Better Radio Websites

Get more detailed show notes at https://www.skyrocketradio.com/podcast/what-your-small-market-website-can-do-better-than-a-big-market-website Most of the websites we serve are in smaller markets.  And being in a smaller market, it's natural to compare your radio station website against those in large to major markets.  But keep in mind that the dynamic is completely different in those bi...

For more/deeper show notes visit: https://www.skyrocketradio.com/podcast/preventing-cyber-attacks-on-your-radio-station-website . If you’ve ever been hacked or had your identity stolen online, you likely have some PTSD from it and view security differently now. So many of us haven’t been hacked or had our identity stolen, so we continue to do things that open ourselves up to intrusions. It seems l...

For more extensive show notes, visit https://www.skyrocketradio.com/blog/our-15-seo-tips-for-showing-first-in-search .  A month or so ago, I received a call from a station owner who Googled for help with his radio station websites. He couldn’t remember exactly what he Googled but he was quick to say that never clicks on the paid search results that appear at the top of those results (neither...

I've known a few radio stations and several website clients who have lost access to their digital assets after an employee, friend, or family member passed away.  So, it's very important that you make an inventory list of all your radio station's digital assets and include access information so that the people you leave behind can access those assets and continue your legacy. If someone other...

Promoting local discount deals, coupons and special rewards on your radio station website is a great way to bring back visitors on a daily (or even hourly) basis. Today we talk with Matt Crowell, the CEO or GetintheLoop.  GetintheLoop is the fastest growing Franchise in Canada and has the largest network of local merchant offers in the Country.  Now, they're expanding into the United Sta...

Adding video to your local sports broadcasts can take your game to the next level.  Today we interview Gabe Edney with Paragon Sports TV.  They can help your station get started or help to improve the level you're at now.   Best of all, you're able to bring this video into your radio station website to keep bringing traffic back game after game.  Reach out to Gabe and his team...

Being a small company, we love partnering with other small companies.  Skyrocket Radio recently presented at a broadcasters convention in Alabama and got a chance to talk with Tom Dobrez, the owner and CEO of Cool Radio Streaming. Cool Radio Streaming is a small company dedicated to bringing you a quality streaming service at a reasonable price.  They are also radio station owners, so th...

The speed that your radio station website loads matters – maybe more than you realize.  Overall, we have grown increasingly impatient with the amount of time we’re willing to wait for things to load. In fact, many studies show that about forty percent of people will click off a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. This can have real, tangible impacts on any business whose we...

You and your team work hard to generate great content for your radio station website. You have listeners coming back day after day and you have the stats to show it. You may think to yourself, “Why don’t we lock down some or all of this content and charge a subscription for access to it?” When a website blocks access to its content and asks you to get a paid subscription, that’s called a paywall....

For more details show notes visit: https://www.skyrocketradio.com/blog/content-ideas-for-no-staff-radio-stations . We’ve always said that the best radio station websites out there killing it with revenue are the ones killing it with content. We’re talking about fresh new content added daily which is shared with newsletter subscribers and social media channels so that listeners are coming back to t...

Google Analytics was initially built during a time when people had hit counters on their websites. Since then, the way we use the internet and the data businesses need to track has dramatically changed. People are using multiple devices and using various apps, all of which are completely different ways to access information on the internet. As a result of this ever-changing environment, Universal...

Sadly, I find that more and more stations are not properly promoting their websites as they should. If you treat your website(s) as a separate radio station(s) that you can generate traffic and revenue from, then it only makes sense to consistently drive your listeners and followers there as often as possible. It’s not like you’re asking them to do something rather than listening to the radio stat...

You read that headline correctly but please don’t get me wrong. I am a big advocate that every radio station should be on whatever social media platforms their listeners are on so they can engage with them there and share out content that ultimately leads back to the station website so that traffic can be monetized. Once you have visitors on your website, where you want them, why send them back to...

This week we got a call from a station asking if their news posts could be set to automatically expire after a certain day and time. For example, you post a local news story about a new farmer's market being held in your town square this Saturday.  On Sunday, the news story will be old news and you'll run the risk of someone reading and thinking that it's the following Saturday instead of the...

Google Analytics is a free tool to help you tell how well your website is performing and it can give you all sorts of valuable insight, such as where your website visitors are coming from, which pages are most popular, and how long visitors stay on your site. Once a week, radio programmers and the appropriate staff members should take some time to review their website statistics. We spoke with Joh...

Seth Resler is a 25-year broadcasting and podcasting veteran who worked on-air and in programming at several major markets before crossing into online marketing. He’s now the digital strategist at Jacobs Media working with radio stations across the country, helping them design and implement action plans that combine websites, social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, content marke...

It seems like every day or week there’s a new headline about another app or website being hacked. And these are typically the higher profile websites. In fact, a hacker attack occurs every 39 seconds in the US, affecting one in three Americans every year. A successful intrusion can result in a huge loss in traffic and revenue if your site has crashed or been suspended on your hosting provider. It...

Our WordPress maintenance checklist covers a list of essential things you should do religiously each month to ensure that your website runs smoothly across multiple devices. While this is a monthly list, you'll see better results if they can be performed weekly or even daily. 1. Perform a website speed audit to ensure it’s loading quickly: Page speed can affect SEO and user experience. GTMetrix ,...

I spend a lot of time navigating radio station websites all over the world and consider their efficacy from both a marketing and user perspective. I’m often surprised by odd navigational choices, inconsistent calls-to-action, and content that provides little informational value, much less a reason or me to return again tomorrow. Your website should have fresh and relevant content, but it should be...

There are a few different methods to display a video on your website and the advantages of using a third-party service like Youtube and Vimeo versus uploading and displaying video from your hosting provider. Downsides of hosting video yourself Uploading large video files to your website can not only take forever but they could be denied by the hosting provider due to upload size and timeout limits...

There’s a new way to enable people to play your radio station directly on Alexa without having to write a single line of code.  Thanks to the Alexa Radio Skills Kit, radio stations no longer have to build out a new skill from scratch. Instead, they can simply provide the streaming URLs and metadata for their radio stations via a simple intake process. Once the station is tested and launched,...

Most of these podcast episodes come about because sometime in the week prior, something has come up for me to spawn discussing it for everyone. This week I discovered a few client websites were still adding large images to the article posts even though they were taught to optimize them in a way that would be faster to their visitors. What is page load time and why is it important? Load time is the...

Having a website dedicated to your radio station is essential. It can do so much more than simply being a spot to put your "listen live" button. It can provide you with unlimited opportunities to generate additional revenue by clients sponsoring the content you create and promote there. Not so long ago, there would have been no question of hiring a pro to get the results you want, but thanks to th...

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS typically uses XML files that can be read by a user’s feed reader, which converts the files into an easy-to-read format. This content is distributed in real-time so that the top results on the RSS feed are always the latest published content for a website. RSS Feeds FROM your Station Website If you own a WordPress website, you can easily find your RSS...

Periodically, we’ll talk to station owners and digital content directors about the great things happening in their market and with their websites.  It’s fitting that we kick off the first one of these segments with Johnny Boswell, owner of Boswell Media in Kosciusko, Mississippi because Boswell Media was our first Skyrocket Radio client.  We had a chance to catch up with Johnny at the re...