Every station wants bigger ratings.  The smartest stations also want bigger databases.  Why? Because algorithms change. Social media comes and goes. Streaming services compete for attention. But an email address, mobile number, or app user who has chosen to hear from your station is one of the most valuable marketing assets you own. 

The first big Friday night of high school football is here, and this is one of those times when a radio station website can be incredibly useful without creating a bunch of new content. Think about everything someone may want to know before heading to a game. Who is playing? What time is kickoff? Where is the stadium? Where should I park? Is there construction around the school? 

For years, when we talked about getting more people to a radio station website, a lot of the conversation naturally centered around Google. Create good local content, make it search-friendly and give someone looking for that information a chance to find your station. Now AI search is becoming another part of that equation.

Google Analytics can tell us whether people are actually using the things we put on our websites. The problem is that opening Google Analytics for the first time feels a little like getting the ratings book without anyone explaining how to read it. There are reports, charts, percentages and terminology everywhere.

If your website hasn't been updated lately, chances are it's doing exactly what dead air does—sending people somewhere else. Today's website isn't an online brochure. It's your station's 24/7 personality, promotion department, contest machine, streaming hub, podcast library, and sales assistant.

Over the years, I've probably had the same conversation with dozens of radio stations. We'll be talking about their website, local news, or ways to increase traffic, and I'll ask, "How many local pictures do you have in your media library?” 

We spend countless hours developing on-air personalities, coaching talent, creating promotions, and building relationships with listeners, then we introduce those same personalities online with... a schedule. "Weekdays 6 a.m. to 10 a.m." Maybe there's a headshot. Maybe there's a paragraph that sounds like it came from a resume. That's about it.

In many markets there is a group creating better multi-platform content than any local media company, local churches. Here are some of the ways churches are outperforming media digitally and a couple of lessons radio can take from that. Creating multi-camera live streams that are available on-demand immediately after the service.

Today, you can describe the website you want, let AI write the code, upload it directly to your hosting account, and make future changes simply by asking. It's remarkably inexpensive, surprisingly capable, and for many businesses, it may become the obvious choice. For radio stations, however, I believe it could become one of the biggest digital mistakes you make.