How to Build an Event Website that Converts (& Drives Registrations)

Event websites are crucial to a successful event marketing strategy. They serve as your digital shop window, influencing the traffic that passes through to register and participate in your event. 

A well-designed event website doesn’t just inform—it persuades, engages, and ultimately converts visitors into attendees. 

Read on for tips on how to build high-converting event websites that drive registrations for your event. 

5 Steps to plan your event website

Before creating an event website, it’s crucial to lay a strong foundation. This includes understanding your event’s value, gathering key insights, and formulating a content strategy that aligns with your goals.

1. Craft clear messaging for your event

A compelling event website starts with clear and persuasive messaging.

• Define your event’s unique value proposition (UVP): What makes your event stand out? Highlight its exclusive benefits, fascinating speakers, or networking opportunities. 
• Keep messaging consistent: Ensure the same tone and key points appear across your marketing channels.
• Incorporate stakeholder input: Gather insights from marketing, sales, and operations teams to align messaging with overall business goals.

2. Gather feedback from stakeholders

Successful event websites reflect the needs of various stakeholders.

• Align content with objectives: Work closely with your marketing, sales, and operations teams to align your website content with feedback from previous years and key business objectives. 
• Use AI to filter feedback: Use ChatGPT to filter attendee feedback for common concerns, past successes, and messaging that may need refining. 

“Managing key stakeholder relationships is an essential part of your website build. One of my top tips is to document everything. By looking backwards to look forwards, you’ll have all your notes, all your reviews and you can easily show why people want to come to your event.”

Oonagh Hughes, Event Marketing, Cvent

3. Develop a compelling content strategy

Content plays a pivotal role in attracting, engaging and converting visitors. It will help you raise awareness, broaden your reach, optimize your SEO, and communicate more effectively for overall success. 

• Plan content in advance: Outline key sections such as agenda highlights, speaker bios, testimonials, and FAQs.
• Use diverse formats: Incorporate blogs, videos, testimonials, and strong imagery to enhance engagement.
• Leverage SEO best practices: Optimise content with relevant keywords to improve the search rankings of your event and attract more of the right kinds of visitors. For example, our user conference,  Cvent CONNECT Europe, targets several audiences, including marketers and event and hospitality professionals with different messaging and keywords to ensure the right content reaches the right audience and converts more of the right attendees.  

“At Cvent CONNECT Europe, we have 30% suppliers and 70% planners so our content strategy is to make sure we’re using the correct language for our intended audience. Keep returning to your intended audience each time you refresh the website content.”

Chuma Soko, Lead Customer Success Advisor, Cvent

4. Create an effective sitemap 

Sitemaps allow you to plan all your web pages. A logical website structure improves the user experience and your conversion rates.

• Visualize the structure: Map out your wireframe using tools like Figma to get a clearer picture of navigation and layout.
• Collaborate with your design team: Think through which pages need to be featured, in what order, and what attendees will find the most useful. Consider adding pages that may stay hidden but could be brought into view if there’s a train strike, for example, and you need to communicate pre-planned messaging. 
• Ensure intuitive flow: Key pages such as your agenda, speaker bios, and the registration page should be well-signposted and easily accessible. 

5. Establish a clear timeline to ensure a smooth execution

• Define milestones: Set realistic deadlines for content creation, design, testing, and launch.
• Coordinate with key stakeholders: Ensure marketing, design, and IT teams collaborate effectively. A soft launch of your site, for example, allows your stakeholders to make any changes before your site goes live. 
• Go for launch: Once you have a strong, stable website, send it live, but continue to analyze feedback and launch elements from your timeline, such as the agenda, social events, and headline speakers. 

“For Cvent CONNECT Europe, we collaborate closely with our design team to ensure a cohesive brand and messaging by focusing on where content is placed, where media is placed and, importantly what hierarchal order.”

Oonagh Hughes, Event Marketing, Cvent

💡Watch the experts behind Cvent CONNECT Europe as they reveal how to create standout registration websites, including tips on event architecture and web design best practices.

