below for optimizing your event website for SEO purposes:

Optimizing content for search helps you attract more registrants through organic traffic. In doing so, you can build a reputable website that ranks well for relevant terms which can help for future event promotion.

What is a “mobile-friendly” or “mobile-responsive” website? These are websites that quickly adapt to the user’s screen layout. This means that regardless of the type of phone or tablet someone is using, they’re able to access all the information they need in an easy-to-use, easy-to-read layout—just like someone would on a desktop or laptop computer.

It’s natural for attendees to look up the details of the event, even when they are already in attendance. Having a mobile-responsive website gives your attendees a consistent user experience, puts all details of your event at their fingertips, and helps keep frustration to a minimum. Investing in responsive website design also aids in SEO optimization. Google prefers mobile-optimized websites as opposed to desktop-only websites. So, the chances of your mobile-responsive website securing a top ranking in the search results are automatically improved. As a matter of fact, Google now reprimands websites that aren’t mobile-responsive!

Your target audience is on their phones a lot. So, making your site mobile-friendly is one quick way to help boost your event registrations.

The registration page of a website has one simple goal: to convert visitors into attendees.

The easier the registration process is, the more prospective sign-ups you can get. Removing any friction or unnecessary blockers from the event registration process will help you significantly when creating interest in your event.

Simplifying registrations removes most risks of abandonment, which, according to WPForms, is something that 81% of event website users do. Creating a seamless experience makes it easy and quick for attendees and thus maximizes conversions.

To provide a smooth registration experience, make sure your website contains all the necessary information on the page and has a clear path to register. Call-to-action (CTA) buttons are a great way to help direct users to the registration form and grow your event registrations. Make sure your CTA stands out from the rest of the page with a larger font, a different color, or a pill button. Want to design the perfect event registration landing page but aren’t sure where to begin? Learn more about how to build the perfect event landing page.

Providing a good checkout experience is crucial to an event website’s success. Once a visitor has decided to register, don’t let an annoying acquisition procedure make them second guess their decision.

When building your registration form, keep in mind that simpler is better. According to the Baymard Institute, a long and complicated checkout process can lead to 17% checkout abandonment. On the other hand, the same report mentions that a seamless checkout design can lead to a nearly 36% increase in checkout completion—so it’s worth ensuring your process is as efficient as possible!

Partnering up with a professional ticketing partner is the best way to secure maximum mobile-optimized payments.

Early bird tickets incentivize registrants to sign up sooner by offering discounted pricing. 

Promote this via:

Driving early registrations helps create buzz for your event and lock in attendees. 

Another option is offering payment plans which can help attendees spread the costs of tickets. For certain high-priced events, scattering payments can help attendee cash flow and still guarantee income and attendance, even if that means full payment is obtained later.

Many attendees will want to know the full extent of what your event is offering. Details such as who is speaking and exhibiting and why they should consider going are key drivers before they register their interest. Make your website full of engaging, relevant information that adds value to attendees considering going but aren’t quite ready to commit yet.

Consider adding the following features to your event website:

Showcasing your lineup and what attendees will experience gives your website more marketing power. Make sure to communicate openly and transparently about any schedule alterations or adjustments.

Make sure key information such as event details, location, date, time, event descriptions, and line-ups are clearly mentioned on the website. The clearer you can display this information, the better! Consider placing it right at the top of the page or in your hero image.

If the event has a conference followed by other events, make sure that they are all mentioned on the agenda. The more reasons you can give to attend your event, the more your event registrations will grow.

The visual draw of an event must be perfect to catch the attention of a potential attendee, so it’s always a great idea to have a selection of professional images to choose from to help you promote your event.

If your team has hired a professional photographer during past events to capture shots of the guests, speakers, and other activities, don’t forget to use these photos on your event website! This can help generate FOMO (fear of missing out), which in turn can help increase registrations.

If you haven’t hired a photographer in the past, here’s a friendly reminder: not only are photos great promotional material for your future use, but real, candid photos can help your attendees reminisce and share your event online well after the fact. In the meantime, consider including photos from elsewhere that capture the spirit of your event. Venues are always invested in having terrific photos of their space, so be sure to ask your venue contact for some of their favorites.

