7 Reasons That You Need To Add Audio To Your Website
by Brian Cotsen

The internet is evolving. Websites look and feel completely different to how they appeared just a few short years ago.

Today's visitor is expecting much more of an experience than they did in the recent past.

With faster internet connections and more powerful computers visitors to websites no longer want to just 'read' content they want to 'hear' content.

 

So give your listeners something worth listening to!

• Stand out from the crowd.
• Appeal to the emotions of your visitors.
• People remember 70% of what they 'See' & 'Hear'.
• Express yourself or your companies ideas.
• Communicate a difficult idea more easily.
• Increase your sites stickiness.
• Add interactivity without slowing down the visitor experience.

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1. Stand out from the crowd

Though audio has been around for quite some time on the internet, many businesses still don't use it to it's full advantage on their website.

By using audio well on your website, you are able to set yourself apart from your competitors without making a huge investment in equipment, time or bandwidth.

2. Appeal to your visitors emotions

The one big negative of the internet is the impersonal feel or lack of soul that most websites have.

There is no sense of place, no human touch.

Shops will always beat websites on the service level because although both can let a customer 'See' the goods shops are able to appeal to all the human emotions & the senses - touch, smell, taste & of course sound.

With web audio you are able to give your visitors more human emotion by adding sound to your website.

Welcome your customers, tell them about the great things on the website and on each page, invite them to contact you or sign up for something.

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3. People remember 70% of what they both 'See & Hear'

Marketers and presenters know that customers will only remember 20% of what they read, which is why headlines often tell the whole story.

However when you combine sound and vision the retention is much greater - up to 70% of the message can be recalled.

Use audio with your text and pictures to enhance the message and build your revenue.

4. Express yourself or your company's ideas.

By using web audio you can tell your customers about the experience they are about to receive on the website.

You can tell them about other pages that they may not know about or find from just navigating themselves.

You can sell to them. Perhaps give them ideas of things that they could do with the products or services on the website.

You could tell them about exciting events that will be happening in he future.

You could give them a sample of what they will get from your services - especially if you offer some form of music, language, performance or other sound related service.

5. Communicate a difficult idea

Sometimes it is incredibly difficult to express an idea quickly and clearly in written form and yet in just a few spoken words you can accomplish it with ease.

When you need to communicate a difficult or delicate idea audio can be the ideal answer.

6. Increase your sites 'Stickiness'

What do I mean by 'Stickiness'?

Well it's both the time that someone spends on the site and also the number and frequency with which visitors return.

Audio offers your visitors a good reason to stick around for longer.

If your message is engaging then visitors will listen to your voice to the end of the recording.

If you offer new content regularly, visitors will come back to your website often to hear what new things you have to say.

7. Add interactivity without slowing down your users experience.

As I said at the beginning, the internet has evolved into something that can do much more than just put up pages of text on a screen.

Users now want a more enjoyable, interactive experience when they surf the net and land on sites.

Audio gives them that interactivity.

Video is also great at entertaining your visitors however video is still slow and bandwidth hungry and can often slow down or even stop the loading of web pages with video embedded in them.

Audio doesn't cause these sort of issues anymore so, although video can be more exciting, good use of audio will engage without interrupting your visitors enjoyment of your website.

I always point out that audio, like any special effects, should be used in moderation or when it will truly improve the users experience.

Enjoy adding audio to your websites and see how much longer your visitors linger on each web page that has audio on it.

 

My reviews of Audio Software Tools

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