Does your site serve The 3 Needs?

Surprisingly, many radio station websites do not.

Frequently, I find stations with splash pages, 30 second flash intros, empty, outdated events calendars, expired contests, and a “Who’s on the air now” jock box that isn’t linked to their bio or even functioning.

So, how can you fix your site?

Well, like an answer to any problem, there are simple and complex solutions. This column will address them and offer suggestions about what works and what doesn’t – as well as talk to people in the industry who deal with this everyday. I don’t expect you to redesign your website tomorrow, but instead start looking at your site with the eyes of your listeners, and not the eyes of a PD, a jock or a salesperson.

When you’re ready, you can go whole hog and spend thousands of dollars on a site redesign, then get a full time webmaster to keep content fresh. Or you can do a few small things and point yourself in the right direction until the next time there’s room in the budget (likely never, but there’s always hope). Next week, I’ll give you a few suggestions of places where you can start small on the trip to making your site fundamentally sound. Remember, the first step to a great radio website is to simply make it a good website regardless of radio.

AllAccess has my “The Net Untangled Daily Tip” each weekday and a column on Website Wednesdays. One week later, you'll find the column here at Preppermint.net . So check back and together we’ll get our websites focused on keeping radio strong in this world of increasing competition.

If you have any questions about radio websites – either general questions relating to the industry or the web or even specific (HTML, PHP, .NET, Javascript, etc.) questions, send me an email through http://Preppermint.net/contact. I’ll answer your question quickly and maybe even use it for a future column.