How to Categorize Your Events Like a Pro
Whether you’re new to Localist or already a seasoned admin, this guide will help you find the best home for every category and label your community needs to browse and manage events effectively.
When to Use Landing Pages
Does it reflect a location? → Place
Example: Concert Hall Adding locations as Filters will clutter your list and is a misuse of a Localist feature. Localist provides Place Pages for this exact purpose! Places give you the ability to create a directory for users to browse, increase SEO by adding more pages to your site, and provide additional context surrounding the location of your events.
Does it reflect an organization? → Groups or Departments
Example: Book club, Office of Student Affairs Similar to Places, Localist provides Group and Department Pages that can be used to house any common event hosts, groups, organizations, departments, associations, clubs, etc. If there is a common host, then Groups and Departments are your solution!
When to Use a Tag or Keyword
Will it be used for a temporary time period?
Example: Festival, Homecoming, Halloween, or Black History Month If a Filter is not used year-round, then it should be a Tag. These are only serving your users for a small percentage of the year, while inhibiting their browsing experience for the majority of the year.
Does it communicate internal details?
Example: Homepage widget, special event If you have Filters that are mainly used for internal curation efforts, then they should be Keywords instead. For context, Keywords are essentially hidden Tags and they’re mainly used internally for SEO, common misspellings, and Widget/Channel filtering.
When to Use Filters
Does it communicate the format of an event? → Event Type
Example: Concert, Workshop, Auction This Filter Family provides context surrounding the format of an event and communicates what an attendee will be doing or experiencing at the event.
Does it communicate who the event is for? → Target Audience
Example: General Public, Family-Friendly, LGBTQ+ This Filter Family provides context surrounding who can attend an event.
Does it communicate a mission or strategic goal? → Topic
Example: Arts & Culture, Health & Wellness, Sustainability This Filter Family provides context surrounding the information covered, overarching goals, initiatives or themes surrounding or influencing an event.
Additional Filter Streamlining
Review for duplicates/overlapping
Example: Alumni (Event Type), Alumni (Target Audience) If your Filter list has duplicates, you run a high risk of admins and users only selecting one or none at all when adding events.
Remove “Yes/No” Setup
Example: Open to the Public > Yes, No Filters should never be formatted as a question/answer. In instances like these, the absence of “Open to the Public” and the presence of another Target Audience Filter like Students, Alumni, Faculty & Staff, etc. will be clear enough.
Remove Filters with one child
Example: Lectures > Presentations OR Music > Concerts Child Filters should only be used when absolutely necessary. By their very nature, Child Filters run a high risk of being too granular and not contributing to a positive user experience.