Before you sit down to make your list of website goals, you need to know why your site exists. Please don’t say, “because everyone including my competitor does” or “for better branding”. Neither of those is the proper response. What action do you want your website visitors to take? What do you want them to do or know once they’ve left your website?
Do you want visitors to…?
- Give you their contact information? This could mean visitors sign up for your email list, contact form, or sign up for a contest or download your mobile app.
- Be converted in some way? Becoming e-mail subscribers, making an online purchase or donation, and even acquiring them as a new advertiser are all examples of conversions.
- Be informed? Providing local information, news, sports, events, and weather should be on every radio station website. Perhaps it’s informing advertisers of the benefits of advertising with your radio station.
- Click on client advertising? This should go hand in hand with #3. Without good content, there’s little reason for visitors to come back and see the banner ads you’ve sold to clients.
- Stream the station. Obviously, you want more listeners because more listens affect your bottom line. Perhaps you want the visitor to download your app or install a smart speaker skill to stream the station.
Depending on the day, you may have multiple things that you would like listeners to do when they visit your website. Thanks perfectly fine. Specific visitors may have completed all of these by giving you their information, signing up for your newsletter, listening to the station, etc. So, now what is the purpose of your website? Retaining them by getting them to return on a regular basis.
What ongoing website goals should you set?
- Increasing traffic. Increasing website traffic is one of the most common goals. Think of website traffic as on-air ratings. The more visitors you can show potential clients, the more likely you’ll be able to turn that data into sold space on your website. Work to increase your monthly visitors on a consistent basis. You can use tools like Google Analytics to track both your website visitors as well as their demographics.
- Generating more content. Fresh content simply improves traffic. So, if increasing traffic is one of your goals, generating more content should be as well. Make your station website the go-to spot for local information. We’ve seen more than one local radio station, with just one website author, nearly put the local newspaper out of business because they have become the best source of news and information. If you are new to this, then start small with one piece of content every other day and slowly work up. More content on your website means having more to promote on-air and on social to drive more traffic.
- Decreasing your bounce rate. “Bounce rate” is the percentage of people who leave your site after just going to one page. You can view this in Google Analytics as well. Perhaps they clicked on a link from one of your social media posts. Of course, you want your site visitors to stay long as possible. So, what do you have in place to ensure they do something else once they’ve consumed what got them there? Also, make sure that your website is easy to comprehend, is fast-loading, isn’t bombarded with ads, and is able to be viewed properly on all screen sizes. All of these factors affect bounce rate as well.
- Raising your conversion rate. Remember the purpose of your website? If you want visitors to signup for your newsletter, stream the station or fill out a form, then track those conversions and work to increase them month over month as well. Use more appealing calls to action and reduce distractions. Perhaps it’s time to change the look of your listen to live button or make the newsletter signup form more prevalent. Be careful not to be too over the top with these as they may contribute to a higher bounce rate.
- Increasing your e-mail subscribers. Email subscribers provide a great opportunity to keep your listeners informed and it’s a great opportunity for your advertisers as well as they can know what kind of customers you can offer them. A great goal is to use your website to capture a specific number of emails. Review what incentives might be available to entice more subscribers. Once they are subscribed, use this as an opportunity to go back and ask for more precise demographic information later.
- Increasing online advertisers. Every radio station website should be a money-maker in some way. Ideally, that is through sold banner ads and sponsorships, etc. Just as you sell your radio station, ensure that your website is consistently being sold. A Digital Inventory List can help so that everyone knows what is available.
- Increasing social shares and mentions. The more you can appear in social circles will ultimately mean more traffic to your website and increase the possibility of getting a visitor to do what you want them to. Do you have buttons on each page of your website that easily allows visitors to share your content? Do you have calls to action within your posts that encourage social sharing?
- Making your website more accessible. Accessibility is incredibly important for your website as it allows those with hearing impairments, vision impairments, and those who have difficulty using a mouse to easily use your website. While this goal isn’t measurable like the other goals I mentioned, it’s still an important goal to work toward. Ways to do this is to add descriptive and relevant ALT tags to all your images to help screen readers “read” them and use descriptive links that tell people what they’re clicking on, rather than generic text like “read more.”
There are lots of other measurable stats that we could mention working on as goals but try to limit your primary goals to the things that directly impact the station’s bottom line. Having a better-looking website isn’t a goal either. In the end, it’s all about increasing the awareness of your radio station, making more revenue from digital sales, and attaining better visitor data (which hopefully you can turn into more awareness and more sales).
Having everyone on board and on the same page is CRUCIAL.
Everybody… from the digital content person to the air talent to the programming and sales team… all the way to the General Manager/Owner. Everyone should know the purpose and the importance of the goals set for your radio station website.
Perhaps that’s why your website isn’t performing to the expectations you had for it when it was created. Have you noticed that everyone has lost interest in the station website? If your on-air team isn’t promoting it and your sales department isn’t selling it is because there’s no definitive direction.
If you haven’t taken the time to explicitly define the goals of your station website, then get the appropriate personnel together and do this right away. Once you’ve decided what the purpose and goals are, post them where everybody can be reminded. Any successful digital strategy starts with everybody being on the same page. Follow up on this strategy each week with a meeting specifically focused on the website where you can review analytics to see what’s working and what isn’t.
Hopefully, this information helps you start a goal-setting plan of action. Please reach out to us if we can help you.
