How To Create An Event Website That Sells Tickets
If you are selling tickets or marketing your event online, you need a website to help convince attendees to register or buy tickets. Universe has collected 5 tips and 3 initial steps for event organizers who want to build an event website but don’t know where to start. In 2015 there is no excuse for not having a strong web presence, and luckily it’s become easier than ever to make that a reality. Your event website could be a single page or a multi-page interactive experience, but you have to have one if you want to maximize your event’s attendance and revenue.
Call To Action
The call to action (or CTA in marketing speak) is a phrase that encourages visitors to start an action. This one little button is the most important element of your page because it rouses visitors to start the sales process and ultimately complete a purchase. Designing the perfect CTA is an interesting mix of art and science (focused on the color, text, and placement of the button) and if you’re interested in finding out more about what makes a good CTA, Unbounce is a great place to start. Also, think about the CTAs you see everyday on the internet: why do you click some and ignore others? Pretend that you’re your own ideal customer; what would make you click on a CTA?
Social Proof
There’s an old joke, “On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog”. Your website proves that you’re running a legitimate event that other people have enjoyed in the past. That’s why it’s important to provide social proof, including reviews and testimonials from past attendees, as well as links to any local or national press coverage. This shows visitors that you’re offering a trustworthy event with a good reputation. In a study focused on ecommerce sites, researchers found that 63% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.
Mobile-Friendly Event Websites
Approximately 64% of adults in America own a smartphone and more than half of all web traffic comes from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet). This means that your event website needs to be mobile-optimized. Dealing with the different screen sizes and resolutions can be a pain, but services like Wordpress automatically resize your website for most devices.
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Optimize For Google
People aren’t the only ones who read websites. Google’s robots crawl through millions of pages each day, indexing information to present as search results. In order for your Yoga event in Tampa, FL to show up when someone searches “Yoga in Tampa” Google must be able to read your website. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge and complicated field so we put together a separate post on SEO for events with more tips and tricks.
Social Media
Including social sharing buttons on your website can help your event get seen by more people. First, you need to identify your target market and what social networking sites they use the most. Twitter and Facebook have helpful instructions on making your content easy to share. Maybe you need a second CTA to encourage visitors to share your website? At Universe we mix social sharing and ticketing with our Social Deals (encouraging ticket buyers to share the event on social media in return for a % discount on the ticket price).
Decide What Kind Of Event Website You Need
Browse around friends’ and competitors’ websites to get an idea of what other event organizers like you are doing. Do they have huge websites? Are there lots of images? How many pages? Does the website match their branding? Do you think you have the resources to build something like that? Or how can you set yourself apart? In short, figure out what makes you you, then cater the aesthetic of your website to match that.
Start Simple
Starting from scratch on a website is a daunting experience but it doesn’t get any easier if you keep putting it off. A great event website can start with a single landing page. Services like Unbounce or Lead Pages make it really easy to create a one page website with information about your event as well as a link to your ticketing provider. The blogging platform WordPress is also quite popular with event organizers who need to build simple websites.
Expand As You Need To
If a simple landing page works for your event, great! Stick to that page and be glad you don’t have to deal with anything more complicated. The old adage is true — oftentimes, ‘less is more’. You’d be surprised by how much of the work you can do by yourself without any coding experience. If you need to expand your website then maybe it’s worth investing in a professional to help you.
Why not get started by building a custom event page on Universe? You can add/remove sections, adjust the colors and fonts, and add images really easily. Try it out now.
