Should Sound now be an Essential part of your Website?

I have been involved in providing sound for websites and emails for over 5 years.

Initially, sound on websites was seen as something of a gimmick. Some sites had looped music that could drive visitors quickly mad; some had the odd sound effect that startled visitors into early submission.

The advent of the Disability Discrimination Act, with particular reference to website accessibility, brought a certain credibility to the use of sound files on websites. Stand-alone sound files are recommended as an alternative to text-only content.

In addition, the way in which people started to use the internet began to change dramatically. The internet was no longer a novelty. Broadband arrived and made the chore of browsing much faster, and with it came an increasing degree of user impatience. Website visitors expected and required speed. They no longer wanted to trawl throught pages of search engine results; they wanted to find information quickly.

If they found a site that looked as though it met their requirements, they expected to click on that site and be helped - immediately. However, although they require information, the website user doesn't want to have to work hard to find it.

These rapid changes in consumer behaviour resulted in a whole new set of problems for anyone wanting to market their business effectively on the internet. There are so many constraints, not least a "shop window" that typically only measures 1024 x 768 pixels - hardly the spread of frontage that Harrods has on Knightsbridge!

Sound suddenly had a part to play, and not just a walk-on part.

• Sound, particularly a professionally recorded voice-over, can be employed to take the place of text that visitors no longer want to read;
  
• Sound can help to grab the visitor's attention when they first enter your site. Bearing in mind that, on average, you only have about 8 seconds in which to grab a visitor's attention, anything that helps is of value.
  
• