Today, we’ll cover the top five web-related skills your team members need to know for your station website to be successful. If you have someone on your team who will be accessing the website, they should have a basic understanding of each of these.

1. Basic Image Editing

This doesn’t mean everyone should learn powerful tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. Those are overkill if you need to crop and downsize an image. There are more simple tools – even online image editors like https://pixlr.com/editorthat can be used.  Editors like this can be helpful without being overwhelming.

2. Basic Graphic Design

The key here is to have everything on your station website look professional because your website's first impression could be your radio station's first impression.

3. Editing and Proofreading

Good content ensures maximum impact, while poor content with errors can give a wrong impression of your radio station. Consider investing in the Grammarly service. It’s a plugin that reads your copy as you write and makes suggestions in spelling and grammar.

4. SEO and Accessibility Best Practices

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is essential for your radio station website, but I bet you rarely think about it. Proper SEO techniques can be a deep-dive subject, but you can do some small things to ensure everything you post can be found easily in search engines.

Accessibility means ensuring everyone can effectively access your content.  Remember that people with disabilities need to access the website through special software. When image tags are missing or if they contain cryptic filenames, these visitors will not know what images contain. This can result in getting fewer clicks than you would like.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) website has some excellent guidance to review at https://www.ada.gov/resources/web-guidance.

5. Simple Security Measures

Everyone with access to your station website should only use a strong password dedicated to that website. I recommend using a password manager which allows you to set complicated/unique passwords for every account. The password manager securely houses them, so you only need to remember a single master password.

Also, ensure that each of your website admins has only the proper amount of access they need to perform their tasks. If someone only writes the occasional blog post, they do not need access to edit banner ads, view contest submissions, or add new users. Limiting their access will limit the effects of an intrusion if their account is ever compromised.

Wrapping Up

Having your team know these fundamental skills starts with management. Look at your station website often and call out images that do not make sense or do not stand up as looking professional. Call out spelling and grammar mistakes – before your listeners do.

There are many free resources in blog posts and online training videos across Youtube to increase one’s skillset.

Need help with your radio station website? Please reach out to us at https://www.skyrocketradio.com/contact.