5 Essential WordPress Plugins for Your Event Websites

With over 60 million users, WordPress is the most popular website content management system on the Internet. Many event websites are built using the platform, and it isn't hard to see why: With WordPress, you can install plugins for your website, giving it a level of functionality way beyond your own programming capabilities.

This is one of the major for WordPress's popularity.

If you've built your event website using WordPress, here are five fantastic plugins to consider.

Ticket Sales Plugin: Ticket Tailor

Our brand new Ticket Tailor plugin makes selling tickets directly from your WordPress website incredibly easy. Visitors are able to buy tickets by completing a simple booking form, and payment is then collected via PayPal or Stripe, the two most popular payment processors in the world.

Unlike many ticketing solutions, Ticket Tailor does not charge you per ticket sold -- instead you're charged a flat monthly fee, starting from as little as £15 / $25 per month.

The plugin allows you to add a booking form on any page of your website, or even in the sidebar. All you have to do is place a simple shortcode where you want your bookings to appear.

You can set up multi-level pricing, as well as adding multiple discount codes, giving you a lot of flexibility to price your tickets as you want. After purchase an e-ticket -- complete with unique barcode -- is automatically sent to the attendee; the complete list can be exported, giving you a ready-made door list -- one less thing to worry about.

Schedule Plugin: Timetable Responsive Schedule

If your event spans more than a few hours, you most likely have a number of different 'acts' scheduled. Displaying the complete roster is a great way to show potential attendees what to expect, which is a great way to boost attendance.

My favourite timetable plugin is the Responsive Schedule plugin, available from CodeCanyon for $18.

It allows you to create an hour-by-hour, day-by-day timetable for your event, which is then presented beautifully in clean, coloured blocks -- sure, free plugins exist, but none offer the same flexibility or look even half as good.

The plugin is completely responsive, meaning it displays correctly whatever device your visitor is using. By setting the colour of each block, you can create a timetable in-keeping with your website's existing colour scheme, as well as creating a colour coding system. This is especially useful for events such as a musical festival, where event managers can assign a colour for acts on a particular stage. Users can filter the timetable down, letting them view all acts on a given stage.

Social Media Plugin: Flare

If you want excited attendees to spread word of your event, a social media plugin is a must.

In my opinion, Flare is one of the best social media plugins available to WordPress users. Best of all, it's completely free.

Flare supports eight different social media platforms -- all the major ones are supported, as you'd expect. You get a clean set of icons, which can be positioned at the top and/or bottom of each page, and you can also float them on either side of the page.

If people see your event is being shared frequently, they will be more likely to share it themselves -- such is the power of social proof. Flare takes advantage of this by including a small counter under each icon, displaying the number of shares on that particular platform. It also includes a larger total shares counter at the top.

Of course, social proof works both ways, and Flare gives you the option to not display share counts below a specified level.

As well as offering sharing functions, you can also create a widget where visitors can choose to follow you on their specified platform.

Countdown Plugin: T(-) Countdown

If you want to build a sense of tension and excitement to the build up to your event, consider using a countdown clock on your website. As the clock ticks closer to zero, it creates a sense of urgency in the visitors and is a proven way to boost ticket sales.

My recommendation is the free T(-) Coundown clock.

There are a number of customisation options with this plugin, allowing you to create a countdown clock in-keeping with the design of your WordPress website. When you're happy with your clock you'll be given a shortcode which you can directly insert into a post, or place in a sidebar widget.

Wrapping Up

Are there any plugins you think is essential for any event website? Let us know in the comments space below!

How to Sell Tickets Online

Whether you're hosting a one-off music festival or a weekly club night, offering ticket sales via your website is a proven way to boost attendence. In fact, in this day and age, online ticket sales is something that your customers will expect and demand -- from their point of view, buying online is far more convenient than having to track down a brick-and-mortar box office.

If you're looking to sell tickets online, Ticket Tailor is one of the premier ticketing solutions, with thousands of event organisers already using our easy-to-use service. A quick snapshot of benefits of using Ticket Tailor include:

• No per-ticket fees -- we charge monthly, making it more affordable for you
• Customisable tickets and ticket page
• Integrate either PayPal or Stripe to receive your funds
• Exclusive access to your customer data

Ready to jump in? Good!

Today, we take a detailed look at how to set up and start selling tickets from your website, using Ticket Tailor.

