What makes a good website for your radio station?

For many listeners, your website is the station. That is where they press play, see what is playing and send a request. So a good radio site is more than a page with a player. These are the parts that really make a difference.

A player that always works

The play button must be visible immediately, on every page. Ideally the music keeps playing when someone clicks to another page. Also pay attention to:

• an https stream, otherwise browsers block the sound on a secure site (see own domain and https);
• reconnecting when the connection drops for a moment;
• a backup stream if you have one.

Now playing

Listeners want to know which song is playing and who is live. Show the title, the artist, cover art and the name of the DJ. A list of recently played songs answers the question "what was that song?" by itself.

Schedule and DJs

A weekly schedule showing who plays when, and a page per DJ with a photo and show times. That helps listeners find their favourite show and gives your DJs something to share.

Requests and chat

A request form and a chat make listeners part of the show. It helps if requests go straight to the DJ who is live. More tips in requests, chat and WhatsApp.

Works on every phone

Most visitors come via their phone. Test your site on a small screen: is the play button big enough, does everything fit and does the page load quickly? A site that listeners can add to their home screen as an app is a nice extra.

Easy to update yourself

Posting news, changing the schedule or adding a new DJ should be possible without technical knowledge. A good admin area with permissions per person prevents everyone from being able to change everything.

A panel for your DJs

DJs want their stream details, their schedule and the requests in one place. A DJ panel where they go live, see requests and chat with listeners saves a lot of messages and separate lists.

Findable in Google

Make sure you have a clear page title and description, clean addresses, a sitemap and texts that tell what your station plays. News posts and DJ pages give Google extra content to show.

Fast and secure

A secure connection (https), regular updates and backups are part of it. That keeps your site reliable for listeners and for Google.

Build it yourself or ready-made?

You can build a radio site yourself with a general website system and separate plugins, but then you are responsible for the integrations and maintenance. A ready-made solution for radio already has the player, now playing, the schedule, requests and the DJ panel linked together. Want to see what that looks like? Request a demo of cmsweb.nl.