Live events, such as plays, museums, concerts, sporting events conferences and more, are all about attracting as many attendees as possible. However, with the increasing amount of competition in the industry, it’s becoming more challenging to stand out from the crowd. That’s where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in – it’s a powerful tool that can help event planners and organizers attract more attendees to their events. In this article, we will explore how to use SEO techniques to maximize visibility for your live events, covering various aspects of SEO, including website optimization, keyword research, link building, social media promotion, and content marketing.
If you come across any unfamiliar terms throughout this article, be sure to check out our glossary of terms at the end, which provides definitions for the key concepts discussed.
The Importance of SEO for Live Events
SEO is critical for live events because it can directly impact ticket sales and attendance, with 68% of online experiences beginning with a search engine. Additionally, 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search, making it essential to have a strong presence in search engine results pages. When potential attendees search for events online, they usually only click on the first few results. If your event website is not optimized for search engines, it’s less likely to appear in those top results.
By optimizing your website and implementing SEO strategies, you can improve your website’s visibility, attract more relevant traffic, and ultimately drive more ticket sales and attendance for your live events.
Optimize Your Event’s Website for Search Engines
Optimizing your event website for search engines is essential for success. It’s a process that can be broken down into two categories: SEO on-page (on your website) and SEO off-page (external tactics that can help your site become more searchable).
SEO On-Page Optimization
SEO on-page involves optimizing the elements on your website to improve its visibility in search engine results pages. By implementing on-page optimization techniques, you can make it easier for search engines to crawl and understand your content, and ultimately rank your site higher.
- Domain: A domain is the main address of a website, and it is essential to tell search engines which URL to index. Using tags like rel=canonical and 301 redirects can help prevent duplication of content and ensure that search engines are indexing the correct pages.
- URL Structure: The structure of a website’s URLs can affect both user experience and SEO. A clear hierarchy and breadcrumbs help users navigate the site and help search engines understand the site’s structure. Using descriptive keywords in the URL can also improve SEO and make the URL more memorable.
- Rich Content: Rich content is content that includes additional information beyond the standard text and images. Using microdata and featured snippets can help search engines differentiate your content and display it in a more structured way in search results, improving visibility and click-through rates.
- Website Infrastructure: Website infrastructure refers to the technical components that make up a website, such as the server, code, and design. A functioning 404-page, HTTPS protocol, cache memory, and favicons are essential for both user experience and SEO. It is crucial to ensure that your website is easy to use and secure, as this can affect both user satisfaction and search engine rankings.
- Content and Keyword Optimization: Content and keyword optimization involves optimizing a website’s metadata, using header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.), including relevant keywords in the URL and anchor text, and incorporating keywords into the content in a natural way. Adding fresh content to your site that includes words your target audience might use in their search can also improve SEO and drive traffic.
- Indexability: Indexability is a website’s ability to be indexed and cataloged by search engines. It is essential for search engines to display a website’s pages in search engine results pages (SERPs). Having a correct sitemap and robots.txt file of your website is a crucial part of indexing within Google. To monitor site indexing as well as traffic, make sure you have Google Analytics, as well as Google Search Console, properly set up for your website.
- Social Media: Social media platforms can be used to drive traffic to your website. Linking your website to your social media profiles, optimizing your content for YouTube, and using Open Graph tags can help provide information about your website on social media and improve its visibility to potential visitors.
SEO Off-Page Optimization
While on-page optimization focuses on the elements on your website, SEO off-page involves external tactics that can improve your site’s search engine rankings. By using off-page SEO techniques, you can build a strong online presence, increase your website’s authority, and drive more traffic to your site.
- Link Building: Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own website. Internal links refer to links within your site that lead to other pages on your site, while external links refer to links from other websites that lead to your site. Building high-quality links from reputable websites can improve your website’s Domain Authority and Page Authority, which can help improve your search engine ranking.
“TheaterMania.com and WhatsOnStage.com both have higher authority scores than even the largest AudienceView client venues – and we have some big ones. For the smaller venues in our client community, TheaterMania’s authority score is 3x theirs (or more). As an example, when we added a backlink to AudienceView.com from TheaterMania, our ranking for the term we used went from page 4 to page 1 on Google, and our visibility score for that term grew 10x.”
Learn how adding your listings – and the associated backlinks – can have the same impact for you and your website.
- Local SEO: Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in local search results. If you have a physical location, optimizing your website with Google’s My Business can help your website show up in local search results. Local SEO strategies include adding location-based keywords to your website content, building local citations and backlinks, and getting positive reviews from local customers.
- Social Media Mentions: social media mentions and posts are a form of social proof that can help improve your website’s overall visibility. A clear call-to-action (CTA) in your social media posts can encourage users to click through to your website, driving more traffic to your site. It is important to monitor your social media mentions and respond to any inquiries or feedback to engage with your audience and build a positive reputation.
Mobile-Friendliness
It’s also important to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly. Since over 50% of global web traffic comes from mobile devices3, Google now gives preference to mobile-friendly websites. To optimize your website for mobile, make sure it’s easy to navigate, has fast load times, and is responsive (meaning, it automatically adjusts to the appropriate screen size).
By implementing these tips, you can improve your website’s visibility and ultimately drive more traffic to your site. Need individualized guidance? Reach out to our team to learn more about AudienceView’s Premium Services.
Glossary of Terms
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The practice of optimizing your website to increase its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Keyword: A word or phrase that a user types into a search engine to find specific information.
- Breadcrumbs: Navigation aids on websites that show the user’s path from the homepage to their current page, helping them understand their location and easily navigate back.
- Cache memory: A small, fast storage space in a computer or device or website server that temporarily holds frequently used data, improving speed and performance by reducing the need to fetch the same data repeatedly.
- Favicon: A small icon representing a website, usually displayed in browser tabs and bookmarks, helping users identify and recognize the site quickly.
- H-tags: HTML tags used to define headings and subheadings in web content, providing structure and hierarchy, which helps search engines and users easily understand the content’s organization and hierarchy.
- Microdata: A type of structured data added to web pages that provides additional information about the content, helping search engines understand and display it more accurately in search results.
- On-page optimization: Refers to all the elements on your website that can be optimized to improve its ranking on SERPs. This includes optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and content.
- Off-page optimization: Refers to all the activities you undertake outside of your website to improve its ranking on SERPs. This includes building backlinks, social media marketing, and influencer marketing.
- Backlink: A link from one website to another. Backlinks are important for SEO because they indicate to search engines that other websites consider your content to be valuable.
- Social media marketing: The practice of using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote your brand, engage with your audience, and drive traffic to your website.
- Domain authority: A score predicting a website’s ability to rank in search engine results, based on factors such as backlinks and site age, with higher scores indicating greater trust and visibility.
- Page authority: Page Authority is a metric that predicts a specific page’s ranking potential on search engines based on various factors such as backlinks, content quality, and relevance. It helps SEO professionals understand which pages on their website have a higher likelihood of ranking well in search engine results.