Try avoiding generic “stock” photos on the event website, however, as these can come across as inauthentic. Using real images from past events and local venues—or anything your attendees may be familiar with—will help make the website more relatable and trustworthy.

Finally, the concept of professional images does not end with photos. Graphics matter, too! Hire a graphic designer or use existing well-designed graphics and branding to highlight event proceedings.

Thanks to social media, online videos have become the most popular form of media by a landslide. And what’s not to like? Videos are compelling, easy-to-digest, and highly interactive.

Videos are also incredibly powerful promotional tools, and there are several ways of using them effectively on event websites. Using video content in place of a hero image (or otherwise on your homepage) helps create a dynamic web experience.

Brainstorm with your team how to best show visitors what they can expect at your event, whether through highlights of a past event, a showcase of the venue, or something else altogether. When produced effectively, videos can help clarify the character of your organization and the event being promoted and generate a ton of excitement. Videos also tend to do a better job of persuading visitors to attend an event (when compared to text and photos alone as they offer a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Finally, videos keep visitors on your page longer. The longer visitors stay on your page, the better your SEO ranking will get over time.

Visitor testimonials, reviews, social media activity, and past attendance metrics act as social proof that your event delivers value. According to OptInMonitor, testimonials can increase conversions by 34%.

Build trust and confidence by displaying the following:

Proving your event’s track record and community provides the nudge many prospective visitors need to register and commit to attending your forthcoming event.

Word of mouth is the best form of marketing for a reason! People are much more inclined to try something if an acquaintance recommends it to them. Social media has amplified this human tendency, making sharing information effortless. Therefore, having social media profiles for your event is an absolute must if you want to grow your event registrations, in addition to having social buttons on your event website linking to these profiles. Here are some other ways to use social media to generate more buzz for your event.

Retargeting ads follow website visitors with your branding and messaging across other sites. They also allow your audience to see your brand and event and be reminded of what they could be missing out on. If they haven’t converted yet, sometimes retargeting event ads can give them enough impetus to go beyond that proverbial line.

Other ways you can bring prospects back to your event website can involve the following:

Retargeting your website traffic with ads multiplies your visibility to drive signups. Align your social media retargeting ads with granular CRM data to fine-tune your audience targeting options.

Consistent visuals reinforce your company’s brand, but they do more than that. According to Forbes contributor Solomon Thimothy, a consistent brand image makes your company look more put-together – a must when attendees are trusting you to deliver an exceptional event experience in exchange for their dollars and time.

“Imagine walking into a restaurant where every server wore whatever they wanted, or a department store where no one wore a name tag,” he writes. “How could a customer identify who to turn to for help? Everything might be running smoothly in your eyes, but a polished brand image is necessary to show that you know how to run your business.”

Megan Powell, owner of Little Dot Creative, suggests in a post on her blog that branded visuals also play a role in customer loyalty. “Your visual brand is a puzzle piece that works with the rest of your brand in a system to create an experience for your clients and customers. When all of these pieces work well together, you start to build a loyal audience, and establish trust, which will lead to more customers and clients for your business.”

Loyalty is critically important for those involved in planning event series. Earning repeat attendees requires that the first event these guests participate in be memorable. Brand visuals may only be one part of this puzzle, but it’s easy to see how a well-designed event can create a greater and more memorable impact than one that’s devoid of consistent visuals.

Knowing that visual consistency is so important, consider all the different branding opportunities for your entire portfolio of events. Although some of the items listed below may not be relevant to a particular event, use this list as a starting place for creating your own “to design” list.

Opportunities to carry branded visuals throughout your event:

Website templates help simplify the visual branding process for events. When used correctly, templates can bridge the gap between the consistent branded design you want to create and the amount of time you have available to customize every element (let alone your technical or design skills).

Take EventUp Planner’s library of pre-built event website templates as an example. The library contains options for all event types, including webinars, conferences, product launches, retreats, and more, while the advanced publishing engine allows you to customize them by adding or deleting individual elements. The template provides a canvas, and the event manager can easily customize the template by adding in their logo, color palette, imagery, and more to build a white-labeled, branded experience.

When you have access to website templates, you can set up a beautifully branded website once and then clone it as often as you need to for future events. You’ll get all the benefits of consistent visual branding without the effort needed to manually recreate it every time.

