Adding Audio To Website

First of all, the most obvious is to use audio to record a greeting for people who visit your website. I'm against having audio start automatically as most people agree that it’s really irritating. Visitors might be listening to radio as they surf or have children napping in the room and they forget their speakers are turned up. I have visited websites where the audio greeting level was so loud it made me jump. What you can do is create a voice greeting and put the player on the main page next to your picture, inviting them to listen to a voice greeting from you.

To show you an example of that, take a peek at Mom Masterminds. If you scroll down just a little bit, you'll see Alice Seba's picture and a player button. It says ‘Turn up your speakers, click play for an important message from Alice Seba’ and then if you scroll down a little bit more you will see my picture and you can hear an audio from me too.

Now lots of people play these audios. We've had this page up for over a year and I do check my statistics and the audios do get played. So it's a great way to establish relationship on a deeper level with the people who are visiting. When they can hear your voice welcoming them warmly to your website and giving them just a little bit of information it's great.

Another way to use audio on your website is on your bio page. You should have, if you are trying to establish relationships with your visitors, a bio page where they can learn a little bit more about you. It would be fantastic to put that bio in audio form.

Another wonderful way to use audio on a website if you are selling products is to add product explanations in audio. There are many times when I visit a website that they just don't have enough information about their product. What if you visited each of your product pages and asked yourself, "What kind of questions do my customers have about this product?" And then record an explanation. I know as someone that shops online a lot, I don't shop unless I get my questions answered easily. That carries onto the next idea for using audio on your website. And that is a frequently asked questions section.

If you are selling anything whether it is products, services, memberships, coaching, you name it, you should have a frequently asked question (FAQ) section where people can go and very quickly see if those questions popping into their minds are covered there. Now doing it in print is fantastic especially because that helps build content on your website but to add the audio to it would be going the extra mile for your visitors.

I'm a multi-tasker, if I can click play and save myself a little time of reading to be able to just listen to it while I go on and do something else, I’m happy.

The last thing I want to mention is using audio on your website for testimonials.

Now, we all should be getting testimonials from our clients and customers. We should be asking for permission to use them on our website and in our promotional materials. On the website it is very common, back to Mom Masterminds, if you scroll down to the first pink box you will see an example of a testimonial that uses both print and audio.

Some people question the validity of online websites testimonials because they are thinking, "How do I even know that this is a real person?" Nell Taliercio gave us a short written testimonial and then she recorded a testimonial over the telephone. The two together are very powerful. It establishes that she is a real person.

If you scroll down you can see that we actually use several audio testimonials through the page. So from the first time somebody visits our site they've been able to hear from Alice, they've been able to hear from me, and they've been able to hear from several people that have used our services.

The audio on our website goes hand in hand with the text to answer all the questions and objections. This is a sales letter website, it is intended to be informative and respond to any potential objection, but you can incorporate this into any website.

If you have a happy customer saying "Wow, you’ve just opened my eyes! What an epiphany." Ask them, "Would you mind sending me a testimonial and would you mind recording a simple audio testimonial that I could put on my website so that other people could hear what a great person I am?"

Now you’re probably wondering how I do this. There are a few ways to accomplish adding audio to your website. Probably the very easiest is to use a service like Audio Acrobat. Audio acrobat is $20.00 a month and they have a free trial.

Audio Acrobat is really phenomenal for $20 a month you can record as many greetings as you like for your website. You can create testimonial lines, as many as you like. You can do so many things with it. I encourage you to sign up for the free trial and really check it out!

I have a testimonial line for my show. Anybody at anytime can call in and leave a comment about the program. I created a line for each of my Resident experts on WAHM Talk Radio so that they could call in. You can record over the phone, you can record by your computer microphone or you can record on your home computer and then upload the audio files. With Audio Acrobat you create the audio and then just click to create the html code that you’re going to then go and paste into your website. Everything is super simple. As soon as somebody calls in a testimonial you'll get an email telling you that one has come in. You can listen to it and publish it to your website within just a few moments.

Using audio on your website reaches the people who visit your website. It adds a dimension of relationship to your website that is so important. I encourage everyone to do that.

Internet Radio & Podcasting

Now let's talk about how to use audio to reach beyond your websites. If you are trying to build a website, if you are trying to build an online business, you want to reach your target market in every way possible. You want to reach them through your website, you want to do good search engines optimization, you want to do pay per click, you want to distribute articles, you want to create a blog, you want to get out there in every genre possible and Internet Radio and Podcasting is another genre that is bursting wide open for you to get involved in.

When I started Work at Home Mom Talk Radio back in November of 2003 I didn't know anybody doing a program from home. Now with the explosion of podcasting, everybody is realizing that they can do this. You can take your expertise, hobby or passion and turn it into a radio program.

Let’s think of a life coach as an example. One of the biggest priorities for a life coach is educating people about the life coaching services that they offer. Imagine creating an show where you are sharing 15 or 20 minutes a week about what you do. What a great way to warm up a potential client.

Think of Internet Radio and Podcasting as another way to reach your target audience. People are finding you via your website, by searching for you in search engines, or hearing about you by a word of mouth, well what if someone is seeking audio and finds you that way? That rocks J

I have an audio course on how to start your own show, you can find that at Shoestring Radio & Podcasting. I also offer my students one on one coaching to help you through the process of getting started with your own show.

I want to encourage you if you are thinking about doing an internet radio show/podcast for the Mom market, visit The Mom Cast/Mom’s Radio Network and check out the partner options there. I'm growing a networking of programs of interest to Moms – so if your show topic appeals to Moms, it might just fit in there.

You can choose between joining your independent show as a partner, or you can even hire The Mom Cast to do your audio production.

Well, that’s everything that I wanted to share with you. I hope that this has given you some great ideas for using audio in your online business!

Kelly McCausey Wahm Talk Radio