{"preview_thumbnail":"/sites/default/files/styles/video_embed_wysiwyg_preview/public/video_thumbnails/-AjWq3YIoUo.jpg?itok=B4GercLb","video_url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AjWq3YIoUo","settings":{"responsive":true,"width":"854","height":"480","autoplay":true},"settings_summary":["Embedded Video (Responsive, autoplaying)."]}

UX principles for event registration websites

User experience (UX) is a critical factor in driving conversions. A well-designed event website should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, attention-grabbing, and accessible to all users.

Choose the right typography

• Prioritize readability: Use commonplace, professional fonts that users will know from other websites. Familiarity with how your content looks will enhance readability. 
• Maintain consistency: Stick to a consistent font style for headings, sub-headings, bullet points and other text choices. Create a style sheet to ensure you use them in the same way on every page. 

Ensure website accessibility

Make your website inclusive for all users, including those with disabilities. The European Accessibility Act, which comes into force in June, means that every digital touchpoint needs to be accessible for anyone with a disability accessing your website from the EU. 

💡Learn what the European Accessibility Act means for your events.

Here are eight things to consider:

1. Use Alt Text: Ensure images have descriptive alternative text so that screen readers can interpret them for visually impaired users.
2. Enable keyboard navigation: Allow users to navigate without a mouse by ensuring all interactive elements can be accessed via keyboard commands.
3. Optimise for screen readers: Make text, buttons, and links screen-reader-friendly by following Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
4. Provide sufficient colour contrast: Ensure text and background colours have enough contrast to be easily readable.
5. Include captioned or transcribed videos: Provide captions or transcripts for video content to accommodate hearing-impaired users.
6. Use descriptive links and headings: Avoid generic link text like “Click here”. Instead, use meaningful descriptions to guide users.
7. Ensure forms are accessible: Clearly label input fields and use error messages that are easy to understand.
8. Avoid auto-playing media: Allow users to control media playback rather than auto-playing audio or video content.

“Make sure you’re not using too many contrasting colours, which will make your website content harder to read for neurodivergent users or anyone with a visual impairment. Design your website elements with input and output devices in mind, such as screen readers and keyboard navigation.”

Chuma Soko, Lead Customer Success Advisor, Cvent

Design intuitive navigation

A smooth navigation experience boosts engagement and conversions. 

• Simplify menu structures: Keep navigation menus short, clear, and well-organized. Use logical categories to help users find information quickly.
• Limit menu items: Too many options can overwhelm users. Stick to the essentials, such as Home, Agenda, Speakers, Registration, and Contact/ FAQs.
• Use clear labels: Avoid vague terminology—use direct, descriptive labels that align with user expectations.
• Ensure a logical page hierarchy: Arrange content in a structured, easy-to-follow format, featuring key pages prominently.
• Implement sticky navigation: Keep the navigation menu accessible as users scroll, improving usability on long pages.
• Utilise breadcrumb navigation: Help users understand their location on your site and easily backtrack to previous sections.
• Include a search function: A search bar can help attendees quickly locate specific information without navigating multiple pages.
• Incorporate visual cues: Use icons, hover effects, or highlighted buttons to indicate interactive elements and guide user behavior.
• Optimise CTA placement: Ensure that key CTAs, such as “Register Now,” are easy to find and not buried in complex menus.

Optimize for mobile responsiveness

Mobile devices have become the primary means of accessing the internet. Nearly 3.7 billion people, or approximately 72.6% of internet users worldwide, rely solely on smartphones for accessing websites. 

To ensure your website is mobile-ready:

• Test on multiple devices: Ensure the website is fully functional on smartphones and tablets.
• Optimise load speed: Reduce large file sizes and unnecessary scripts to make your site load faster. 
• Use a mobile-first approach: Design the website with mobile users in mind first, then scale up for larger screens.
• Ensure touch-friendly navigation: Make buttons and links large enough for easy tapping on mobile screens.
• Minimise pop-ups: Pop-ups can disrupt the user experience on mobile; use them sparingly and ensure they are easy to close.
• Enable fast page loading: Compress images, use caching, and minimize redirects to speed up page performance.
• Allow easy form entry: Use autofill, dropdown selectors, and large input fields to simplify mobile form submissions.
• Use responsive media: Ensure images, videos, and embedded content scale properly to different screen sizes without breaking the layout.
• Prioritize essential information: Display key details prominently on smaller screens while keeping less critical information secondary.
• Enable Click-to-Call and Click-to-Email: Ensure contact details are interactive, allowing users to call or email directly from their mobile device.

