SEO Tips and Tactics for Events Venues

If you’re a venue marketer looking to stand out in a highly competitive sector, you’ll probably know about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)’s scope for increasing your website’s visibility. What you may not know (unless you’re an SEO expert like Charlie – our Senior Account Manager) is what steps to take to fully leverage the potential of event venue SEO.

In today’s digital first landscape, optimising the content on your venue’s website to drive organic traffic – from visitors reaching your site naturally via search engines – is vital. It’s  integral to any effective venue marketing strategy – for more on what else this should entail, check out our ‘Venue marketing plan: Strategies, examples and ideas’ blog. Unlike paid advertising on search engines, organic traffic is the (free) gift that keeps on giving, provided that you regularly maintain your website content in keeping with good SEO practices. More on that later.

We’re Patch Marketing, a UK based specialist marketing agency for the events industry. We work with venues all over the UK and Europe and we provide digital advertising, search engine marketing, social media, and SEO.

We deliver strategic SEO campaigns for venues, but we don’t want to spoil our intro by talking about ourselves so if you’re interested, simply fill out our contact form below.

Now, buckle in for a whistlestop ride, as Charlie shares some of his top tips and tactics for mastering the essentials of event venue SEO. From keyword research, to adding your venue to Google Maps to boost local SEO, this article will cover tactics to help you rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

How to maximise organic traffic to your event venue website

A search engine’s mission is to solve a user’s query in as few clicks as possible. This means that researching the most relevant keywords (the terms and phrases event planners use when searching for a venue) will provide the foundations for effective venue SEO.

Based on the specifics of your venue hire offer, you can begin defining keywords based on different terms your potential customers might use for venue finding. These are likely to include some (or all) of the following:

• Event type terms: such as “award ceremony venue”, “conference centre”, “filming location”, “outdoor event venue”
• Location modifiers: the town/city/region where your venue is based
• Niche modifiers: these could include “heritage”, “blank canvas”, “affordable”, “sustainable”, “sporting” …the list goes on!
• Capacities: from “small intimate venue” to “venue for 500 guests seated” and anything in between (or beyond)
• Amenity keywords: “accessible venue”, “venue with in-house catering”, “licenced wedding venues”, “venue for hybrid events” are a few examples

There are some great tools you can use to aid your keyword research. Semrush is one of our personal favourites, or Google Autocomplete will generate suggestions to help complete a partial search, e.g. “event venue for”. Moz and Keywords Everywhere offer free browser extensions you can use to assist your research process. 

When deciding which keywords to focus on for your venue SEO, there’s a few important considerations. These are the search volume, difficulty ranking based on how competitive a particular keyword is, and user intent (are they looking for a specific answer or researching brands and services)? Assessing these factors will help you ensure your website is optimised for the most relevant keywords, with the highest potential to drive organic traffic.

After conducting thorough keyword research, your next step should be setting up your SEO analytics. This is crucial for monitoring, evaluating and adapting your venue SEO strategy based on valuable insight data, helping you to understand how potential customers interact with your content.

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4), which isn’t surprising given it’s the most widely used web analytics platform in the world. With a GA4 account, you’ll be able to track metrics including organic traffic, bounce rate, engagement rate, pageviews, conversions, acquisition source, referral traffic, and average engagement time per session. To get started, simply create or sign into your Google Analytics account, set up a ‘Property’ for your venue website, and add some key ‘Goals’ for tracking conversions. These could range from enquiry forms completed online, or brochure downloads to the number of times a virtual tour is viewed. You’ll also need to add a tracking code for your GA4 account to your website.

Another top tip to ensure you’re fully taking advantage of data driven analysis is setting up Google Search Console (GSC) and integrating this with your GA4 account. GSC is a free tool used for monitoring your website’s performance and search engine visibility on Google specifically. Simply add and verify your property (website) in GSC, before submitting your website’s Sitemap. This will allow the search engine to crawl, index and rank your site, as well as flag any issues that may be affecting user experience and your website’s overall performance.

Adding your venue to Google Maps

Maximising opportunities for your venue to achieve high map ranking (also known as local SEO) for location-based searches should also form an important part of your SEO strategy. Local SEO has several benefits, including driving qualified traffic and higher conversion rate potential from planners specifically looking for venues in your area, as well as ranking above geographical competitors.

To do this, you’ll first need to add your venue to Google Maps. This can be done once you’ve claimed and verified your free Google Business Profile. You can then start personalising your profile, optimising your content and interacting with your customers to boost rankings. We recommend using every available feature that applies to your venue (product and service categories, business operating hours, Q&A, reviews, images, videos, offers and posts).

Citations on business directories, such as Yelp, Meta Business, and local Chambers of Commerce, can also have a significant impact on map results. Before search engines existed, they were the way people found local services and now, because of their impact on map rankings, they remain important for venues. Be sure to research events industry-specific directories that are relevant to your offer, for example business tourism sites or wedding directories.

Changes to Google and what it means for your events venue

With the recent advent of Google’s AI Overview feature, location SEO has become even more important, as businesses have seen a significant decrease in click-through rates for non-map organic traffic. This is because Google now provides more information directly in search results, in its aim to increase zero-click searches – by giving AI answers so users need never leave its ecosystem. An approach that certainly seems to be working given the resulting drop in click-through rates. You can find out more about these changes in our ‘AI Overview – Google’s most recent change and the impact on SEO’ blog.

Location SEO really comes into its own in helping to negate the impact of reduced or zero-click searches. Location-specific queries will often still require event planners to visit a venue’s website or map listing. Having a well-optimised Google Business Profile, containing as much relevant venue information as possible, will serve to boost your visibility. It will also encourage potential customers to take further engagement action, such as contacting you via phone or email, without ever leaving the SERP.

Is SEO for wedding venues any different?

If weddings are your venue’s primary business, there are some different aspects you’ll need to consider when devising your strategy. Effective SEO for wedding venues relies on providing highly relevant content with a strong visual focus and clear navigation to your website’s weddings section. Using emotive language to describe your venue, having an embedded map highlighting areas of local interest and well-written meta descriptions on your landing pages will entice users to read more.

Check out our ‘10 easy SEO tips for wedding venues’ for more actionable insights on this topic.

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