With the work from home policies due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the online event management industry has shown rapid growth. In fact, its market size was valued at $94 billion in 2020 and is consistently growing.
Therefore, investing in an online event website can be a great idea. It lets you create a better and personalized virtual environment, from the registering process to engagement techniques.
However, running an excellent virtual event website requires specific tools like a virtual event platform and hosting that come in various types.
In this article, you’ll learn the benefits of having a virtual event website and several aspects your audience expects from it. We’ll also show you five essential criteria to help you choose the best hosting plan for your online event website.
Benefits of Having an Online Conference and Festival Website
Here are some advantages of having a website for your online events:
- Money and energy efficiency. No need to reserve a physical space or arrange equipment. A website can hold many people as long as you purchase the right hosting plan from a reliable web hosting provider.
- Customizability. You have the freedom to include whatever features you want, such as virtual lobby and ice breaker tools. For instance, the virtual music festival Tomorrowland’s website provides playlists of the artists and integrates an eCommerce platform for event merchandise.
- Detailed analytics. It’s possible to integrate an analytics tool to your website to help measure your event’s success. The data can help persuade exhibitors and sponsors to fund your event.
What the Audience Needs from Your Website
This section will show you important elements that your attendees usually expect from an online event website.
- User-friendly interface. Easy navigation within your website to find the event information, event registration, and availability of online sessions.
- Engagement tools. Include live Q&A sections, polls, and quizzes. These tools are helpful to avoid screen fatigue and make the live session more fun.
- Seamless payment process. Include secure and well-known methods for accepting payments. Also, it’s important to make sure that the payment experience is intuitive and straightforward.
- Accessibility from all devices. Not all attendees can join the desktop version. In fact, statistically 31% of people join virtual meetings on mobile phones. Therefore, it’s essential to ensure that your online conference and festival website is fully-functional on various devices.
- Detailed information about the event. Include the schedule, terms of use, and contact information. Also, consider adding information that persuades the audience to join your event. For example, Web Summit shares the speakers’ backgrounds and companies that attend the event to increase credibility.
How to Decide the Best Hosting Plan for Your Website
Web hosting is one of the most essential elements when building a website as it stores your site’s files, including videos, texts, and images. There are many hosting options and providers available with unique features.
However, here are the fundamental factors to consider when choosing a hosting plan.
Traffic Capacity
When it comes to traffic capacity, look at the bandwidth a hosting plan offers.
Imagine bandwidth like roads and traffic like cars passing through them. If the streets are narrow, they wouldn’t be able to accommodate the car traffic at average speeds, resulting in delays.
The first step to determining the bandwidth you need is to estimate the amount of traffic coming to your website. Don’t forget to consider traffic spikes, especially during ticket sales and live streams. Then, use a hosting bandwidth calculator to know your estimated bandwidth quota.
Easy Configuration
Hosting is crucial for various technical processes of your website, including development and maintenance. In this case, it’s critical to choose a hosting provider that has a user-friendly control panel so that you can navigate and configure the setup quickly.
To ensure that a hosting provider has a handy dashboard, check out its control panel tour or request a demo before purchasing the service.
Support
Experiencing a few problems during website development is common.
Therefore, it would be great if a customer support team of the web host could assist you. It can be via email, live chat, and a knowledge base containing basic troubleshooting and development guidelines.
You can check a web host’s website to see the kinds of support it offers or read reviews.
Security
When you run ticket sales or an eCommerce store on your website, having a secure web hosting service is essential. It’s because online transactions contain sensitive information, like credit card numbers and bank passwords, which hackers often target.
That’s why you should choose a web host that offers advanced security. Make sure it provides an SSL certificate that keeps the data secure by encrypting server-client communication. It’s also essential for a provider to have a firewall to protect the server from DDoS attacks.
Cost
With a small budget, it may be tempting to pick the cheapest option. However, investing some money to meet the features you need is necessary to make sure your virtual event goes well.
To look for the best deals, consider researching different hosting companies and purchasing the plan during a special event like Black Friday. Many web hosts also offer lower signup prices, which can be helpful if you’re just starting.
Which Best Hosting Type for Virtual Event Websites?
If you want to have a virtual event with more than 100,000 monthly visits, it’s better to invest in the highest type of hosting service, like a dedicated server. This option offers faster speeds and more uptime than other hosting types. However, dedicated hosting comes with the highest price.
An alternative is cloud hosting. It can be the best option for virtual event websites with fluctuating traffic because cloud hosting can adjust the price based on the resources you use.
Conclusion
Having an online event website comes with some advantages, like having complete control over the projects and customizing the site however you want.
However, when building a website, you should find out what your audience expects, like easy navigation, fun engagement tools, and access from various devices.
To have an excellent virtual event website, make sure you choose the right hosting service.
Criteria to consider when picking a hosting plan are:
- The ability to handle traffic
- Easy configuration
- Available customer support
- Security
- Cost
We hope this article has helped you understand more about building a virtual event website. Good luck.