Visual branding can be difficult to define. But generally speaking, “Visual identity is all the things that the consumer can see about the company,” according to marketing analyst Prince Kapoor. That encompasses the following elements, among others:

Most event planners know to put their logo on their event materials. However, not all carry through the other elements listed here – yet consistency with fonts, colors, and imagery are all necessary to give a put-together impression and improve guest loyalty, as mentioned above.

When choosing an event website template, make sure you’re able to optimize the pages provided for each of these elements. Finding event templates that are the closest to your existing branding will minimize the amount of time you have to spend customizing them to your needs.

Next, think through the impression you want to give guests when they interact with your event’s design elements. No matter what your company’s branding might look like, you’d expect that the visual design for a marketing trends conference would look different than an annual gathering of estate planners.

Your answers to these and other questions may overlap. You may, for example, want to impart useful information to attendees while also getting them fired up for the future. However, the greater your understanding of the kind of personality you want to convey at your event, the better prepared you’ll be to communicate your chosen personality through your design choices.

Another important consideration when designing your event is the demographics of the likely attendees, as the reaction of individual groups to different visual elements may vary.

For example, imagine that you’re hosting a retreat for startup entrepreneurs, who may respond well to bold colors and vibrant imagery. Contrast that to the conference of a professional association, where a more classic look and buttoned-up styling may be appropriate.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t push the envelope. In fact, standing out from the norm with visual branding that defies industry convention in some way—large or small—can help to create a memorable experience that sticks with attendees. Gauge how much deviation from the norm is acceptable by examining either your own experience with the group or the standards being set by other events in the space.

If you commit to understanding both your company’s visual brand and the identity you want to create for your event, you’ll end up ahead of those who don’t take these elements into consideration (or who don’t extend them to all possible aspects of event design). However, it’s also a good idea to keep the common event design mistakes below in mind when you’re still in the planning stages:

And finally, don’t reinvent the wheel. Event website templates make it easy to not just create branded assets, but to replicate them as often as you need to for future events.

But keep in mind that just because they can be replicated easily doesn’t mean they should be. Each event’s design should reflect its unique mood, makeup, and theme. These elements may seem arbitrary or casual, but they are not. They speak directly to any event’s most important asset – its attendees. Subtly, they can send signals that affect how attendees engage with others, participate in activities, or even affect their decision to return for future events.

So, to help craft an event your attendees will remember, take these design elements into consideration. Taken together, they can have a huge impact on your event’s overall success.

Forward-thinking event marketers are paying attention to current design trends to create websites that impact, engage, and convert.

The predominant web design trend for 2024 is the injection of a more human element. Websites are becoming more relatable, conversational, and intuitive through the use of personalization, customization, and unique user experiences. Here are a few ways you can capitalize on this humanizing trend to design impactful event websites that engage your audience.

Written content is invaluable for SEO but images are taking precedence in site design. But not just any images. Gone are the days of staged stock photos. The emerging trend is to use real images, and high-quality authentic photography. In fact, studies have shown that images featuring real people—candid photos that are easily relatable and capture moments of real life—are more effective at converting visitors. Try using images from last year’s event or photographs of the conference center where the event is being held to engage prospective attendees. Check out 99U Conference’s website or SXSW for inspiration.

Modular design is here to stay. This is good news for event marketers since it’s an easy, foolproof way to create a clean, accessible website. From the event marketer’s perspective, card, block, and grid design styles are flexible, streamlined, and easy to build; from the attendees’ viewpoint, modular websites are intuitive and easy to navigate, creating a positive user experience. The Adobe MAX Creativity Conference website is an excellent example of the efficacy of block design. (Try refreshing the page to see new designs!)

Registration forms and surveys are an integral part of an event website for interacting with prospects and attendees. Going forward, forms will use everyday language to ask questions and obtain information in a more conversational and engaging way. With customizable forms, event marketers can design questions using natural language to gather customer data more effectively while delivering a simple, unique user experience.

Videos of past events—speakers addressing the group, live audiences engaged with presentations, and real people enjoying themselves at the event—create a feeling of authenticity and relatability. Visit the Internet Summit website for ideas.

By showcasing speakers and keynotes on your event website, prospects can easily visualize, as they scroll through the site, the value they will receive by attending. Salesforce employs this technique successfully for their annual Dreamforce event.

