Why do talking web pages improve sales and readership? Because they turn the site from a distant and unemotional object into something personal. When a web page talks, it isn't something you passively read any more. Now the web page is someone talking and you have to pay attention.

It's easy to ignore a message that just sits there waiting for you to look at it. It's hard to not pay attention when someone says something to you directly.

Video Desk makes it easy to give your site a voice.

Create the Audio

Choosing the correct message is probably the most important part of the process. Your web site has a message, and you need to find or create audio that will enhance and support that message.

Some ideas for your audio content are:

• Make your web page seem friendly and inviting with a “Welcome” greeting
• An audio sales talk on each of your company's product pages
• Pleasant and appropriate music that plays while people read your site

Once you know what audio you would like, you need to create it. For spoken words such as a sales talk or greeting message, you can simply use Video Desk's text-to-speech technology. Just select a document file in the Media Manager and Video Desk will automatically convert it into an audio-only FLV file in seconds. No need to worry about file formats or recording studios! You can even choose between our male and female “virtual narrators”, Paul and Kate.

Choose Your Player Options

When you add audio to your web page, you have several choices. First of all, you select the audio file to play.

There are several ways to play audio.

If you select Hide Player, no visible player is shown. The audio plays directly from your web page.

You can choose to have the audio start automatically when your web page loads, or only when the audio button is clicked. Clicking the audio button a second time will pause the sound.

You can choose to have audio repeat, or play only once. Generally, repeating is a good choice for music. Spoken words (like a greeting) should only be spoken once. Your viewers can always play the message a second time by clicking the button.

You can decide what message will appear on the audio button. It's a good idea to keep it fairly short, no more than 4 words. You can also replace the default buttons with any image file. The image file must be on a web server. Just enter the address of the image (URL) to use it as a button.

Let Video Desk Create the HTML Code

Since your audio file is already stored in your Video Desk account, adding it to your web page is very simple. Click Webmaster Tools >> Audio Buttons. Browse for and select the audio file. Choose options, and click Test Audio Button. If the sound works correctly, close the Test window and click Create Audio Button HTML Code. Copy the HTML code generated and paste it into your web page to add the sound (and optional button) to the page. Be sure that you do not wrap any long lines in the code, which can prevent it from working.

Test Your Web Page

After adding the audio, load the page into a web browser. If the audio button does not appear, press F5 to reload the page. Make sure that the sound works correctly.

Adding audio to your web page makes it more personal and more compelling, and adds impact to your message. With Video Desk, it's quick and easy to make your web page talk or sing.