Optimise your Race Presence on Listing Sites
Maintaining a consistent, accurate and appealing presence online for your race is crucial in attracting new participants and growing your event not just in numbers but as its own brand.
Many organisers struggle to get their race onto the right websites and even when they do, information can be out of date, wrong or not displayed in an attractive way, all of which harms the reputation of your event.
There are many things you can do to make sure your race is optimised in all areas online and we are here to walk you through those steps so that you can start increasing your entries.
What are Race Listing Sites?
Google brings up over 25 million results when you search for ‘running races UK’. That’s a mind-boggling number of sites to trawl through, so racers want to find the best presented, compact listing sites around to pick their next challenge.
When you launch your race you will soon learn that there are a host of event listing, promotion and entry sites. Some will get in touch with you and others are worth finding yourself to proactively list your race on. Remember the following:
- Race Listing sites are websites with high volumes of web traffic, usually with the types of people that would potentially enter your event, that can refer you potential new entrants by providing a link on their website
- Race Promotion sites are websites that activity promote your race to their database and on other online channels, usually in return for a commission cut of your entry fee
- Event Entry sites are event management platforms that take entries and accept payments, something we do at eventrac, it is best to stick to one entry form and send all your traffic here from the Race listing and promotion sites
- Some race listing sites can offer to take your content and upload it to their site for you, others, you will have to create an account and add this yourself. Make sure you have your preferred race information, images and maps ready to use.
Where should your race be listed?
We have put together a list of third party race listing sites which can help you expand the reach of your events and increase their exposure. It is also important to keep track of the different listing sites you use, to make sure you can update old listings in order to reduce the possibility of confusion between your past and current events. But although they are a powerful complementary tool to increase the potential visibility of your race, you shouldn’t rely solely on them for the marketing of your event. Some of them offer additional marketing services at a cost, for example, a race feature in one of their email campaigns or highlighting your brand on their website as an advert. On the eventrac platform your event will be shared with our social followers and across our website.
Here is a list of a couple of sites we've had our eye on, with a short summary regarding some of their benefits and drawbacks. They don't all just list UK races, and some are more specific to particular a type of event.
Runner’s World:
1800+ live races
This is probably the most popular listing site in the UK, with a huge magazine behind it and heaps of organic traffic its a must to list your race on here. It’s a pretty comprehensive listing site and includes some races outside the UK. Runners can also rate events on the site.
Let’s Do This
About 30,000 live races
Fast growing, global race directory Lets Do this has a handy drop-down menu allowing runners to input their discipline, distance and where they would like to race. The comprehensive map and smooth site is paired with app to go with it, enhancing its search capabilties on mobile. To list your event on their platform you must get in touch via this form. You will then be subject to a 19% booking fee upon entries of your event being purchased through their site, as a marketing fee from their site. Eventrac integrates with the Lets Do This platform, allowing the organiser can see what marketing platform that entrant has come through in the downloadable race report
Find A Race
200+ marathons, 390+ half marathons, 800+ 10K’s. Claims 3 million users
You can browse races on the site without logging in, however, you need to create a (free) account to use the advanced filters such as distance, discipline, etc. Once you’ve created your event on the site, you can ‘boost’ it on their page for an advertising fee to increase its number of viewers. You can choose to allow them to take bookings directly from FindARace.com for your event, at a fee of 12.5% per entry, which increases its visibility on their platform. Eventrac integrates with the Find A Race platform, allowing the organiser can see what marketing platform that entrant has come through in the downloadable race report.
Evvnt
Processes 10,000 events per month (Source E1 Capital)
Although this isn't a race listing site, it has the ability to list your event throughout local news outlets in your area, well-known listing sites and gives you some boosting options too. Through their interface, you can distribute and publish events to hundreds of targeted listing sites. The evvnt platform creates events awareness and momentum in organic search, mobile and social streams via a customised network on listing sites and feeds, maximising exposure prior to any event. It's worth taking a look and listing for free, then considering the paid options available to see if they suit you. They also provide analytic reports about how effective your channels are.
Time Outdoors
5,000+ live runs, rides, walks, swims, triathlons and other events
These guys like many others also offer paid advertising opportunities to boost your event, for larger features on their website, in their newsletter, and on social media.
Racecheck
3000+ live running races
This race reviewing platform has a great calendar. Not so much advertising options, but if you review your races on their platform, they'll give you 'awards' for high rankings which you could use to get money off your insurance through their partners for your next event!
RunABC
It's difficult to say how many live races there are on here, as some are duplicates. But there are roughly 1000
The popular running magazine has four editions covering the UK. Click on the area relative to you in their local magazine selection, and then create a free user account to list your race. They also offer advertising opportunities to appear prominently on their website, or in their magazine. It’s worth listing your race on here as it's free and they have an active network of traffic to their sites.
FetchEveryone
Around 2000 live running races
This is a popular community site listing for running, cycling and swimming events. They offer paid advertising opportunities through race features on their website and email campaigns to their reader lists of a couple of thousands.
Good Run Guide
1000+ live races
You can add a race listing on here by contacting the good run guide to create an account. You can link back to your website or Facebook page when adding all your race details. Runners can search for events with their advanced search tool for date of race, location, length, and type of event.
Thers more…
...but these are our top pick of must list sites. It's overwhelming we know! But to increase your chances of getting your race out there its best to keep these pages updated with the most recent versions of your event. Looking ahead to future races it is worth revisiting and updating your online race listings every year with your new race dates, times and images. The last thing you want is someone finding last years race online and not entering because they can’t find your new one!
Which sites are performing best for my race?
Eventrac can help with some of these and integrate your events automatically. For example, with Fetch Everyone and Lets Do This, while always expanding on our mission to reduce your workload. It really helps to know which listing and promotion sites are performing best for your race and you can use your web platform or ask your website providers to tell you who is sending you the most web traffic. Your downloadable entry report from Eventrac will also highlight where an entry has come from if it is from an integration we hold with the race listing site. With this information, you will be able to see which websites are converting best and you can prioritise optimising the information on these ones.
Make a note to search your race at least once a month to check which links are appearing top, you will see the best performing listing sites, any competitor ads that may be taking entries from you and any broken links to your own website that need fixing or redirecting.
The majority of your race entries will come through your online entry platform so the more of your market that see this, the better. Use what other sports enthusiasts have built to drive yourself new entrants and take the time to regularly check and improve this with new content so that you can be ahead of your competition!
Its time consuming but once it's done, you can tick it off the list, in some case for a year, and in some cases, you can automate the event listing to become regular!