By featuring a real-life recap of the previous event on the website, event marketers can manage attendees’ expectations while piquing their interest in the upcoming event. Check out Inbound for an excellent example of this technique.

Creating and publishing event websites has historically been a challenge for marketers—especially ones without an army of developers and designers at their disposal. This means that, for many marketers, building an event website can feel like stumbling in the dark.

With outdated workflows, you might find yourself wondering:

If these questions strike a chord, then you likely need to streamline and modernize your event website creation tools!

It doesn’t have to be rocket science to create beautiful event websites. Foundational event management platforms like EventUp Planner are designed to make your life (and your teams’ lives) easier. They offer intuitive website builders that empower event organizers and marketers to effortlessly create professional event websites.

If you thought you needed to be a coding guru to create an event website that’ll make your attendees say, “Wow, count me in,” think again! Long gone are the days when you needed to write lines of complex code to design a terrific website.

Here are just a few ways that today’s event management platforms help you create event websites in less time and with less stress.

The website builders in today’s most robust event management platforms are user-friendly and feature simple drag-and-drop functionality. This helps you effortlessly visualize and customize your website. It also means even first-timers can create the event website of their dreams!

When you look to create your first website, you might not be sure where to begin. No problem! Platforms like EventUp Planner feature plenty of easy-to-use website-building presets that help you hit the ground running.

Further, the addition of easily customizable page blocks allows you to break your site into bite-sized sections such as headlines, hero images, text boxes, speaker profiles, and videos. This offers you complete control to dictate the flow and user experience of your website from header to footer and beyond.

Maintaining brand consistency is crucial, and that’s where white-label event website builders really shine. Platforms like EventUp Planner enable you to infuse your brand’s personality into every inch of your website. From adding your logos to using your brand’s fonts and colors to showcasing your own engaging images and videos—you can do it all.

With the right platform, embodying your brand’s distinct look and feel is a breeze. Let this serve as a head’s up: you don’t need to be a top-tier designer to create event websites that your attendees will fall in love with!

A major perk of website builders featured in today’s event management platforms are time-saving templates. If you’re juggling multiple events, these templates can be a lifesaver.

Having a library of customizable, flexible website templates at your disposal gives you a massive advantage, especially when those templates are informed by years of experience working with some of the biggest brands in the world. (Speaking of big brands, did we mention that EventUp Planner has collaborated with industry giants like Adobe, NBC, SXSW, and more? They’ve got some great things to say about us. Check out some testimonials here!)

Modern event management platforms are all about making your life easier through automation. Automation helps you save valuable time and eliminate manual errors, ensuring consistent quality across all your digital assets and communications. For example, EventUp Planner automatically syncs your event settings with your event website by incorporating automation into every aspect of your event, allowing you to spend less time creating an event website and more time on curating an unforgettable experience.

Contact blocks play a pivotal role in populating event websites with up-to-date information. From event agendas and sponsorships to speaker profiles and registration forms, changes made in your event settings will be automatically reflected on the website in real time. Whether updating session times, adding new speakers, or modifying registration forms, organizers can ensure that their event website remains in perfect harmony without lifting a finger.

More than 60% of event planners repeat the same event portfolio year after year. That’s a lot of déjà vu! Who wants to create the same event website from scratch over and over each time? Not us!

That’s where cloning comes in. With the click of a button, you can duplicate websites and settings, meaning you don’t have to upload your brand materials every single time. All your assets—logos, fonts, colors, and images—are saved and plugged in automatically. For organizations that host a portfolio of similar events, it saves tons of time and allows you to reallocate team resources where they matter most.

EventUp Planner allows you to create and manage beautiful, branded event websites with zero coding required. Create on-brand, fully customized websites with ease and keep control of your brand across your entire portfolio of meetings and events—without relying on developers and designers.

With our advanced publishing engine/ website builder, you can create and publish user-friendly, branded event websites with the click of a button. Flexible registration forms, beautiful event templates, and customizable surveys are at your disposal, no matter what your budget. With EventUp Planner, you can easily launch a compelling event website—with a human, relatable feel—that will delight attendees and drive lead generation. 

With EventUp Planner, you will:

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