Having great content on your radio station is obviously a huge priority and is absolutely necessary for growth. However, having a website is an often overlooked aspect that creates a huge opportunity for growing your station. A website can be the difference between a potential listener regularly tuning in and leaving your station profile page without even listening. Although creating a radio website might seem like a daunting task, the positive impacts from having one will undoubtedly make the time, effort, and money spent on it worthwhile. For 7 reasons why you should have a radio station website, keep on reading!
1. Content Archive
Having an organized, searchable location for all of your talk radio shows can be a great way to gain and retain listeners as well as own your content. A website can really come in handy because you can have a designated page on your website for a content archive. This gives your current listeners as well potential listeners one accessible place to easily navigate through your content to become familiar with you and your radio station. Then, it makes it much more likely that they will become a regular listener. Also, a content archive can even help with community building because listeners can get to know you better by listening to your past talk radio shows.
Please do keep in mind that your content archive should only contain talk radio shows, not radio shows that include copyrighted material like music. Although the content may have originated on the Live365 platform, content living on your website or any other location outside of the Live365 platform is not covered by Live365's provided music licensing.
2. Additional Content
In addition to a content archive, a website can be a great location to offer more content to your listeners. Although your radio shows are filled with content, you can create even more value by delivering additional content on your website. Additional content can be repurposing your radio shows into transcripts, blog posts, videos, etc. Also, since you cannot include radio shows that use music in your content archive, you may want to either write out the titles and artists of the songs in your playlists or even create public playlists on streaming services that your listeners can access.
You can also create new content that you are interested in, but that you may not be able to make due to the genres and topics on your radio station, or perhaps even due to the medium of radio. Not only is additional content beneficial for your SEO and general discoverability, but you can attract new listeners with more content since blog posts, transcripts, and videos make your content more accessible to a variety of people, such as those that suffer from hearing loss.
3. Central Hub
Centralizing everything related to your radio station in one place is crucial for making all your content easily accessible. A website is the perfect place to centralize your content. You can then direct anyone and everyone to your website because it contains everything you want them to see. Your website can contain all of your old talk radio shows, additional content, your social media links (and maybe even social media previews), sponsor information, "about" information, feedback forms, easy share links, and so on. Anyone that navigates to your website should be able to find everything they are looking for regarding you and your radio station and this will help you to reach and gain more listeners. Also, having a website is a great place for related future business endeavors.
4. Increased Discoverability
Given that there are so many radio stations out there, it can be difficult to make your station discoverable and thus gain new listeners. A website, especially one containing a content archive as well as additional content, can be incredibly helpful in increasing your station's discoverability. If you have a website with lots of content, this will help with SEO. This means that it is easier for potential listeners to find your content when they are searching online because of your website's relevance. Additionally, it is more likely that they will become a listener because of your user-friendly website that showcases your radio station and its value. Your website is just that added avenue for new eyes to find your station.
5. Community Building
A website can be a great place to interact with your listeners and build a community around your station. While social media is an awesome place to interact with your listeners, a website provides a specific space they know they can go to in order to be involved with you and your station. You might consider creating a feedback form, questionnaires, etc. so your listeners can communicate with you, contribute to your radio station, and feel included overall. The more involved and included your audience feels, the more likely it is that they will become loyal listeners. Having a loyal community around your station is a huge asset and this interactive relationship with your audience will only help your radio station survive and thrive in the huge sea of radio stations and general content out there.
6. Boosted Brand Reputation
Having a radio website gives you a lot of credibility and will boost your brand awareness and reputation. A website rounds out your brand, taking your radio station to the next level, an established brand, delivering value to its loyal audience. Now, generally speaking, a radio website will boost brand awareness and reputation, but a poorly designed website will do the complete opposite. So, it's important to remember that quality is key and throwing together a website quickly doesn't mean you are going to give your radio station's credibility a big boost.
7. Monetization Opportunities
Finally, a radio website helps with your monetization efforts as well as provides further opportunities for monetization. As mentioned, providing additional content on your website is crucial. Besides delivering more value though, you can turn that content into an opportunity for monetization as you can exclusively offer the extra content through paid subscriptions or memberships. You might even consider creating a Patreon page and linking to it from your website or adding a Paypal donation button to your website. Also, a website is the perfect location to promote products for current sponsors and encourage future monetization by including sponsor information, such as past sponsors and your press kit. Running giveaways and contests on your website can be a great tool to encourage people to navigate to your website and can tie into monetization efforts as well.
You can also use your website as part of your sales funnel where you collect email addresses that can be used for further promotions, newsletters, future business endeavors, and so forth. Ultimately, your website is the place where you should be selling and monetizing your radio station. You can direct listeners there and show everybody who you are, what you do, and what makes you stand out from your competition.
Although creating a radio station website might seem like an unnecessary task that requires a good bit of work, a website goes a long way with transforming your station into a reliable, valued brand. Not only does it improve your brand reputation, but it is also incredibly helpful for monetization, growth, developing a loyal audience, and delivering value to your listeners. So, consider putting the task of creating a website as a higher priority so you can take your radio station to the next level.
Tip: If you decide to create your own website using a free website hosting service, do your research on what they are offering and what you need in order to have a high quality, user-friendly, and discoverable website. Note that many necessary website features might not be free on a website hosting service's free plan. Also, with some free website hosting services, you might run the risk of not owning your content because you don't necessarily own the website when you are using their hosting server, their domains, their designs, their templates, etc. This then puts you in the position of being unable to rank well on search engines since so many sites are using those same exact servers, domains, designs, and so forth.
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Article Image: John Schnobrich via Unsplash.
