Organizing professional and industry-related events has become easier with the help of online tools that are designed to market these gatherings and make it more convenient for participants to sign up. Building a conference website has become a crucial component of events management in the digital era. You will be hard-pressed to find a conference these days that doesn’t have an online presence of some kind.
Creating event-related sites sounds simple enough with the help of website builders. Strikingly has an expansive collection of conference website templates to get you off to a good start. But how do you set up conferences websites that entice people to register? Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind.
1. Avoid being wordy
It takes an average of 7 seconds to form an impression on a website so you want to be able to reel your visitor in during those first few seconds. Creating engaging copy and using the right visuals on your landing page can help attract your target participant’s attention. Make sure that your conference site clearly communicates what the event is about.
Conference websites should contain the following information:
- Conference name and description - make sure to include the agenda for the conference. A brief itinerary of events would suffice.
- Date and venue
- Ticket price - it’s important to be transparent with registration costs, including details such as any additional charges for food and accommodations if you’re hosting a conference that will run for days.
- Call to action - don’t leave your guests wondering where to get tickets to the conference or how to register for the event.
2. Use high quality and strong images
Give your participants something to look forward to by adding engaging images to your selected conference website template. For yearly conferences, add a gallery section to your template to highlight pictures from previous conferences. This will give guests an idea of what to expect for your upcoming event. Videos are also highly recommended to reinforce the message that this is an event that they cannot possibly miss.
3. Add testimonials
People react according to social proof so it’s also a good idea to add a section to your conference web template for testimonials and user reviews. A testimonial from a previous attendee or an influential person who has graced your previous conferences hold a lot of weight in a potential participant’s decision to join your upcoming event.
4. Provide an easy way to register
After adding an enticing description of your upcoming conference, usher your participants to the next step through an easy-registration process. With your free conference website template from Strikingly, you can add an event app integration such as Eventbrite or Eventnook to enable guests to register for your conference easily. Sell tickets to the conference or reserve seats within the same site by exploring these apps on the Strikingly app store.
5. Optimize your website
Finally, it’s important to make sure your website gets found. Implement a proper search engine optimization strategy on your website. Use the right keywords to boost your online presence and get found by target attendees. Do your research and find out what keyphrases people use to look for events like the one you’re organizing. Once you have decided on the keywords to target, incorporate them into your content but be careful about stuffing your content with keywords. Keyphrases should occur on your content in the most natural way.
Strikingly helps you start your SEO strategy by letting you edit your site’s metadata and title, as well as provide integrated tools for checking site’s searchability. Tweaking the design to improve the user experience is also part of optimizing your site. Make sure it loads quickly by using the recommended file size limits for images and media files and keep improving on the site’s navigation to better serve your potential attendees.