Getting Started

To start, you'll need to sign up for the Ticket Tailor service. It's completely free to do so, and this gives you complete access to everything on the back-end before you commit to becoming a paid member. This is great as it allows you to play around with the different options to get a feel for the service before spending a penny -- of course, to actually sell tickets, you will have to become a paid-up member.

Creating Your First Event

After signing up, you'll be taken to the dashboard. The first thing we need to do is to create an event. To do this, click on the Events tab at the top, then click Add a new event.

This will open up a new page, where you can begin to start adding details of your event.

Start by adding the name, location and time of the event. If you click on Advanced options you'll be able to add a start and end time and date for your event. You can also add some extra information about your event in the Description field. I've created an example event, which you can see in the screenshot below.

When you've done this, you can add a new type of ticket to be sold on your website. Click Add a new ticket type. This will open a lightbox, where you can begin to set up details of your tickets. Add a name for your ticket, and if you want, a description.

Use the Face value field to set a price for this ticket type. You can add a booking fee -- note, this is for you, not for us -- which can cover your associated administrative costs.

You can also set the number of tickets available in the Quantity field, as well as the maximum tickets per order, if you want to prevent one customer buying up all the tickets.

When you're happy, click Save ticket.

You can add as many types of tickets as you want -- for example VIP tickets -- so repeat this step as you please.

When you're happy, it's time to move on to the next part of the adding an event process. You can set your default currency, as well as a transaction fee -- if you'd prefer customers incur a fee on a transaction basis, rather than a per-ticket basis.

You can also add an image for your event, set your order confirmation -- the message a customer receives after a successful ticket purchase -- and click the check box under Send SMS tickets if you want your customers to be texted their ticket. Note: you will require SMS credits to do this.

When you're happy, click to Save event.

From here, you'll be taken to an event summary, providing details for your event, a graph showing the number of each ticket type sold, and the URL of your event box office.

Click on the icon next to the URL and you can see what your box office looks like, with everything in the default settings.

Here's what mine looks like:

It looks good, but probably doesn't match your website's colour scheme. Let's make some changes.

Customisation

The good news is, there are a number of customisation options, so you can get your box office just right.

Click on the Box office setup tab at the top. You'll be presented with a number of options, but let's start by hitting the Customisation button at the top.

From here, you can adjust the colours for your background and text, as well as adjusting your font. You can even add a logo for your event.

When you've made adjustments and want to see what your new box office looks like, hit Save.

This will bring a new gold box up, which you can click to preview the changes you made.

Now, I'm not very creative at all! I'm sure you can do a much better job at customising your box office, but the screenshot below shows you how different you can make your box office look, in just a few minutes.

Payment Integration

When you're happy with your event details and box office design, the next step to sell tickets online is to add a payment processor. With Ticket Tailor, you're given a choice between Stripe and PayPal. These are the two big players in the industry, and both are a great payment solution, so whichever one you choose will be fine. You can read more about them here: Collecting ticket payments with Stripe or PayPal.

When you've decided which payment processor to use, click on the Box office setup tab again, then go to Payment options. You'll be greeted with the choice between Stripe and PayPal, so click to connect your Ticket Tailor account up to your chosen processor.

Let's branch off here, so I can show you how to integrate each service.

Stripe

If you want to use Stripe as your payment processor, click to Connect a Stripe account.

You'll see the Stripe signup form. If you're new to Stripe, it's time to fill it in. Work your way through the questions, giving as much detail as possible. If you're yet to officially register your business, don't worry: the company number and VAT fields are optional.

If you already have a Stripe account, this process is much quicker. Simply click to sign in from the top right-hand corner of the page. You'll be asked to log in, and then taken to an authorisation page. Click the big blue button to connect your Stripe account with Ticket Tailor.

If done successfully, you'll then see a lightbox, confirming you've connected your Stripe account, and giving you some options for future events. Click Save payment system and you're done!

PayPal

To use PayPal, click to Connect a PayPal account. A lightbox will pop up, asking for your PayPal email address. If you don't have a PayPal account, click the link to register with PayPal. If you do have one, simply input the email address your account is registered under and click Save payment system.

That's it with PayPal! Easy, right?

Integrate with Your Website

An optional step to sell tickets online is to integrate your box office with your website. To do this, click the Box office setup tab, then hit Website integration.

From here, Ticket Tailor will automatically generate some code that can be directly inserted into your website to embed your ticket checkout.

To get the HTML code, simply click on the blue text, then copy and paste the code. You can paste this directly onto the page you want to display your box office, or, if you want it displayed on every page, into your sidebar.

