YourEventFREE is one of the biggest and most popular Events-only websites in the World. We’re awestruck by how large and well-known it’s become. People come and advertise their Events, others come along to see what’s on in their area or if there’s anything going on they should know about. Which makes YourEventFREE the perfect place to promote your Event!
But with so many Events listed, will anyone see yours? Is there anything you can do to make your own Event stand out above all the others?
We asked that question of the YourEventFREE boffins. Once we had managed to get them to stop quoting statistics and formulae. we did manage to squeeze some really helpful advice out of them. Follow the steps below, and discover a handful of ways in which you can improve your existing Event listing, or create a brand new one. We’ve done what we can to make it really easy for you. We’ll point you in the right direction, and even show you how you can get your Event listing to stand out in the top search engine results!
List your Event early.
We are proud of the quality of our Events listings. We maintain this quality by vetting and checking every single Events listing before it’s added to our site. Anything that isn’t an Event is deleted and sometimes an account is shut down for serial offenders. We’re proud to say that this dedication to quality has been recognised, and we’re keen to maintain our status.
The point is that these checks take time. We try to process Events listings as quickly as possible, but sometimes it’s a day-long job catching up with it all.
So the moral of the story? Don’t place your Events listing on YourEventFREE the day before the Event. It won’t always be passed as quickly as that.
Some Event listings are made, hours before the Event. By the time we get to adding the listing, the Event has been and gone and everybody’s already gone home.
Even if your Event listing was passed immediately, it’s still always best to give the listing as much chance of being viewed as possible. We have some listings on our site for Events happening a year from now; some people list their Christmas Events before Easter; some list summertime Events for children, while there’s still snow on the ground.
So the number one way to make your Event listing stand out? Post it early enough for people to see it.
PLAN your Event listing.
We’re often bemused by the odd Event listing which has no blurb whatsoever. Just a link to the Event website, or the webinar or whatever. You wonder if they actually care if anyone attends the Event. It’s a wasted opportunity. By ‘blurb’ we mean the text part of your listing: it’s an unlimited space where you can add as much detail as you like, in order to tempt people into attending.
Tell the readers how wonderful your Event is going to be. Show them what they will be missing.
The trick is to PLAN it all in advance, with whatever word processor package you care to employ. Check it for spelling errors, readability and grammar. Break it into short, punchy paragraphs. Use titles to break the sections up (like we’ve done on this page!) Play around with the formatting. Then have it ready to just copy and paste into your Events listing when you’re satisfied that it’s ready. The aim is to fill in enough detail to persuade anyone interested in your Event into coming along.
How many words make a stand-out listing?
In a world full of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) hacks and tricks, we at YourEventFREE believe that at the end of the day, there really is no substitute for long copy. There’s still a market for it. Bing!, Google, Duck Duck Go, Yahoo and other search engines pride themselves on the quality of their search results, with new algorithms appearing all the time.
If you want your listing to be the first thing everybody sees when they search for – whatever kind of Event you’re promoting – then add some meat to your listing for the search engines to bite into.
Obviously the more detail you can add the better, but we don’t want anybody falling asleep. So at least 1,000 – 2,000 words is what we would recommend, with 300 being the absolute minimum for the search engines to pick up on (although YourEventFREE doesn’t have a minimum word count. Leave it blank if you like, but don’t expect anyone to view your Event listing). 5,000 words is amazing, 10,000 is too much. Who has time to read all that?
Add hyperlinks to your listing
If your Events listing includes website addresses – for tickets, registration, the website of the venue, etc – then why not add them as a hyperlink? Visitors cannot right-click and copy on our website – we’ve disabled right-clicks as a way of encouraging people to share Events listings across social media instead. If you made the address into a hyperlink people can click that instead. All links open in a new tab by default so the visitor won’t lose your listing. Give it a try – it works for email addresses too.
If we see a URL in a listing we do sometimes turn it into a link. But when we have another 600 Events listings to check on top of other duties, it isn’t always possible. It only takes a moment to do it yourself.
