Christine Ward Want to fill the seats at your nonprofit’s events? Also want to get website traffic from supporters? Both of these are possible when you promote your events on your website.
You may not realize it, but your events and your website could both be suffering if you’re not using them in tandem to promote one another. A close relationship between the two is most definitely mutually beneficial. You can drive those visitors already on your website to attend your event and vice versa. Easy peasy!
In this post, I’ll walk you through seven different ways to cultivate this relationship and get website traffic. Let’s get started!
Use Your Website for Registrations
Keep it in the family. Housing your registrations directly on your website can provide a lot of benefit, not only in the traffic that it brings to your website as people come to register, but also to streamline the whole registration process.
If you do need to send your visitors to a third party site for event registrations, try to make the transition as easy as possible. It’s best to explain the event on your website and then link out for the actual registration with a highly visible button. You can have the link open in a new tab to make the transition less jarring and keep your future event attendees on your site. Along those lines, if the third party site allows for some customization, carry over as much of the look and feel of your website as you can to let people know that they’re in the right place.
Create a Page for Your Event
Your nonprofit’s biggest events could warrant a landing page to help with promotions and give them the hype they deserve. It’s nice to have one page to send those people interested in one specific event, rather than including your title event as part of a longer list. You can then direct people to this one special page as you promote your event on other platforms, such as print invitations, e-newsletters and social media.
To go the extra mile, optimize your new event page for a keyword. Making the most of search engine optimization will help to get website traffic to your page. This way, when a supporter searches for your event or a phrase that describes an event like yours, they’re sure to find your page.
Cross Link Your Event Page
Visitors on other pages of your site could be interested in your event, but may not realize it’s happening. Call it out on your homepage and link to it from those pages where it makes sense contextually. Does your event raise money for one specific program? That program page is a great place to link to your event page and vice versa.
Include Your Website URL on All Event Handouts
This should be a relatively standard practice on all of your invitations, handouts, brochures, direct mail and other printed materials provided to event attendees. Including your URL lets folks know that if they’d like to learn more about your organization, the work that you do and the events that you host, they can find it on your website.
It goes without saying that all of this information should be on your website and kept updated as often as necessary. Have a new event? Add it to your website as soon as the details are set!
Hype Your Event on Your Blog
Leading up to the event, you could write posts giving a behind-the-scenes look at your event or introducing key speakers, hosts or guests. After the event, you could also ask an attendee to write a guest post on their experience, their favorite session or speaker, or why they’re looking forward to future events.
Pre-event and post-event blog posts are an excellent way to draw attention to your event and the good it’ll bring about for your nonprofit. You could then direct supporters to those posts through social media and your newsletter.
Hold a Contest and Announce the Winner on Your Blog
Contests are awesome ways to build excitement for your upcoming event. Hold a promotion at the event or leading up to the event. You can announce the contest and post the winner on your blog. The contest could be anything from a funny or most inspirational photo caption to a random drawing of those who RSVP for your event on Facebook. Give a small prize, like a t-shirt or bag of branded goodies to the winner. People love free stuff!
Use Event Photos on Your Website
Just because the event is over doesn’t mean you have to stop promoting it. Bring the experience full circle and make your event attendees feel more connected to your organization—include them on your website. Use photos from your recent event in a re-cap post on your blog and include them on your landing page for the event as you begin to build it up for next year’s event. These photos could also be great fits on other pages of your site, perhaps on your “About Us” and “Get Involved” pages.
If your supporters can see themselves on your website, they’re much more likely to share it with their friends, family and networks. It’s a great way to spread your reach without a direct ask. Just make sure you have permission to post any photos before you do so.
Check out our guide to find more ways to increase traffic to your website >
As you can see, there are a multitude of ways to promote your events to get website traffic and event attendees. Start thinking outside of the box to increase event conversions and fill those seats!
How do you promote your events on your website? Have you tried promoting your website at events to get website traffic? Let us know your thoughts, questions and suggestions in the comments.
Yea Christine, the relationship between websites and events can create magic. It’s proven. You have cited here one of the finest features to drive traffic that most optimizers overlook. I will definitely consider it as priority to drive users and traffic when such an events happens. Thank you for this eye opening post
Thanks for commenting, Harry. I’m so glad you found the post helpful. Best of luck promoting your events!
I enjoyed the post. These seem to be helpful to get website traffic. Thanks a lot for sharing this great post.
Hi, Sam. I’m glad you found the post helpful. Good luck driving traffic to your website!
Great ideas 🙂 you could also mention that your website has more information about whatever event your hosting
Very true, Carm! Sending your supporters to your website for additional information or to register is an awesome way to get traffic as well as manage and promote your upcoming event. You can then direct them to relevant content and calls to action through internal linking.
To get better website traffic this blog was good.
Thanks, Deeksha! I’m glad you found it helpful.
great ! but how to move traffic in my site with event blogging
Good question, Ethan. Blog posts are a great opportunity to create content about an event with a unique spin or viewpoint that wouldn’t work as well within typical page content about the event, such as a behind the scenes look or a Q&A with a featured guest. As part of your event promotion, you can send people to this content through email, social media or other channels you’re using. Within the blog posts about the event, you can link to your event registration page on your website to encourage blog readers to register. For blog posts recapping the event, you could encourage them to visit your events page to learn about upcoming events. I hope that’s helpful!