U92′s website

Recently, I had a friend of mine shoot me a message. She wanted me to go vote for her in a contest on U92′s website, of course I headed over right away to place a vote on her behalf. I was shocked at how unprofessional their website looked. It almost looks like they had an intern who had had one web design class in high school build it.

The concerts page is using a basic table and while it provides basic information it lacks any excitement for these up coming shows. And, why is there no integration of these events with social media of any kind? I can’t click that I’m going to attend one of these shows and have it integrated into a Facebook event. By using social media U92 could bring everyone who is excited about the show together, and bringing more patrons to the concert. Both, the events page and concerts page are missing out on schema code to alert search engines about the events. This could greatly increase traffic to the site.

Also where is the social media integration? Sure I can visit Facebook and Twitter pages and like U92. However, there is no integration for me to share your contents on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. Every article, blog post, and contest that you do should have some integration of social media. Make it easy for your visitors to share content with their networks.

Here’s 5 things I’d recommend to fix your broken site.

1. Integrate social media more thoroughly. Add G+, FBShare, and Twitter share buttons for all of your posts, events, and contents.

2. Hire a graphic artist, or if you have one get them a copy of Adobe Photoshop at the minimum (You can get a license now for $20 bucks a month). Once you have this artist in place have them either rebuild or tweak all of your sponsors logos, and events so they actually fit in standardised format. It takes some time but it’s well worth the investment.

3. Unclutter your site there’s way to much going on, you only need one Like button for your Facebook page

4. Get rid of Flash on the site. Use actual HTML sliders. It’s easier to maintain, and it’ll work on iPads and iPhones natively.

5. Add a Twitter feed, and actually use it. While we’re on the topic of your Twitter page get ride of the tiling background it’s not 1997… and have a graphic designer build a square version of your logo for all your social media accounts.

And with that, I’m done. U92, we highly suggest you fix your website. If your website looks anything like U92′s let me know if you need help I’ll be happy to show you the way.

–Colton

P.S. And, really?! Purple text on black?