If you use WordPress, creating a sidebar widget is simple. From your WordPress dashboard, simply go to Appearance > Widgets and use the drag and drop interface to drag a Text widget from your available widgets into your sidebar box. Simply paste your HTML code into the text widget, and hit save.

For those of you preferring a WordPress plugin for the job, Ticket Tailor has recently released its own dedicated plugin. Go to Plugins > Add New and search for 'Ticket Tailor'. You should find it at the top of the search results, then click Install Now.

Finally, click to Get the WordPress code, and paste the shortcode anywhere on your site. The plugin will then use the shortcode to create your box office.

Wrapping Up

And that's it! You can now sell your event tickets online, right from your website -- expect a nice increase in ticket sales!

This tutorial has been quite thorough to allow us to help people of all skill levels, but in reality it shouldn't take you very long at all to integrate your box office into your site. For most people, your online ticket checkout will be up and running in minutes.

Not bad at all!

If you have any questions or need help with anything, let us know in the comments section below and we'll do our best to help as quickly as possible! Thanks.

How to Keep No-Shows to a Minimum when Selling Tickets Online

As an event planner, maximising ticket sales will always be one of your primary goals. After all, this is one of your major revenue streams that makes your event financially viable. If you've already met your ticket sales targets, well done. Just remember: the hard work doesn't end there.

If you want to ensure your event is a real hit, you need a good level of attendance.

But why does this matter? After all, if a punter has already bought a ticket, why should you care if they bother turning up?

Well, can you really consider your event a success if nobody attends? Whether you've recouped your costs from ticket sales is irrelevant.

People really do make the party.

You can have the best line-up in the world, but if your audience aren't captivated, the event will fall flat on its face. Can you really generate the same buzz if your venue is only half-full?

You also have to consider your sponsors. They've paid for a certain level of exposure; if hardly anyone turns up, they're not getting their money's worth. If you are relying on their sponsorship money for future events, you might have to look elsewhere.

And what about your other revenue streams? Not all events can generate huge profits, and the success of many events--particularly smaller ones--rests on small margins. If you are expecting to recoup some of your costs from food and drink sales, a full house will generate the most sales.

If you want to keep your no-shows to a minimum, here are a few strategies to follow.

1. Charge an Entrance Fee

Free events will generate a higher number of no-shows than paid events. That's a matter of fact.

If your tickets are free, you'll get a number of subscribers who are only half interested in attending. When the date rolls round, these are going to be the people who drop out first.

People place a higher value on something they've had to pay for. Even if you only charge a nominal fee, this will be enough to deter the least interested, and the least likely to show up.

2. Keep Buzz Levels High

Have you ever bought a ticket you were really excited about, only to find your excitement levels falling as the date ticked closer?

This happens more often than you think, especially if people buy their tickets months in advance of the event--it's just difficult to stay that excited over long time periods.

This is why you need to manage the buzz surrounding your event. If anticipation peaks too early, you might find a large number of people drop out.

Luckily, there is a simple strategy to combat this: Don't disclose your full line-up on the first day; drip feed your announcements to build anticipation steadily.

If you feel the buzz levels dropping in the build up to the event, announcing a big act at the last minute is a great way to ensure excitement peaks at the right time.

3. Considerate Planning

While an initial wave of excitement might ensure your tickets get hoovered up, at some point potential attendees will have to seriously consider the logistics of attendance.

This is where smart event planning comes to the fore.

For example, is throwing a rock concert on Christmas Eve really a good idea? Your event might sell out, but will people actually attend? Will August's impulse buyers really have factored in things like the weather, family commitments and public transport disruptions when they made their commitment to attend?

Of course, most won't have, and this will result in a significant number of no-shows.

A smart event planner will factor in public holidays and locations in the early stages: The fewer problems people have trying to attend, the lower your no-show figures will be.

4. Simplify the Cancellation Process

This might seem counter-intuitive, but simplifying your cancellation process is a great way to keep no-shows to a minimum.

If you make your cancellation process quick and easy, those people unable to attend will be more likely to request a refund.

This will allow you to put those tickets back on sale, where they can be purchased by people who can attend.

5. Oversubscribe Your Event

If your event has been running for a while, you should have collected some very useful data relating to attendance. For example, what percentage of tickets result in a no-show? The longer your event has been running, the more reliable your data will be.

With this information at hand, could you sell extra tickets, safe in the knowledge that a certain number of people won't show?

