Streaming Audio

Have you noticed the latest online craze? No, it’s

not how to make a million dollars overnight, although

that idiotic idea is still floating around… It’s

adding voice to your website. “Ma Bell” meets

the Internet, so to speak. If you spend any amount of

time online I’m sure you’ve seen a number of sites

employing this technology.

So who’s behind this phenomenon and what’s the benefit

of adding voice to your website? I’m so glad you

asked. In the cold, impersonal world of the Net,

your voice adds a touch of warmth and personalization

that can increase credibility, thus raising your conversion

rate. Sound good? (No pun intended.) Of course it

does.

So now that you’re considering adding the sweet sound

of your voice to your site, where might you want to

use it? Depending on your website’s content and theme,

there are a variety of ways to incorporate your voice

into it. For example:

- You might place a welcome message on your front

page, summarizing your site’s highlights, informing

visitors of what they’ll find, and thanking them for

stopping by.

- If you have an “about us” page on your site, you

might want to record a brief message to accompany

your background info. This will help people feel

as if they’re actually meeting you.

- Since testimonials are a great enhancement to

any site imagine if you actually added them in

your customer’s own voice. If you use one of the

phone recording services you could give them the

number and they could easily record how they feel

about your products/services.

- If your site has been featured in an online

interview or radio show, imagine including this

audio in our site. Just think of it as your very own live

press room.

One thing to consider is the quality of your voice.

If it’s not all that pleasant to listen to,

you may want to employ the help of a

friend, or you could hire a “professional” voice-over

service. Do a search at Google and you’ll find

plenty of options. One such service is

http://www.jennifervaughn.com/

so now that you’re actually thinking of recording

something and adding it to your site, how do you

do it? There are many different ways, some more

expensive then others. Let’s examine some of your

choices a little more closely.

1) MP3 Sound Stream: http://mp3soundstream.com/

Creates streaming audio from MP3 or Wav files.

Produces high quality output for only $39.95.

2) Audio Player Pro: http://www.audioplayerpro.com/

Starting at only $47.00. This produces a code that you

can paste onto your website that will enable the

viewers’ default player.

3) Audio Generator: http://www.audiogenerator.com/

Streaming audio using just your browser. Easy to

use, you can phone in your message or use MP3 files.

Excellent sound quality. After recording your message

paste some code onto your site and a button appears

with your audio. $29.95 monthly.

4) SoundNails: [http://www.soundnails.com/]

This program converts several MP3 files into the

popular Flash format. The sounds can then be played

in streaming mode without the need of a player like

(Windows Media Player or Real Player) in a user-

friendly way. 30 day free trial is available, with

two versions offered ranging from $10.00 to $65.00.

5) Sonic Memo http://www.sonicmemo.com/

Includes a step-by-step tutorial. You’ll have to

create your own MP3 files and upload them to

your server. If you record WAV files, you’ll

have to first convert them to MP3 format.

This software sells for $97.00.

6) Instant Audio: http://instantaudio.com/

Just record a message by phone and your website

or e-mail is instantly audio-enabled. To check

their sound quality call the phone number listed

on the site, leave a message, then hit the play

button on the site to listen. This service will

cost you 29.95 a month.

Other Resources of Interest:

Free ebook that shows you how to add audio

to your site at absolutely no cost to you.

The book is rebrandable if you sign up for the

affiliate program.

http://www.novasoft-inc.com/ebook.asp

Internet Audio Guy:

http://InternetAudioGuy.com

Some pretty good resources here on adding audio,

and if you subscribe to the ezine, you receive a 22-page

free report entitled “Web Pages with Sound and

Video.”

Your site has been sending non-verbal messages for

years; now it’s time to break free and let it send

a message everyone can hear. Adding audio to your website is not

only easy to do, it can help

you gain the trust of your site’s visitors, thus

increasing your conversion rate. So stop wasting your

time and money, and start getting the sales you may

be missing.

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