Interactive Events Calendar – Marketing Your Business Online
After reading the title of this post you may be wondering how an interactive events calendar can be used as a marketing tool for your business. The answer to this is multi-leveled and will be explored in this post. It should be noted that all Positive Real Estate Professionals members have FREE access to an Events Calendar for their sites if they choose to use it.
Before we get to how it can be effectively used, let’s look at how it functions. The Events Calendar can be set up as either a sidebar widget or have its own page with a navigation tab. I recommend setting it up with its own page because it has more visibility and is easier for visitors to use. If you choose to set it up as a sidebar widget the path from your dashboard is: Dashboard>Appearance>Widgets. Simply drag and drop the Events Calendar into your sidebar and you are done. To add the calendar as a page you will again need to begin on your dashboard; here is the path: Dashboard>Pages>Add New. Simply title the new page whatever you want it to be called. Then select the HTML (rather than Visual) tab and add “[[Events Calendar Large]]” (Do NOT use the quotes, nor the spaces). If you want site visitors to be able to submit events for inclusion you will need to then click on the Visual tab and add a cform which allows them to do so. If you are a PREP member the form is called ‘Submit An Event’. If you do not see this form in your list of forms just send me an email or submit a support ticket and I will happily add it to your list of forms.
Now that this interactive tool has been added to your site, let’s look at why it is good for marketing. One of the most obvious reasons that it is good for your site is that the events you enter can be set up to be their own post. 
By making them their own post they are viewed as new content and are fully index-able by the search engines. To make an event a post you would enter all the event info on the Events Calendar screen. The path for this from your dashboard is: Dashboard>Events Calendar. At the bottom of where you enter the event info you will see a check box that you do want to select entitled ‘Create Post For Event’. Lastly, you will also see a dropdown box that allows you to keep your event as a ‘draft’ or ‘publish’ it. You want to keep your event as a ‘draft’ which will allow you to go into your ‘Posts’ header and publish the event as its own post; if you publish it directly it will not create a post. Here is the path from your dashboard: Dashboard>Posts>Edit>(Select Post) Publish.
In addition to your events being indexed as new content, it is important to have FREE tools for your site’s visitors to use. About a week and a half ago, I wrote a post entitled, Offer Useful Tools To Site Visitors – Marketing Your Business Online. The reasoning behind having an events calendar is similar in that it is an interactive tool where site visitors can get info on upcoming local events. The more events that you add to your calendar, the more likely your site will become the destination for information about ‘what’s going on in your community’. Once your site develops a reputation as the place for local happenings, or has sufficient SEO strength to make your events show up high in search engine results then you have dramatically increased your likelihood of both new and return visitors. These visitors are both potential clients and referral sources; if you were moving to a new area wouldn’t you rather work with someone who appears to have their finger on the pulse of that community?
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