Of course, this is a risky strategy: Most venues will have maximum capacities for health and safety, and this number cannot be exceeded. Turning away ticketholders would be a PR disaster.

With this in mind, make sure you leave yourself a strong margin for error!

6. Pace Your Ticket Release

A person who bought their ticket months (or even years) before the event is more likely to become a no-show than someone who bought their ticket at the last minute.

After all, a number of things can happen over a longer time period: circumstances can change, unforseeable events can arise, and even the person's enthusiasm for the event could drop.

If you sell all your tickets on your event's launch day, you're far more likely to have poor drop-out figures by the time the event comes around. Of course, selling all your tickets at the last minute is fraught with risk.

The solution: spread your ticket sales out. Release them in batches, ensuring only the most eager fans--those most likely to turn up--to get hold of them at each stage.

7. Non-refundable Deposits for No-Shows

If attendance is a significant problem for you, consider collecting a non-refundable deposit with each ticket bought, which is held in the event of a no-show.

This is especially effective for free events, which are notorious for no-shows.

This strategy will deter anyone on the fence from buying a ticket. It will also encourage ticketholders to attend, so that they can avoid the financial penalty.

Wrapping Up

If you want to ensure a great turn out at your next event, these simple strategies are a great way to keep non-attendees down to a minimum.

Of course, there are many more factors that will impact attendance: ticket sales, the general buzz surrounding your event, and your track-record for throwing a great event.

However, these strategies will safeguard you against no-shows, ensuring your event gets as close to a full-house as possible, and allowing it to become the success it deserves!

How do you combat no-shows for your event? Share your experience in the comments section below!

How Starting a Blog Can Sell Tickets

Content rules the Internet -- it's powerful stuff. If you're looking to sell more tickets from your website, producing great content is a great place to start. This is why so many successful event websites run a dedicated blog.

Now, the number of tickets you sell from your website will be a function of the amount of traffic you send to it, and your conversion rate.

Some activities target one or the other, but the best thing about a blog: it boosts both.

This means your blog can sell substantially more tickets -- and remember, your event will live or die by the number of tickets sold.

Want to know why a blog is so effective? Read on!

Note: Most event websites would benefit from a blog, but the nature of a business conference makes a dedicated blog particularly effective.

More Content, More Search Engine Traffic

At its most basic, a regularly updated blog will attract more search engine traffic.

Each post you write targets a different keyword (or set of keywords), increasing the probability of someone stumbling across your event's website. The more you write, the more longtail keywords you'll begin to rank for, too, as a consequence of all the different words and combinations now appearing on your website.

Google loves a site with lots of content, especially recently published, up-to-date content -- the more you publish, the more credible you are as a source of information in Google's eyes. This can give you a small boost in the SERPs.

The result? More traffic to your website.

In my opinion, attracting more search traffic should never be the only goal of your blog -- we'll get to that later -- but it's definitely a nice by-product of publishing lots of useful material on your website.

Great Posts Boost User Engagement

If you decide to start a blog for your website -- and I hope this post will encourage you to do so! -- you should only ever be looking to publish top quality information.

A great blog increases user engagement, and this will boost your conversion rate. Put another way, a great blog sells tickets.

This is especially true for educational events, such as a business conference.

Ask yourself the following: Why should a person attend your conference over the hundreds of others out there? What makes you qualified to give advice? Where's your business acumen?

Don't just tell people why you're qualified, show them through the insights on your blog. When done well, this is more effective than any sales pitch.

If you can blow people away with the depth of information available for free on your blog, they will be desperate to hear the information you're charging for. Your tickets will practically sell themselves!

If you want to convert more of the traffic that stumble across your site into paying customers, a high quality, well-written blog is almost unbeatable.

Social Signals Galore

Of course, the search engines aren't the only way you can draw traffic to your website. You can also attract social traffic, and a high quality blog is a magnet for this.

Unsurprisingly, there is a positive correlation between the quality of material you publish and the number of social shares you get. When your articles are shared on social media, you expand the reach of your event, and each click potentially brings a new audience member to the party.

Bringing more traffic to your website is just one way to sell more tickets for your event.

Better still, social traffic comes with a gold plated seal of approval from a trusted source. If a close friend recommends something to me, I'm far more likely to listen -- this is social proof at work.

With visitors more receptive to your message, there's a good chance this traffic will convert better.

And remember, Google's ranking algorithm takes social signals into consideration. All those extra social shares your website gets from your blog can potentially help you rank higher, bringing even more traffic your way.

