Your event website shouldn't be treated as a temporary brochure that switches on and off around the show. It's one of your most valuable year round digital assets, a place that continually builds your audience, captures data, fuels lead generation and keeps your community engaged between editions. 

Every newsletter signup, content download, and "notify me when bookings open" form is adding to your database for next year. Your returning visitors are checking back to see what's next, driving community engagement that compounds over time. And the authority you've built through quality content doesn't disappear when the event ends, it continues working for you - if you maintain it properly. 

Search engines and AI models reward websites that stay active, authoritative, and content rich. If your site goes quiet or you remove important pages the moment the event ends, you not only lose visibility, you lose momentum.

Event websites that maintain their content year round typically retain sixty to eighty percent of their peak traffic, while those that go dark often lose ninety percent within weeks.  

Here's how to safely "change over" your site post event, protect your traffic, and set yourself up for long term discoverability. 

This simple update prevents your site looking outdated and signals to visitors and search engines that planning for the next edition is already underway. 

Update dates across: 

• Homepage hero 
• Visit, Exhibit sections 
• Footer and navigation 
• Countdown widgets 
• Meta descriptions and structured data (schema.org/Event markup) 

This last point matters because search engines and AI tools rely on structured data to accurately represent your event in results and summaries.

Swap out anything tied to the previous edition, year specific logos, colourways, early bird messages or deadline driven graphics. 

Keep the structure intact and avoid wholesale redesigns at this stage. You're updating the window dressing, not rebuilding the shop.

It's Essential for SEO and AI Visibility. The biggest post event mistake organisers make is removing content they believe is "no longer relevant". 

In reality, your: 

• Seminar and session pages 
• Speaker profiles 
• Exhibitor lists 
• Features and thought leadership pieces 
• FAQs 
• Floorplans 
• Press releases 

are all high authority, highly indexed pages that drive traffic long after the event ends. 

Deleting or hiding them can cause: 

• Significant organic traffic drops 
• Broken internal links 
• Loss of topical authority 
• Reduced visibility in Google and AI driven search tools 

Instead, leave the pages live and simply add a contextual note. Here are versions for different page types: 

• For speaker pages, "Featured at our 2025 edition" 
• For session content, "From our 2025 programme, view our latest topics here [link]" 
• For exhibitor lists, "2025 exhibitors, interested in 2026? Enquire here" 

 

Once the event ends, your recorded sessions, seminar audio and panel discussions become a goldmine for ongoing visibility. 

Rather than letting this content disappear, you can repurpose it into: 

• Search friendly articles 
• Topic pages that perform extremely well in search 
• Highlights or “What happened this year” sections 
• Year round evergreen assets 

This approach protects your investment in the speaker programme and turns each session into an evergreen resource rather than a one off moment. 

Replace any short term CTAs with year round ones such as: 

"Register your interest for 2026" 
"Exhibit at the next edition" 
"Join the waiting list" 
"Download our 2025 event report" 

This ensures you capture intent at every stage of the event cycle. 

Your homepage should look forward, not backwards. 

Update the hero, remove past event urgency and introduce early positioning for the next edition, while keeping the SEO friendly structure and URLs intact. 

A simple shift in tone from “Join us this June” to “Planning for 2026 is underway, be the first to know” keeps the page feeling current. 
 

If you have assets from the show, use them immediately: 

• Photo galleries 
• Short video clips 
• Session summaries 
• Award winners 
• Visitor and exhibitor stats 
• Testimonials or case studies 

This builds engagement and sends freshness signals to search engines. 

Consider creating a “2025 in Review” PDF for data capture. 

Now is the perfect time to see what is actually working. 

Track: 

• Which archived session pages still get traffic 
• Which CTAs convert best 
• Which blog posts attract long tail search 
• Where visitors drop off 

Tag valuable content so you can monitor performance between campaigns. 

• Do not delete pages. 
• Do not rename URLs without redirects. 
• Do not hide sections that still attract search traffic. 

If pages genuinely need archiving, use carefully considered 301 redirects. 

In most cases, keeping everything live with a simple previous edition label is the better choice. 

Update only dates and CTAs first, then review analytics two to three weeks later. 

Editing or removing the wrong content can undo years of organic growth. When in doubt, leave it live. 

We regularly review post event changeovers for clients. Whether you need a full changeover plan, an AV to Article content strategy, a Speaker and Exhibitor archive setup or just a quick sense check, the Performance Services fact sheets linked above cover every option. 

Your event website is working harder than you think. Let’s make sure it keeps working all year round. 

• Beyond the Event: Year-Round Community Building Through Digital Event Marketing
• Light Up your Event's AI Visibility 
• Unlocking GA4 for Event Marketers: Turn clicks into registrations, leads and ROI