You’ve only got seconds to grab a visitors attention and get them to stick around and browse your website. What can you do to help keep them there? Here are two easy ways to add an element of professional fun to your website.
1) Slideshow of Your Products or Portfolio
There are several options for creating a slideshow of images. Here are four (the easiest is last and takes very little technical know-how, if you’ve got pictures and can follow directions, you’re all set).
** Animated gif — combine several images into an animated gif using software like Adobe Image Ready, Jasc Animation Shop or Banner Maker Pro.
** Flash — make a flash video with the images using Adobe Flash or similar program. Some swfs allow you to control them with an XML file, which is easier.
** Java Applet — there are some java applets you can use to do a slideshow. That’s more technical though as far as the coding and requires that you have a hosting account or somewhere to host the java applet file. If you outsource your website design your designer/programmer can probably handle this for you.
** Easy Option! Put all your images in www.photobucket.com or www.slide.com and make one there.
2) Add a Real “Hello” to Greet Your Visitors
You’ve probably seen the websites where the owner greets you with a recorded message — “Hi, and thanks for stopping by my website…”
You can add this to your website, too! I’ll share the free way, and then the easy way.
If your computer comes with a built in microphone, or you can plug one in, you can download the free program Audacity to record an audio file with and convert it to MP3. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Or you may already have a program on your computer for sound. I use GarageBand on my MacBook.
Next, upload it to your website and you can either link to it or use a flash file like this one to play it: http://www.macloo.com/examples/audio_player/
See it in action on the top of my webpage at michelleshaeffer.com
If you want to avoid recording programs and flash code, the easier way to do this is with Audio Acrobat. You can sign up for an account, then just call a special phone number and record your message by phone. They’ll provide you with copy and paste code to add it to your website. www.audioacrobat.com
I have some audio on my Services page so people can hear me speak and start to connect with me :)
I’d love to hear what you think!
Hi Michelle,
I am a member of the powerful Entrepreneurs group and follow your great advice and suggestions there. I just found your newly relaunched blog as well and wanted to let you know that i love all the valuable and accessible info you provide here. It is just what i need. I signed up for email updates on future posts so I look forward to reading more soon.
Warmly,
Amy
Amy Miyamoto
EMPOWERED LIVING
Helping Busy Moms Create Healthy Families
http://www.shaklee.net/empoweredliving/getclean
Thanks Amy! Powerful Entrepreneurs is a fantastic resource–I enjoy being a part of the group.
Marcia, I think audio on a services page for a speaker is especially good since it allows people who are interested in hiring you to really hear you speak. :) And the audio works, I just purchased one of your ecourses!
LOL – that is so funny, Michelle :)
I know it works for me – after I heard some audio, I bought a 4-CD set from someone else. My accountability partner said to me the other day, “you’re REALLY getting into all this audio, aren’t you?” and I said, “well, it works for me and my target market is just like I am” LOL
Now, remember we’re still doing that swop so you can get more stuff for freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :)