Ensure Your Radio Station Can Be Found By These Search Terms

Have you ever searched for your radio station online?  What search terms did you use to find it?  The station name, slogan, or the call letters, perhaps?  If you did, you were probably overjoyed to find it at or near the top of the search results.  Optimizing your website for this is quite simple.  Just put your station name and call letters in the footer of every page.  However, the average listener will not search for your station name or the call letters unless they are specifically looking for your radio station.  The key is to be found when people are not specifically looking for you, but something you have or provide that may benefit them.

Essential Radio Station Search Terms

Today, we’ll cover four specific search terms that when used, should show your radio station at the top of the search results, when people are not looking for you specifically.  Keep in mind that these search terms are geared specifically toward terrestrial radio stations and not internet radio stations that target a worldwide audience.

1. “{music format} music in {town name}”

Think of someone coming to your area for the first time.  They love a particular genre of music.  They might hear your station while scanning the dial, but they might also search for their preferred format.  I’ve tried several searches in my own area and noticed that many stations do not appear anywhere on the first page of search results for this term.  This means a loss of website traffic and a potential listener.

And you’ve likely come across clients who like to advertise on specific formats.  They will be more likely to use this search term.  When your station cannot be found using it, it could mean a loss of revenue.  This brings us to our second key search term.

2. “radio advertising in {town name}”

This is a big one because it directly affects your revenue.  Include an “Advertise with Us” page on your website and ensure the town names are mentioned within the copy.  Many SEO agencies recommend creating “Advertising in {town name}” pages for every city and town your radio station covers.

3. “{music format} radio near me” or “radio stations near me”

“Near me” searches have witnessed exponential growth over the past several years.  “This type of search requires the search engine to use GPS coordinates. These days, most smartphone users leave their GPS or location services switched on. Most apps require this to be enabled and so even users who preferred to switch off their GPS for privacy reasons now leave them on for convenience purposes. This means Google can detect users’ exact location and give them the most relevant and nearby results.

4. “news in {town name}”, “events in {town name}”, etc.

If your radio station website is consistently updated with local information, then it should easily appear with this search.  For some radio station websites, local news, sports, or events keep listeners coming back.  For some, local obituaries are the most visited pages.  Whatever content your radio station website is known for, ensure that it can be found by those looking for it in your area.  It’s highly unlikely the average search will be for “events {station name}”.  “Events in {town name}” is more likely what they are looking for.

Optimizing for Essential Search Terms

Here’s what you can do now to be found using these search terms.

1. List your radio station(s) on Google My Business and optimize each listing.

Ensure your listing displays what your radio station does like the music it plays and the information that most listeners get first from your radio station and your website.  Not only will this help your station(s) be found when people search, but it also provides quick information within the search to your office number, business hours, etc.

2. Ensure your schema markup is current/correct.

Schema markup is a kind of coding language that facilitates the appearance of rich results within search engines.  For the typical business, these include images, reviews, and ratings along with other relevant information from your site.  Setting this markup is easy within special plugins like Yoast SEO for WordPress or by setting specific template options, depending on your website setup.

Your website’s description tag is a very important schema item.  It should contain the radio station’s location, the format, and the content it’s known for.  This is not a place to get wordy.  Most search engines truncate this at 160 characters.  Here’s an example… 

B101 (KWWK-FM) is a country music radio station in Farmtown, Indiana including Big Bubba in the Morning, local news, obituaries, and high school sports.

While being concise, there are a lot of search results in a description tag like this because it covers several bases.  You should be able to pick any two or three of these words and find the station easily.  For example, “Farmtown local news,” “obituaries in Farmtown,” “country radio Farmtown,” etc.

3. Optimize your “Contact Us” page.

Since your website description meta tag is so short, your “Contact Us” and “Advertise with Us” pages are good places to provide more detail about what your station is and what it offers.

“B101 (KWWK-FM) is a country music radio station in Farmtown, Indiana specializing in country hits from today and yesterday. B101 is a great place to advertise on the radio because of our great features like Big Bubba in the Morning, Kay Bails middays, and John Deere in the Afternoon along with local news, obituaries, and Farmtown high school sports.” 

Remember to keep this description up to date as your programming and key features change throughout the year.  There is no limit to this description, but do not make it so wordy that search engines would consider it keyword stuffing.

Also, include photos of your radio station and make sure to include the location within the title and alt tags of those images.

Wrapping Up

When optimizing your radio station website to be found in search engines, take steps to go beyond being found by people who are specifically looking for you.  Be found easily for the kinds of content your radio station produces and the benefits of advertising with your radio station.  Get discovered when people are not looking for you specifically.

When researching this post, I did this exercise for my market.  The biggest leader in these searches was the national-wide chain while many local stations were missing in a few.

Please take some time this week to search these terms in your market.  Try different search engines (Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, Yahoo, etc) to see how the results vary.

These key search terms can be a good indicator of how well (or poorly) you are competing with your rivals online.  Take the easy steps now to ensure your radio station stays at the top of these search results.