Paid Traffic More Viable

Let's look at an indirect benefit from having a blog for your event.

If your blog provides visitors with bucketloads of great information, conversions take care of themselves. This makes other traffic sources a more realistic proposition.

I'm talking paid traffic sources.

If your blog converts more visitors into paying attendees, the more cost-effective paid advertising becomes.

Remember, you're going to pay the same amount regardless, you'll attract the same number of new visitors, but now you're converting more of them. You're getting a bigger return from your initial outlay -- a better ROI.

Your estimated ROI can make or break the viability of a particular paid traffic source. The better your site converts -- and we've already discussed how a blog can help with this -- the more you can invest in attracting more traffic from paid sources, safe in the knowledge you'll recoup your expenses.

You could even offset the cost of your paid traffic by letting a sponsor pay for the privilege of a sponsored blog post. This is a form of native advertising, advertising in the context of what a user wants and expects. The user still gets top quality content, but the sponsor gets to push their brand by showing off their expertise. Everyone is happy.

Wrapping Up

This post is just an introduction to how powerful a properly ran event blog can be, in the context of improving attendance figures. If you have any thoughts on how an event blog can help promote an event, share your thoughts in the comment section below!

How to Take Ticket Deposits

Some of your customers might be interested in attending your event, but unwilling to pay the face value of the ticket upfront. There could be a number of reasons for this: convenience, uncertainty of availability, cash flow problems, etc. The solution to this problem is to allow customers to pay a deposit, then settle the balance at a later date.

You can facilitate customer deposits easily using the Ticket Tailor service. Today I want to show you how, in two simple steps.

Step 1: Set Up a New Ticket Type

The first step is to set up a new ticket type. To do this, head over to the Ticket Tailor dashboard, click on your event, then click Edit event details.

From here, you can create a new ticket by scrolling down to Ticket types and clicking Add a new ticket type.

Now, you can set up your ticket. Call it something like 'Deposit' to make it clear what the ticket is, and make sure you write a description to make it completely clear that the balance will have to be settled later.

Use the Face value field to determine the deposit amount -- I'd recommend making it around 10% of the face value.

Save your ticket, then save your event and you can view your updated box office.

Looks good, right? Now, when a user wants to buy a ticket they can choose between leaving a deposit or buying the ticket upfront.

Step 2 -- Option A: Settle Balance on the Door

The easiest way to settle the balance is on the door.

Ticket Tailor lets you export a doorlist, which will include information about the ticket purchase, including the type of ticket purchased. You can quickly see who has paid in full and who has bought your 'Deposit' ticket. Any person presenting a 'Deposit' ticket will then have to pay the remaining balance before they are admitted.

Step 2: Option B: Settle the Balance Before the Event

For some events, settling the balance on the door might not be realistic -- some business conference tickets can cost hundreds of dollars, which makes paying in cash at the door undesirable.

Follow step 1 as before, and create two ticket types: Full balance and 'Deposit'.

When a customer purchases a ticket, Ticket Tailor sends them an e-ticket, direct to their email address. This email address can be used to request payment of the outstanding balance -- make sure this is made clear in the ticket description.

To settle the balance, simply duplicate your event -- this is necessary to complete a completely separate box office checkout from before. Add a description explaining that this is a request to settle the balance if you are still planning on attending.

You can then send an email to anyone who left a deposit, linking them to your new box office checkout to settle the balance.

Once the balance is settled, make it clear that the person needs to bring the new settled balance e-ticket rather than the original e-ticket they received when they made their deposit.

There will be two guest lists to be exported -- one from your original event, one from your duplicated event -- and the doorman will have to be aware not to admit someone with just a 'Deposit' ticket.

This allows you to create a system to collect deposits for more expensive events and settle the balance before your event starts. As many people won't have large sums of money upfront, you will sell more tickets this way!

It might not be the ideal solution, but for minimal effort you can increase your attendance substantially.

Any Questions?

If you need help with anything else related to ticket deposits, ask away in the comments section. We'll be sure to get back to you quickly!

9 Elements of a Successful Event Website

Every event needs a website. Whether you're working on a local or national scale, or hosting events ranging from charity fundraiser to music festival, a website is the absolute minimum requirement.

After all, where do you think people will go to find information about your event, or even buy tickets?

Of course, getting your website right is easier said than done. After looking at countless websites for well-established events from around the world, we've narrowed down the nine core elements of a successful event website. Follow these and your website can build hype and awareness for your event -- not to mention selling more tickets!

