How to maximise the online reach of your event or exhibition

This short guide outlines how to ensure your carefully written press release achieves strong web coverage.

Things you'll need

Put aside at least a few hours to research listings websites - the time will be well invested.

Use listings websites

User generated content is a fantastic tool, enabling you to post your own content directly onto listings websites:

Research the top listings websites for your industry - a good way to do this is Googling the kind of event you're promoting, and also including the region or city. For example, you might Google 'art event london', and then try some variations e.g. 'what's on london' or 'top art events'.
Research news listings for your city or region.
On each website, look for an option to 'add a listing', 'suggest a listing' or 'add an event'.
Most listings websites require you to register for an account - keep a note of your username and password for each website you register with.
Login, and upload the content from your press release.
Pay close attention to each website''s guidelines – most will require copy to be in the third person, and many have a tight word limit.
Once submitted, your entry is almost guaranteed to appear on that website within days, if not sooner.
As an added bonus, listings websites often share this content with their mailing list subscribers so your event will reach even more people in your target demographic.

Upload your press release to distribution websites

These websites allow you to upload press releases for free, and will feed your copy directly to search engines – it may well appear on Google News within an hour or so, much faster than waiting for Google to crawl your website and find the content.

Three effective distribution websites are (in alphabetical order):

Think beyond your database of press contacts

Consider which other organisations, colleagues or contacts could help promote your event, for example membership bodies or event partners.

Sit back and watch your event pop-up on listings websites

Not only is this web coverage invaluable in reaching potential attendees, but achieving links from a wide range of websites is also beneficial for improving your organisation's search engine rankings.