I recently had a conversation with a local sales manager who works for a national group in a medium-sized market and asked him how they were doing at selling their station websites. I was blown away by his response, “We don’t unless someone asks about it – which is never.” When I asked why he said that there, "wasn’t much local content and really no reason to focus on the website". And then most that was done at the corporate level. I was just in awe.  But, he was correct.  The website wasn't much to look at, which was surprising for a larger group. 

Here are some reasons why your site may not be growing visitors or getting enough sales.  

Your content is not fresh: Would you buy a newspaper or magazine ad if the cover only changed every couple of months? Or never? Gosh, I hope not. Good/fresh content is so important for both visitors and advertisers.  Besides search engines, let’s not forget about the indirect influence of social media on rankings and traffic. Great content is more likely to be shared on social media channels and that means more clicks to your website. That’s why sharing your website content on social media is more important than simply posting it there.

You’re not promoting your site and/or its content: If you’re not hammering the benefits of your website on-air, the smart advertiser will know that you’re not very interested in promoting it (or their purchased ad on it).  Radio is the most proven form of advertising, so why not promote the website content as often as possible on-air?

Your salespeople are not trained to sell the website: Show them how important and relevant the station website is to you. If it is not just as important as the on-air signal, then this is where you can start. Emphasizing digital assets is a must-have mentality for any radio station that wants to survive moving forward.  Do the people who are tasked with selling your website know every opportunity that exists and what each location costs? Therefore, a Digital Inventory List is so important.

You’re not tracking the effectiveness of your website: If you’re producing good content and promoting it well, over time you will learn what works well and what doesn’t. If you’re not tracking the effectiveness of your content, then you miss out on this opportunity. Once you can see a trend, your content producers will have a guideline to go by and produce more of what the audience wants. For some it’s local news, for others event calendar and so on.

You have too many links away from your website: Radio stations that display RSS feeds that lead to other websites is one of our biggest pet peeves. We understand every station wants format news on their website. However, it’s important to ask yourself if the links away from your site, and the advertisers you sell to be on it, are worth it. What’s most likely to happen, the visitor will bookmark their content site and go straight there next time bypassing your site altogether.

Your website doesn’t perform well: Online visitors are a demanding bunch and have high expectations of the websites they visit. Here is a list of the things they will expect:

- Your site loads quickly.

Conclusion: Having more visitors and advertisers for your station website ultimately comes down to how involved the management team is with it.  Hopefully, these steps bring more visitors and revenue your way.