TIPS FROM THE BEST RADIO WEBSITE IN THE WORLD Ken Benson – Pinnacle Media Virgin Radio has the best radio station website in the world. Hailed as the "Oscars of the Internet" by the New York Times, the Virgin Radio Website won two Webby Awards, the leading international award honoring excellence in Web design, creativity, usability and functionality. www.virginradio.co.uk won the Webby for best radio site, and the People's Voice Webby Award for radio - chosen by tens of thousands on Internet users worldwide
In the first of a two-part interview, Pinnacle's VP International, Ken Benson, chats with the mastermind behind Virgin Radio website, James Cridland, Head of Strategic Development, New Media in London, to find out what makes Virgin Radio the best in the world.
Why does www.virginradio.co.uk continue to be recognized as radio's best website?
A lot of it has to do with first-mover advantage: we were the first station in Europe to stream online (in 1996), and we have achieved a good list of other firsts since. This year, for example, we became the first station to launch our own 3G Radio Player for mobile phones, and the first UK station to make a daily podcast. It also, of course, helps that we have a globally-recognized brand - and great content from an excellent radio station.
Are there any other radio station website you admire?
The BBC's websites are huge, and often excellently written. WBUR Boston site looks great, works well, and is a good resource. I like websites that get little things right. Classic FM in the UK has a system which lets their listeners find a piece they heard earlier that week: brilliantly user-friendly. GWR FM's site lets you download tracks you've just heard played: simple and, one presumes, a good way to earn extra revenue.
In your opinion, what is wrong with most radio station websites?
Most of them are outsourced, and not done by the people that live and breathe that radio station. Those that are done internally are generally done by a team that are sitting on different floors than the programming team. Your website is content: your radio audio is content - the team that produces your content should all be physically in the same office, otherwise they don't complement each other.
What are the essentials that should be included in every station site?
- A 'listen now' link (for Virgin Radio, 14% of our listeners tune in online every month) - DJ biographies and a way to get in touch with them - Content surrounding the music and personalities on your station
What are the most common mistakes stations should avoid at all costs?
Wasting their time. Pages to back up today's phone-in topic, for example, are pointless: the search engines will never find them in time. Ideally, any new page you add to your website should stay there for a month at least. If you're deleting old content to put new content there on a daily basis, you're simply wasting time. Doing a chart? Keep past charts, to make it into a useful historical resource, don't delete them.
In our research, we find most radio station websites generate very little traffic. What types of content drive traffic and frequent visits?
Listen-live links drive the majority of our traffic. Our problem sometimes is to get people to notice the rest of the site (which you can fix by building your own player). That aside, content related to what's happening on-air. We can easily make our content increase by 500% minute-on-minute just by giving a listener a reason to go to the website.
We have a lot of music content, which can be one of the first experiences a listener has with our station, through the search engines and competitions online also work well. Remember that a competition needs to last at least two weeks, otherwise your listeners can't tell their friends in time.
Oh, and NEVER give out an email address on the air. Always 'mail me via the website'. If you're connected to the internet, it's no big deal to visit our site instead of sending an email. |