How to leverage AI for your event website

Here are seven ways AI can enhance the user experience:

1. AI-powered chatbots: Provide real-time assistance to answer attendee inquiries.
2. Behavioral analysis: Use AI-powered solutions such as heat maps to track how people use your website and which pages are popular.
3. AI-powered A/B testing: Automate testing of different web page elements to improve engagement. 
4. Predictive analytics: Use AI to forecast trends and attendee preferences for targeted content 
5. Automated content creation: Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to create event descriptions, blog content, and FAQ web pages. 
6. Real-time language translation: Enable AI-driven multilingual support for international attendees.
7. Voice-search optimization: Enhance search capabilities by allowing voice commands for navigation and queries. 

💡Check out more tips for using AI to enhance your event marketing efforts. 

How to measure the performance of your event website

Your event website is the digital gateway to attendee engagement. But how do you measure its success? Tracking key metrics allows you to optimize performance and drive registrations.

Key metrics to monitor

1. Conversion rate: The percentage of visitors who complete registration. A high conversion rate signals an effective website experience, while a low rate suggests friction in the process.
2. Bounce rate: The percentage of visitors who leave without interacting. A high bounce rate may indicate unclear messaging or slow loading times.
3. Average session duration: How long visitors stay on your site. Longer sessions suggest engagement, while short visits may signal a need for more compelling content.
4. Registrations and engagement: Monitor total sign-ups and track how visitors interact with features like agendas, speaker pages, and networking tools.

Measuring these KPIs enables continuous optimization—turning insights into action for better-performing events.

Event website FAQs

1. What are the essential elements of an event website?

An effective event website should include:

• Compelling event description: Communicate the purpose, audience, and key benefits.
• Registration page: A seamless, mobile-friendly sign-up process.
• Agenda and speakers: Highlight sessions, keynotes, and networking opportunities.
• Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage early registration with clear buttons and messaging.
• Sponsorship and exhibitor details: Showcase partners to add credibility.
• FAQs and contact information: Address common queries and provide support.

2. How can I drive early registrations?

Late or last-minute registrations are a constant challenge for planners. Encourage early sign-ups by:

• Offering early-bird discounts or exclusive perks.
• Creating urgency with countdown timers.
• Promoting VIP experiences or limited-access sessions.
• Sending email campaigns with personalized invitations.
• Leveraging social proof, such as testimonials and past event highlights.

3. How can I promote my event website?

Target past attendees and prospects with personalized messaging, which includes clear CTAs linked to the event website. Ensure you segment your audience to allow you to personalize your messaging successfully and drive visibility with:

• Email marketing
• Social media campaigns
• Paid ads on platforms such as Google and LinkedIn 
• Encourage your speaker and sponsors to promote to their networks.
• SEO optimization tactics, such as using relevant keywords to drive organic traffic.

4. How can I optimize my event website for mobile users?

Ensure a mobile-friendly experience by:

• Using a responsive design that adapts to all screen sizes.
• Keeping forms short and simple to ease registration.
• Implementing fast-loading pages to reduce drop-offs.
• Avoiding excessive pop-ups that disrupt the experience.

5. What should I do with my event website after my event to keep engagement high?

Maintain momentum by:

• Posting event highlights.
• Sharing on-demand content (session recordings, key takeaways).
• Encouraging attendees to complete post-event surveys.
• Promoting future events with exclusive offers for attendees.
• Keeping the conversation going on social media and community forums.

Armed with these strategies and actionable advice for creating successful event websites, you’ll be converting online visitors into in-person delegates in no time. Remember to lay strong foundations, create a timeline that can be stuck to, design a compelling strategy, focus on key UX principles, and measure performance.