9-4-2012
There are a lot of messy, cluttered, almost unusable radio station websites on the Web. In part, that?s because it?s so easy for the content on your website to get away from you. Unfortunately, there?s often no one making sure that the site stays focused on what listeners love about you.
However, let?s keep this positive and constructive! Here?s a checklist so you can judge yourself on how you?re doing with your brand-building Web content. You can do this alone, or you can do this as part of a promotion meeting, a jock meeting, a sales meeting, or any other gathering of folks in the station.
SECTION ONE: KNOW THYSELF
Answer these questions about your radio station. If you have more than one station, answer these questions separately for each of them.
1. Describe your target listener.
2. What about your station makes you both unique and have mass appeal?
3. Complete this sentence: The best-known parts of my radio station are?
SECTION TWO: FRONT PAGE SCAVENGER HUNT
Based on the above, let?s see how you do on rating the front page of your station?s website.
1. Is your logo one of the first things you see?
2. Does your Web address make sense for your station? (In other words, if your station name is ?Radio 108.1? and your Web address is ?BigCityHottestHits.com,? something?s wrong.)
3. If a listener comes to your website after hearing your station, does your navigation bar (?nav bar,? or the choices of where to go on your site) make sense based on what a fan would expect?
4. Is your streaming link in your header that appears on every page?
5. Is it easy to find the list of songs that played (if you?re a music station)?
6. Is it easy to find news headlines (if you?re a news/talk station) or sports headlines (if you?re a sports station)?
7. If I didn?t know what format your station is, could I tell immediately from glancing at your website?
8. Are there good reasons to come from your broadcast to your website? What are they?
9. Can I easily find content about what makes your station both unique and have mass appeal?
10. Is it easy to find links to any social media, database emails, or texting that you do?
11. If you play new music, are new songs in your format represented at your website? (Can I find release dates, news about new music, samples, downloads, videos, whatever?)
12. If you have a concerts/events guide, does it focus on what your target listener would want to do and enjoy?
13. If you have a high-profile morning show or talk shows, is there a blog about what they talked about on their latest show, with either topic summaries or links to more info? (Give yourself extra credit if you have audio clips to hear!)
14. Do you give over too much major, key website space to topics that are not part of your station (news/traffic/sports/entertainment news/gossip/etc.)?
15. Do you use white space, consistent fonts, and colors that go together? If not, listeners think your website looks like ads.
Here?s what you do with your results: There?s no scoring. Pat yourself on the back for what you?ve done right, and start doing a good job creating what?s missing. I?d be curious to hear your comments about this quiz and how you did on it.
Chris Miller has been a major-market PD in Atlanta, Portland and Cleveland. He now operates Chris Miller Digital, which he launched. Visit his website at www.chrismillerdigital.com.
Contact Chris via e-mail, chris@chrismillerdigital.com or 216-236-3955.
For more articles from Chris Miller go HERE.
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