Calendar Event Listing Tips

Your website’s Events Calendar is a great way to advertise your upcoming events. It also serves the purpose of drawing viewers to your website over and over, making your site a valuable resource. What follows are suggestions on how to leverage this resource for your organization.

Bring Awareness To Your Community Involvement

Community members and/or clients are not always aware of events occurring in their communities. The first thing you should do is set guidelines for in-house and community events that you want to broadcast. A good way to do this is to consider how an event benefits your organization and the community during and following the event. You should consider posting events based on but not limited to the following:

• Events sponsored or co‐sponsored by your organization or any of its programs or units;
• Events sponsored by other non‐partisan, non‐profit organizations that share your organization’s goals and values. Some of these may include but are not limited to:
  • Chamber of Commerce/City or Town Events/ Meetings
  • Church Events
  • Elections
  • Public Forums
  • Town Parades/ Celebrations/ Meetings/Carnival/ Circus/…
  • Town Visitors (Santa, Politicians, etc.)
  • Community Networking Events/Breakfasts/ Luncheons/Dinners/ Parties
  • Tax Dates
  • Holidays, providing context within which other events are scheduled
  • Project Dates ‐ dates that you publish in any other format, such as newsletters
  • Closings

Provide Details About Your Event

The Events Calendar is a place to expand upon all of an event’s details. This should include but is not limited to:

• Date(s)
• Time(s)
• Location(s)
• Entry Fee(s)
• Requirement(s)
• Profit Distribution(s)
• A point of contact for RSVP's and/or additional information
• Activities to be held

With any event you post, you should consider what the event is supporting. You should also consider how an event will benefit your organization and the community. Viewers do not care that it is so-and-so's birthday, but they will want to know that you are hosting a class or that your office may be closed for the holidays.

Attract Return Viewers

The Events Calendar should be updated on a weekly basis. If web users know that your calendar is always fresh and full of community events, they will likely begin using your site as their go‐to‐source for event information, drawing them back to your website again and again.