1. Strong Branding

What is it that makes a visitor remember your website?

Your branding.

At its most basic, this is the look, feel and personality of your event projected onto your website. The colour scheme, headlines and images used should all consolidate this brand image.

Of course, the name and logo of your event will form an integral part of your overall branding, shaping the public's perception of you, so pick something fitting.

A great example of great branding is the Glastonbury Festival website. With a bright, unusual colour scheme and a consistent, recognisable font, the event organisers have created something memorable and distinct.

2. Responsive Design

It's 2014. Your visitors will be browsing your website from a range of different devices, so make sure you use a responsive design to keep the user experience consistently high.

Responsive designs automatically displays a version of your website most suited to a user's device, providing an optimal viewing experience.

This might sound complex, but many WordPress themes come with this cross browser/device functionality built in -- check out ThemeForest for some great theme ideas.

For a quick look at how your event website might look on different devices, check out the Spigot Design Conference responsive design below.

3. Video and Images

Beyond looking nice, the primary function of your website should be to boost ticket sales.

Before purchasing a ticket, a visitor must respond positively to a fundamental question: is this the type of event I want to attend?

This is why using high quality images is so important: by showing a visitor what to expect from your event they can quickly judge whether the event appeals to them.

If they do -- and, of course, no event could ever appeal to every single person -- they will be pushed strongly towards purchasing a ticket. This is your desired outcome.

So what images are most effective?

• Your most popular acts
• The location/venue
• Photos taken at previous events
• Satisfied punters from your target demographic

If you want to take things one step further, consider creating a video for your event. Videos are perhaps the most sharable form of media, allowing you to spread word of your event further. It doesn't have to be overly complicated: a short preview of the event, or a highlight reel from last year, will do just fine.

One of the best examples of this I came across was the Boerne Wild West Day -- proof that you don't need to be a huge institution to create a great website for your event. The image of the Old West Town instantly sets the scene, and will instantly appeal to their target audience. Great work.

4. Push Your Headline Acts

Whilst the depth of your 'card' generally determines the success of your event, it is undoubtedly your headline acts that will generate the most excitement and sell the most tickets.

Take advantage of this: Every event website should have its most popular acts featured prominently on the homepage, whether this be a famous speaker or a best-selling band.

If you have more than one, consider giving each act a designated section on your homepage to maximise their exposure. For WordPress users, an image slider plugin works great for this, allowing you to give each headlining act their own slide.

The UK's Reading Festival does this perfectly, with a slider of their six headlining acts taking pride of place on the homepage.

5. Date, Time and Location

Once you've got the punters excited for your upcoming event, it's time to start breaking down potential buyer objections -- with each key piece of information you provide you make it significantly easier for someone to attend.

Is a visitor actually able to attend? Each visitor should be able to easily answer this question after a quick look round your site.

For this, you'll want to clearly display the time, date and location of your event. Embed a map from Google Maps to make it simple for a person to work out where your event is held in relation to them.

And to encourage extra ticket sales, as well as building a sense of suspense in the build up to your event, consider adding an event countdown clock to your website. WordPress users, again you're in luck: there are a number of free plugins specifically for this job.

For a real world example, check out the Brooklyn Brewery Mash website, with the date and location of every stop on the tour listed at the top of the homepage. This instantly allows potential attendees to locate the event closest to them, and check their availability during the specified dates.

6. Buy Tickets Buttons

What is the purpose of your website? To promote your event and sell tickets, right?

By following our advice so far your website will be the perfect resource for promoting your event; now it's time to boost ticket sales.

No event website is complete without a strong call to action. In this case, your desired action is a visitor buying a ticket.

All your hard work so far is for nothing if you don't make it as easy as possible for buyers to do so. Big, eye-catching buttons are great for this, taking a user directly to your sales page. When a user scrolls down the page, try to make sure a call to action is always visible. If you're selling tickets with WordPress, this is easy: you can place a ticket checkout in your sidebar on every page.

The easier it is to buy a ticket, the more tickets you sell. Simple.

Want to see this done well? While not technically an 'event', the Eco Adventures provides a fun day out for tourists, so the website is highly relevant. On the homepage, you can see several buttons that take visitors straight to the sales page. These tickets stand out against the background, drawing attention instantly -- exactly what you want your call to actions to do.

