Many radio stations, and other businesses in general, greatly underestimate just how much emphasis people place on good design as a factor when they decide to trust their business or not. There’s a study entitled “Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites”. While this study targeted health sites, the same psychology applies to every website. This study raised the question: “Do different design and information content factors influence trust and mistrust of online health sites?”.
For this study, female participants were asked to search the internet for information related to their conditions and to discuss their initial impression of any website they encountered. The results showed that of all the issues they encountered, 94% of them were design related issues while only 6% were content related. The study showed, “Mistrust was found to relate to poor design appeal. The participants were less likely to trust sites that contained adverts, pop up surveys or that were poorly laid out”
Successful radio stations constantly evaluate how effectively their website is generating traffic. If you have a market/corporate website site, you’ll need to evaluate it for generating sales leads. Poor design is just one many factors that can turn visitors and potential customers away from returning for cool content or to learn more about your station’s advertising possibilities.
Here are some questions to ask yourself and your digital team:
Is our website outdated?
If your station website looks old and there is no fresh/relevant content to see, then your station will be perceived as “not fresh” and “irrelevant”. It’s becoming increasingly more important that your station website make an emotional connection with your listeners and potential advertisers.
Does our website reflect our current station branding?
If you have a country music radio station, then your website should look “country”. If you have a rock station and you’re using light blues and pinks as a color template, don’t expect your rock listeners to visit the website – ever.
Does our website have fresh local/format news and information?
Local information and format news is a very powerful tool to demonstrate, to your listeners, that you care enough to provide them with relevant information. A survey conducted by HubSpot shows that websites that blog (or news):
- Attract 55% more visitors
- Create 97% more inbound links
- Have 434% more indexed pages
Having more visitors means your station will have a higher chance of getting more online revenue. More inbound links increases your prominence with search engines & allows users to find you more easily. More indexed pages increases your chances of actually being found by search engines. Having a blog (or local news/information) is by far one of the best tools for improving your website’s search engine optimization (SEO).
Is our website mobile friendly?
More and more people are using their mobile phones or tablets to browse the internet and if your website doesn’t work well with mobile devices then your station will look ancient. Listeners will not want to pull/pinch to zoom in and out of your website to find what they are looking for. Advertisers will not find it interesting enough to want to buy it.
Your station website should not be thought of as a Yellow Page ad that lives on the internet. Your website should be thought of as an extension of your radio station and everything that it does. If you’re lacking in any of the areas above, then yes, your website is outdated and costing you in listeners and revenue. Reach out to us. We’d like to help your station generate online revenue and better connect with your listeners.
This article courtesy of Skyrocket Radio and originally appeared at http://www.skyrocketradio.com/business/is-your-outdated-website-costing-your-station-business/.