If you have any other Events listed on YourEventFREE, it’s a good idea to link to those Events on your listing too. Why? Because search engines like to see internal and external links on a page. It’s only a small thing to do but it could get your Event onto page one of the search engine results and more people will see it. Just another free, low-effort way to getting your Event listing to stand out at the top of the pile.
You don’t have any other Events of your own to link to? Then feel free to link to our homepage. We don’t mind.
Search Engine tricks to make your Event listing stand out
But speaking of getting the search engines to pick up on your listing, here’s a few extra things you can do to make your Event stand out, both on our website and in terms of search engine results. ALL THESE ARE FREE, requiring nothing more than a bit of your time and a little thought.
So let’s take a look at the SEO section at the bottom of your listing…
Focus Keyphrase
This is where you would put the word that you would most like the search engines to pick out. If you’re promoting (for example) a free taster day for Archery lessons, then ‘archery’ is likely to be your keyphrase. You’ve hung up your paintings of the local gasworks all around your kitchen and you’d like to invite folk to come and view them next Saturday, your keyphrase is likely to be ‘gasworks art’ or ‘gasworks pictures’ or perhaps something similar.
The Focus Keyphrase needs to appear in the title of your event, and come up a few times in the blurb – but don’t overdo it. AI Search Engines are smart enough to realise when somebody is trying to cheat the system.
SEO Title
When someone sees your listing on screen in the search engine results, the Title and the Image are the first things they see. Our server automatically makes one up for you, but there’s no reason why you can’t try and improve on it and get your Event listing to stand out even more. So make the title punchy, attention-grabbing and relevant. Don’t use inappropriate language and think about how long the title is. There’s a handy traffic light to tell you when you’ve got it right, so aim for green every time.
Meta Description
This is the text part of what a search engine shows. Use this space to tempt someone into finding out more about your Event – make the content here relevant, make sure it includes your Focus Keyphrase. and make sure it fits. Again, there’s another traffic light that tells you when the length is right. Be sure to check both the Desktop and Mobile versions and adjust the text as necessary to make sure your appearance in the search engine results really stands out more than the alternatives.
Add an Image to make your listing stand out
Finally, why not add an image to your listing? We use it on our Search page, it appears on your Event listing, and search engines use it in a smaller size when your Event appears in their results. Go make it a good one that grabs the right kind of attention, and you won’t go far wrong!
Make sure you’re in the right Category
If you’re listing a Movie Premiere, don’t list it under ‘Health and Beauty’. We have over one hundred categories of Event, so take a little time and make sure the category is appropriate. If your Event fits into more than one category then select more than one category – but make sure the Primary Category is the most appropriate.
Check your Events listing for silly mistakes
Would you be happy with children running around in your medical Conference? Happy for youngsters to chatter through your webinar? Then don’t tick the ‘suitable for kids’ box. If your Event is a webinar, then add the URL as the location and remember to tick the ‘Online Only’ box.
Does the listing look laid out well or is it just one big thick lump of text? Is it clear, at a single glace, what your Event is and who it is aimed towards?
The fewer mistakes made, the quicker Event listings are approved, so please read through your listing again and check all the dates and times, plus all the other details. Alterations can be made to Event listings, but they have to be approved all over again.
Summary
So there’s a few ways in which you can make your Event listing really stand out – not just on the YourEventFREE website but right across the Internet. If somebody uses a search engine to find an Event just like yours, then you have just increased your chances of your listing being found.
Total outlay? Zero. Effort required? Minimal.
There are other ways in which your Event listing can be optimised, but these are most certainly the easiest.
- Make your blurb long, detailed and involving enough to tempt people into attending and for the search engines to notice.
- Make sure you’re in the right category and all the options and boxes filled in correctly.
- Add an image.
- Add hyperlinks, both external (to other websites) and internal (elsewhere on this website).
- Use the SEO tools at the bottom of your listing.
- Check your listing for silly mistakes! Proofreading is the key.
Can you think of anything we’ve missed? Please drop us a line on our Contact page and let us know (but please note we do not respond to cold-calling SEO companies).
Good luck!