7. Grow Your Mailing List

Not everyone will rush to buy tickets after browsing even the most incredible of event websites; that's just a fact of life.

Some visitors will be on the fence, and others will be unable to attend for a whole host of reasons.

These people might not want to buy tickets right now, but they might want to in future. It would be a shame to let them leave -- they might never come back -- but you aren't going to convince them to buy today.

So what should you do? Include a secondary call to action at the top and bottom of each page of your website, allowing visitors to subscribe to your mailing list for updates on future events -- consider offering discounts as a sweetener.

When your next event comes around, you already have a ready-made list of highly targeted people to kick-start your ticket sales.

You can see this in action on a section of the Hybrid Conference website. They've designated a section of their homepage to growing their mailing list, alongside a Buy Now call to action. The striking pink colour means the section can't be missed.

8. Social Media Sharing

Social media is a great way to bring new traffic to your website, build buzz for the event itself and reduce your dependency on the search engines.

In my opinion it falls alongside building your mailing list as a secondary call to action; a person may not want to buy a ticket right now, but they can spread word of your event through social media.

Make sure you're active on all the major social platforms, and give your visitors two options:

1. To share your event on social media, giving your event more exposure
2. To follow you on social media, where they will receive updates and can potentially be converted into paying customers down the line

And, if you want people to join in the conversation surrounding your event, make sure you choose an event-specific hashtag and feature it prominently on your site.

The Splendour Festival website does this particularly well. You have all the social sharing buttons at the top of the homepage, above the fold. They also include a Facebook follow widget in the sidebar, as well as a Twitter widget to build a buzz around the music festival. An event that understands the importance of social media.

9. Sponsor Logos

And finally, don't forget who made the whole thing possible: Your sponsors.

Featuring sponsor logos on the homepage won't impact ticket sales, but it will keep your sponsors happy by giving them plenty of exposure.

Happy sponsors are more likely to become repeat sponsors -- keep this in mind for when your next event comes around!

The dConstruct Conference have got this spot on, giving a nod to the sponsors who made the event possible on the homepage. It might not sell additional tickets, but it justifies the sponsor's investment, and they should always be acknowledged.

Final Thoughts

Obviously certain aspects of this list will have a bigger impact on your audience than others, but when you put them all together you'll have a more complete website, able to draw the most out of people at every stage of the buying process.

Are there any aspects of a successful event website that we're missing? Let us know in the comments section below!

Sell tickets with WordPress

We are pleased to announce that our WordPress plugin has now gone live on the Wordpress plugin directory. If you want to sell tickets via your WordPress site, simply add our plugin. Then you can embed your box office in to any of your pages or blog posts with a simple snippet of text accessible from the Ticket Tailor control panel.

Learn more about in our help article:

• Help and Support: Sell tickets via your WordPress website

4 Ways to Boost Ticket Sales for Your Event Using Twitter

Looking for ways to increase ticket sales to your next event? You're probably already aware of it, but Twitter can be a highly-effective tool -- if it's used correctly.

If you want to sell more tickets via your website, the following four tips will help you get the most out of Twitter.

1. Pick a Unique Hashtag

These days, most event planners have caught on to the benefits of creating a unique hashtag for their event.

Unique hashtags make it super-easy for someone to jump straight into any conversation surrounding your event, all whilst building awareness and reinforcing your brand. It also makes it much easier for you to track what people are saying about the event, which will save you a lot of time.

A good hashtag should be short -- remember you only have 140 characters -- and memorable. Make sure your hashtag is well-promoted by including it in every tweet, actively pushing it on your website, and including it in any promotional material you release.

2. Ticket Giveaways

Spreading word of your event as far and wide as possible is a great way to maximise ticket sales.

How do you achieve this? By running a competition.

For maximum impact, make entry as easy as possible: a simple retweet competition works best. Just ask people to retweet to have a chance of winning two tickets to your event, include your unique hashtag, throw in a link to a blog post promoting the event, and you're good to go.

When you give people the chance to win something for free, you'll find them more than willing to promote your event for you, such is the power of the free giveaway -- and all it costs is the price of a couple of tickets.

The aim of your competition is to get your promotional material in front of as many people as possible; by offering a prize for something as simple as retweeting, you get more entries and this spreads your message to a much wider audience.

More people click on your link through to your site, more people buy tickets. Simple.

3. Link to Your Sales Page

When you pique someone's interest in your event from one of your tweets, do you capitalise on this? If not, you're leaving money on the table.

