As technology has evolved, so has Joe average. Joe now carries a Smart Phone,
he has a blog, and his thumbs are bleeding from obsessive twittering.
The average consumer may have become less dependent on the traditional forms of
media, but he is constantly online. One common
mistake I see among radio stations is that they don?t maximize their web presence to stay in contact with that consumer. They see themselves as a
radio station first, and the website as just a necessary evil of doing
business. The truth is that your website could be giving
you very large returns, if it is
built
with the right foundation.
There are five main topics I recommend clients focus on when
planning their website: Content, Presentation,
Interaction, Search, and Control.
Content
Original content should be your focus. It will increase your repeat visitors, and it
will generate more referrals from search engines. Even though third party content, such as news
feeds or weather widgets might provide some convenience to your visitors, they
will never draw new visitors from search engines. Search Engines are the key. Optimizing your website for search engines should
be a top priority. An example of
original content could be a story on what they local community thinks about the
new Iphone. Or it could be a first
person account of a local car show including lots of pictures. Or maybe a new nightclub opened up in town,
write an article on it and include some photos of the d?cor. You could build a nightlife section to your
website including a directory and map of the local bars and clubs. Your content doesn?t need to be 1000+ words
long. But longer content does tend to
look more important to search engines.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time to create unique, quality content, which deters many from doing it. They want to see an instant return on
investment, but websites don?t operate like
that. Once you post your original content, search
engines will find it and add it to their index. The number of people who link to your content will
determine how search engines rank your content. When a person finds your
content on a search engine, they will read it and if they like it enough they
will tell others about it. This will lead to more links being created to your page, and your search ranking will increase, which leads to even more people finding your
content, etc. So the five hours you spent creating your original content
might result in 50 visitors reading it the first day and millions during the course of a year.
Presentation
Consumers are used to fancy, fast-moving graphics on TV and colorful layouts in print. Your website should present your content
in a visual form, not just lots of text. Some websites use rotating slide shows
to drive focus to their latest content. Using Flash or JPG images with your content will keep your visitors engaged and on your site longer. Don?t allow your text to push
up against borders, or pictures. Give
some space between elements. On most of
the websites I run I try to maintain a 15px-20px padding on all elements. This will make reading your website?s content
easier on the eyes. Also try to
add some contrast between elements. Use
high contrast (black and white) to help enfisize the important parts of the
page, and low contrast(grey and greyer) for less important parts. The website should look professional in
appearance. A poorly built website will
reflect poorly on the station, and its advertisers.
Interaction
Blogs are very successful because they give visitors the ability to
comment on your content. They post a blog entry, and people post comments. This
gives the website the ability to capture this user?s e-mail address and possibly notify them when new comments are posted. Remember to monitor your comments ? some people may try to use the
comments to advertise their own agenda.
Search
Traffic referred by major
search engines should be a top priority. This traffic is like stock dividends.
Even though quality content with photos or videos takes a lot of time, over the
long term it?s worth it. As people find your content, some will link to it on
their blogs and forums. These external links will increase your ranking on
leading search engines, so even more people can find your content. But for this to work you must preserve and make it
assessable even when it gets old. Just because content gets old doesn?t mean
you should delete it. It should remain on the server with a static URL so
search engines can continue to send you traffic for it.
Try to use titles that closely
resemble what people would search for on Google. If you have an article about
lawn care, originally titled Hose?s guide to lawn care, change the title to
?How to get a greener lawn?. When people
are on search engines its usually to find the answer to a question. What better way to target that than by
titling your article with a question.
Search
Engine Optimizers
You should never pay a so-called Search Engine Optimizer. They will use a combination of comment
spam, forum spam, and paid links to get your website to the top of search
engines.. Google has a very strict
policy on paid links. If they determine you are using them, they will penalize
your search ranking. All link-building campaigns should be
done internally, not by an outside company. So if you ever get an e-mail from a person claiming they can get you top
ranking on Google, delete it or report it to Google via the webmaster tools
section. If you want
to increase your search engine ranking, you are going to need to get some links
out there that point to your content. If
you wrote an article on gardening. Try
to find some blogs that have similar articles and post comments including a
link back URL. Exchanging links with
other sites is good too but the more links a page the less each link is worth
towards your search engine ranking.
Control
If you can?t make your own updates without having
to go through a webmaster, you might want to rethink your website. Larger websites almost always have some form of a content management system. A content management system or CMS, allows
non programmers to login to a control panel and add new content to the
website. There are prefabricated CMS
systems, but in my experience if you want the website done right, you will have
to build your own CMS. A CMS stores the
content in a database. So in the future if you redesign your website, you
content will be preserved. Updates to
the website should not be restricted to one person. A CMS can help spread the workload so no one
person is stuck with making updates. Though it can be expensive
to develop a highly integrated CMS-based website, the long-term savings will pay
for it in just a few weeks. Just be sure the CMS is built around your business,
and your business is not built around the CMS.
A Note on Integration
As your website grows you are
likely to find yourself needing to expand and or add new sections. There has
been a growing trend of companies making decisions based on what saves them
money now rather than what saves them money long term. They resort to
prefabricated systems rather than properly integrating new sections into the
current site. If the new add-on is going to be part of the site?s long-term objectives, it?s best to custom develop it so it has a seamless
appearance to your visitors. Using prefabricated add-ons is like using duct
tape to attach a hood scoop to your car, and then entering it at a car show.
Sure, it?s functional ? but don?t expect to win any awards.
A Final Note on Social Networking
Put the focus on your website ? not MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter. Having 1 million ?friends? is worthless, because most of them are not likely to have you on their top 20 list. Having a station profile on MySpace might drive some traffic to your site,
but you would be better off spending that time creating your own quality content rather than spending all day approving new
friends and posting comments on other MySpace Profiles. The only person getting rich on MySpace is Tom, and
news corp. Keep your DJs focused on pushing the station?s website and its
advertisers.