The conference listing options provided by various website help organizers to promote their upcoming conferences/seminars/workshops effectively and ensure maximum participation. Many organizers these days leverage conference listing as a powerful marketing tool to divert participants to the conference website. But the conference website still acts as the first point of contact for the people interested in attending the upcoming event.
As an organizer, you cannot ensure maximum participation without making the conference website deliver optimum customer user experience. The conference website must keep visitors engaged by loading more quickly and delivering richer user experience on both computers and mobile devices. However, you also need to ensure that the website must enable participants to collect relevant information and register for the event in a quick and straightforward way.
It is always important to ask a set of important questions to build a conference website that will persuade website visitors to attend the upcoming event.
5 Questions You Must Ask while Planning and Building a Conference Website
1. Can attendees collect relevant information quickly and easily?
Most attendees these days access conference websites on their smartphones and tablets. They also expect the website to display relevant information about the conference – schedule, venue, theme, registration process and last date for submission – on its home page. You can keep the visitors engaged by displaying key information about the conference on the website’s front page.
2. Does the website keep prospective participants interested and engaged?
The visitors these days abandon slow and complex websites. You can easily keep the visitors engaged by making the website fast and navigable. But you cannot convert the visitors into attendees presenting information by combining textual content and images. It is always important to share information about the conference by including short presentation video in the website.
3. Can participants register for the conference in a fast and straightforward way?
In addition to conveying important information about the event, the website must enable visitors to register for the event. The participants want to register for the conference in a quick and straightforward way. You need to check the registration form is easy to use and understand. The website must make it easier for visitors to register for the conference by conveying important information like registration fees, special offers/discounts, payment methods, and deadline.
4. Can the participants submit abstracts and papers directly?
Most conference websites these days allow visitors to attend the conference as a speaker, attendee, or volunteer. The visitors even have the option to register for the conference or submit conference paper abstracts through the website. You can make it easier for interested attendees to prepare conference papers by displaying guidelines for abstract submission. The website further need to explain the abstract submission process clearly and allow participants to upload abstracts.
5. Can the attendees access conference program in advance?
Their packed work schedules make it difficult for professionals to attend conferences and seminars on a regular basis. You must make it easier for professionals to attend the conference by posting the conference program on the website. The conference program must clearly depict individual sessions clearly and elaborately. You can even allow participants to download the conference program in PDF format. The conference program will help participant to attend relevant sessions without impacting their professional assignments.
You cannot ensure maximum participation without optimizing the conference website’s user experience. It is always important to assess the conference website’s user experience based on its loading speed, mobile friendliness, navigation, and user-friendliness. However, you also need to keep in mind these questions while performing conference website testing.