The best way to do this is to throw a link on the end of each tweet linking to a page where a person can buy tickets -- or at the very least, a promotional page for your event.

Sure, if a person is very interested, they will go out of their way to find the place to buy their ticket. But what about someone who is only somewhat interested? Forcing them to do all the heavy lifting might just put them off.

If you want to sell out your event -- and why wouldn't you -- making it as easy as possible to buy tickets is key. Converting impulse buyers and "floating voters" is perhaps the best way to boost your sales.

4. Twitter Widget for Social Proof

Never underestimate the power of social proof.

It's basic human psychology: If I can show you that other people are excited about an event, you yourself will be more drawn to that event.

Using this logic, if you've managed to generate a huge buzz around your event, by leveraging this correctly you'll generate a whole lot more -- and that means extra ticket sales.

So how do you do this?

Well, the best way is to show-off what other people are saying about your event on your website -- and, with Twitter being the go-to place for people to express their opinion on anything and everything, it's a good place to start.

Twitter have created their own plugin for this very purpose. You can create a feed that shows everything people are saying relating to a specific hashtag -- making it even more important you come up with something unique!

Simply click on this link, login to Twitter then click Create New. From there, click on the Search tab, and input your hashtag in the Search Query field -- you can select more than one if needed.

Play around with the customisation settings until you're happy; you can edit the size of the widget, colour scheme and link colour. When you're done, simply hit Create Widget and copy and paste the code it generates.

Code can be quite intimidating, but in this case it doesn't have to be. For WordPress users, all you need to do is head over to your dashboard, click Appearance > Widgets then drag a Text widget into your sidebar. Paste your code into this widget and you're done!

If you're using HTML, simply paste the code directly where you want it to go -- the Javascript comes with the relevant HTML tags, which means you can paste it straight in.

Now, when visitors view your site, they will see the good things others are saying about your event on Twitter -- if you sell tickets via your website, this can be very persuasive.

Wrapping Up

These four tips are incredibly simple to implement but will have a positive impact on your bottom line -- sometimes a simple approach generates the most success!

Have you had experience promoting your event using Twitter? Share your experiences with us in the comments section below!

Sell tickets directly from your website

Great news! We've just introduced website widgets that allow you to sell tickets online direct from your website. The customer can go through the checkout process without leaving you site, and all you need to set it up is  a couple of lines of code. See the example below:

[tt-event url='//www.tickettailor.com/new-order/15264/9fe4/ref/website_widget/' minimal='false' bg_fill='false' ]

To get your widget code, login to your account, click the Box Office Setup tab and click Website Integration.

You can customise the widget with the following settings:

Event: This determines which event it should display, or select "All Events" if you want a widget that stays up to date with all of your events. Background: You can choose "Same as theme" which uses the same background colour as your box office settings, or "Transparent" which will mean there's no background colour set. Event info: Choose between "Show" or "Hide". Most of the time you will probably want to show the event info but if you are adding the widget to an event page that already has event info, then you may want to hide it.

Choose your settings and click Update. You will now see a preview of your widget. Click the link Get the HTML code. Copy and paste this code in to your websites HTML wherever you want the widget to appear. If you are unsure what HTML code is, just send this code to your web designer.

We'd love to know any feedback you have.

Sell tickets free!

When you search for "Sell tickets free" online you get a whole load of companies all saying "Our service is free". But dig a little deeper and you'll find that what they really mean is that they will pass their fees on to your customers in the form of booking fees. If you tot up these fees, you will see that they amount to rather a lot of money.

Some ticket agencies claim their service is free, but it's not as simple as that.

So the customer ends up paying more to go to your event, but this is costing you money too. Without these booking fees, you could have charged your customer more for a ticket, pocketing the extra £1 or £2 that normally goes to the ticketing agency yourself. Alternatively, you could have made your event cheaper for your customer and, in doing so, attracted more customers.

At Ticket Tailor we charge no booking fees. We ask for a low monthly fee instead, and there are no contracts or minimum-commitment required (see our pricing page). In addition, you can sign up, set up your box office and start selling tickets for free; we will only ask you to start paying when you make your first sale.

Cheaper than free!

Eh? How can you be cheaper than free? Well, we have a neat little trick. We allow you to set and keep your own booking fee on ticket sales (this is totally optional). So, you could charge £10 for a ticket and add on a £1 booking fee, and we don't take any of that and it will more than cover your payment processing fees with PayPal or Stripe.

We think this is a much fairer way to do it.