Check whether you need a site yet
Every Stream Brothers radio station, even on the Free plan, comes with a public station page and a place in the radio guide. If you've got one show and a few dozen friends listening, that page and your listen link are enough for now. Spend the time on your programmes.
You'll want your own site when presenters would like a page to share, a local business asks where its logo would go, or you want your schedule, contact details and sponsors under your own name. Your station page already shows your weekly line-up from the Schedule tab, but those other jobs need a site of your own.
Plan six pages, and stop there
Write this list on paper before you touch a computer.
| Page | What goes on it | Who keeps it fresh |
|---|---|---|
| Listen | Your player, big, and a line saying it keeps playing while people browse | Rarely changes |
| Home | The player at the top, what's on tonight, one line about the station | Whoever keeps the schedule |
| Schedule | Show names, days and times, with your time zone written out | One named person |
| Shows and presenters | A photo and two lines each, plus where to find them | Each presenter sends their own |
| Sponsors | Logos with links, and how to become one | Whoever talks to sponsors |
| Contact | An email address for the studio and one for sponsors | Rarely changes |
Skip a blog unless somebody has promised to write it every week. A page last updated two years ago makes a station look off the air, even when it's on.
Put a Listen button on every page
Here's the part that surprises people about a station site. On an ordinary website, every click loads a new page, and that stops the player on the old one. So someone listens on your home page, clicks Schedule, and the music dies.
The fix isn't clever code. Make a page called Listen that holds your player, then add it to your menu and set that one link to open in a new tab. Do this once all six pages exist, because after Edit new pages stop joining the menu by themselves. In WordPress's Navigation block, select Edit on the page list, then click the Listen link and turn on Open in new tab in the sidebar. The music now lives in its own tab while people wander round the rest of the site. Say so in a short line on the Listen page, and point out the pop-out option in the player too.
Keep a smaller player on the home page if you like, but don't expect it to start by itself. Browsers generally block sound until the visitor has clicked something, so one big play button does more good than any setting. Your station's Share tab has the embed code, and it goes into a Custom HTML block.
Set up WordPress the plain way
WordPress is a good fit here because several volunteers can share it without learning any code. Stream Brothers web hosting installs it in one click, and Pro is enough for a station. Platinum's extra room is for a whole network of sites.
- Pick a simple theme. Search the official WordPress theme directory, where themes are reviewed. Filter for a block theme, so your menu uses the Navigation block steps above. Ignore the words "radio theme". What you want is a clean layout, big readable text and recent updates. Your player comes from your station, so the theme doesn't need one.
- Skip big sliders and video headers. They're heavy on a phone.
- Add very little. A contact form plugin is usually all a station needs, because Turbo, the speed engine in front of every site we host, does the page caching with nothing to install. If you already use a popular cache plugin, it works with Turbo. Every extra plugin is one more thing to update.
- Give people their own logins. Nobody but you needs to be an administrator. An Author can write and publish their own posts but can't touch pages, so whoever looks after the schedule needs the Editor role. An Editor can change or delete any page, but not themes, plugins, users or settings, so a slip stays in your content, not in how the site runs. Leave pasting the player to an Editor or to you: WordPress can strip embed code saved by an Author.
- Set the time zone in Settings, General, so that anything WordPress dates matches your schedule.
Before a big change, such as a new theme, make a staging copy (a practice version of your site) and try it there first.
Write the schedule as plain text
A poster of the week's shows can look nice, but don't paste one in. A picture is hard to read on a phone, and nobody can fix a typo without the designer. Use an ordinary table, one row per show, in the page itself.
Always write the time zone out, such as "all times New York". Internet radio travels, and "8 pm" means nothing to your listener in Lisbon.
One thing to watch. The table you type into WordPress isn't linked to the line-up on your station's Schedule tab, so changing one doesn't change the other. Put both in the same person's hands and make it a habit: change the show, then change the page.
Give sponsors a page worth paying for
A logo on your site is an easy first thing to offer a local shop. Put each logo on the Sponsors page with a link and a sentence about what the business does. Google asks that paid links be marked, so give each one rel="sponsored": use Edit as HTML on that block and add it to the link.
Get ready for your busiest night
First, the comforting part. Your stream and your website are separate services. If the website has a bad night, the music keeps playing for everyone already tuned in, and anyone who has your station's own listen link (the direct HTTPS one, not your website's Listen page) can still get in. So always share that link along with the website when you post about a big show.
Your site has help too. Turbo keeps finished pages in memory so a crowd doesn't pile up behind them. It also clears a page the moment you publish, so a schedule change shows up straight away.
A week before the big night, run through this:
- Pick up a phone, open the Listen page as a visitor would (private window, logged out) and press play.
- Shrink any large photos on your home page before you upload them.
- Check that your radio plan's listener limit suits the crowd you're hoping for. Upgrading changes your limits, and your address stays the same.
- Don't update themes or plugins on the day. Do it a few days earlier, so there's time to fix anything.
- Afterwards, look at the visitor statistics and see which pages people really opened.
Put your name on it
A short name is easy to say on air, so read it out loud as a presenter would. Register it on our domains page and it connects to your site in the same account. Then create mailboxes at that name, such as studio@ and sponsors@, so nobody has to give out a personal address. If you get stuck, our help pages are the place to ask.