Improve Your Website User Experience to Increase Visitors

Online platforms like our websites and mobile apps have become the primary means of accessing information and entertainment for so many people. So, we, as radio stations, must recognize the significance of providing an exceptional user experience online. A bad online user experience isn’t going to drive someone to their radio.

A well-designed and user-friendly website not only attracts visitors but also encourages them to return frequently. There are more bad radio station websites on the internet than there are great ones.  Our hope is that you’ll look at your website with a set of fresh eyes.  Today, we’ll dive into the importance of website user experience for radio stations and provide actionable steps to ensure visitors become loyal visitors as well as listeners.

Why User Experience Matters

First Impressions Count

You wouldn’t hire bad talent to be on the radio or let the front of your office go into disrepair because you never know when that first listener impression is going to happen.  A radio station’s website serves as its digital storefront, acting as the initial online point of contact with visitors, advertisers, and potential new listeners.  A positive first impression can instill trust and intrigue, enticing visitors to explore further and connect deeper.

Retaining Attention

In an era of constant online distractions, captivating someone’s attention is crucial. A seamless online user experience reduces bounce rates and keeps visitors engaged, ensuring they spend more time interacting with the station’s content.

Building Brand Loyalty

A well-crafted website fosters a sense of loyalty and connection with your visitors. By prioritizing user experience, you’re creating memorable interactions that resonate with visitors and listeners, leading to increased brand loyalty and advocacy.

Steps to Enhance Website User Experience

1. Streamline Navigation

Clear and intuitive navigation is essential for visitors to find content their looking for effortlessly. Implement a logical site structure with well-labeled menus, easily accessible search bars, and prominent links to key sections. Ensure that your website is mobile-responsive for seamless browsing across every device and that the navigation is as clear and intuitive on mobile devices as it is on desktop.

Packing your main menu with too many items can be a turn-off to many visitors, especially if that menu becomes so packed that it extends to the next line or breaks the layout of the page.  Ensure your website menu contains only what is necessary and relevant to your daily visitors.  Trying to include many options that will only benefit your advertisers will likely turn away the visitors you want returning day after day.

2. Optimize Loading Speed

Slow-loading websites frustrate users and drive them away. It’s vital that you optimize every image, minimize the amount of code used, and leverage caching techniques to reduce page load times. Regularly monitor your website to see how fast or slow it is and take steps to optimize its performance to deliver a snappy and responsive experience.

The easiest way to make your site faster is to use a minimal number of images that are optimized to be the smallest possible file size.  More images equal slower load times.

3. Engaging Content Presentation

Just as we do on-air, we should present our online content in an appealing and easily consumable manner. Use eye-catching visuals, concise headlines, and engaging multimedia elements to enhance the overall experience.

Prioritize responsive design to accommodate different screen sizes and resolutions.  This means content authors should be mindful of how their chosen featured images appear differently across multiple devices or areas of website.  For example, your post or event featured image may be rectangles that are wider than they are tall.  However, in a sidebar widget or inside other layouts, they may appear square.  When this happens, will key parts of the image be cut off?  Knowing this ahead of time can ensure your content creators pick the right image that will look best everywhere.

4. Image Standardization

By using images that follow a unified style, you create a visually pleasing and harmonious experience for users.  Consistency in image presentation helps users recognize and relate to your brand, fostering a sense of familiarity and trust.

Standardized images can also improve scan-ability of your content. By using consistent image styles, sizes, and placements, you can guide users’ attention and draw focus to important elements. This makes it easier for users to skim through your content, identify key information, and locate specific sections of interest.  Notice how major market sites or top news brands display their images.

If you rotate images or ads in a specific area, it’s very important that all those images are the same dimensions.  Otherwise, the container may increase and decrease in size as images rotate in and out causing the content below the area to move and up and down on the page.  This cumulative shift provides a horrible user experience and will force visitors to quickly leave your website.

Ensure your sales team knows what banner sizes to send to their clients.  If a client sends banner artwork that doesn’t match your chosen sizes, communicate to them that their ad will need to be resized accordingly by them or your content team.  Resizing or re-working banner ad images to fit your website is very common.

5. Seamless Audio Streaming

Audio streaming should be seamless and uninterrupted. Employ reliable streaming technology and optimize the audio player for easy access and control across various platforms and devices.

Easy access may mean that it appears in a popup player or persistent audio player so that they continue navigating your website while listening.  Consider one of these two options if your “listen live” player is embedded into a page and does not allow the listeners to navigate away from it without hitting play multiple times.

Think of your mobile listeners.  If someone is listening to your stream on a mobile device, does the audio continue to play when their phone is locked?  If not, then you may see a decrease in those mobile streams.

6. Social Integration

Integrate social media platforms to facilitate easy sharing of content and encourage community engagement. Having your content shared among your listeners on social media platforms is vital because it ensures it’s seen by people that may not visit your website.  Social share buttons facilitate this process.  Do not expect your visitors to copy and paste your links into their favorite platforms.  This small extra step is more than most are willing to do.

7. Regular Content Updates

Consistently updating your website with fresh and relevant content ensures visitors have a reason to return. Develop a content strategy that includes a mix of articles, podcasts, interviews, event updates, and other content to keep visitors engaged and informed.

Some websites have seen a dramatic increase in visitors from obituaries, mugshots, local sports scores, closings, swap shop, and other similar content.  This all depends on your market and audience.  What information can your station provide that will be new on your website tomorrow?

8. Focus on Value

Too often, we add content to our websites that we like but that provides no value to our visitors.  For example, sliders were popular years ago because they gave us the ability to rotate several high-ticket content items in one area.  Over the years though, studies have shown that sliders do not add any value.  Instead, they only bog down your website with excessive images.  So, if you like the slider but it isn’t providing a substantial value to the user, it should go.  If you think rotating your list of shows in a homepage slider is cool, then I’m looking at you.

“Welcome to our website” is another content item that provides no value.  The best first thing a visitor sees when they come to your website should be the most important thing you want to inform them of or the action you want them to take.  Think, a major news story or prevalent contest.

Once you prioritize value over “what looks cool”, you’ll start seeing your visitor counts increase.

9. Gather and Act on Feedback

Encourage visitors to provide feedback on their website experience. Conduct website usability tests, surveys, and pay attention to analytics data. Use these stats and feedback to identify areas of improvement and implement necessary changes to enhance the user experience continually.  If you have analytics but rarely pay attention to the details, then you’re missing out on some valuable insights into what’s happening with your station’s website.

Conclusion

Radio stations must prioritize website user experience to attract and retain visitors. Compare your station’s website to major market radio and television stations and even national news networks that have a team of user experience experts on hand.  Notice how their websites check all the boxes we’ve mentioned here.  The navigation is streamlined.  It loads fast with great content.  The images look the same sizes and dimensions.  There’s new content every day and there’s value in every detail.

It’s vital that everyone on your team is mindful of creating an amazing user experience and lasting good first impression.  By adopting user-friendly design principles, and optimizing website performance, radio stations can foster a loyal audience. Remember, a well-crafted website not only engages visitors but also strengthens your overall brand image and cements the station’s position in the highly competitive digital space.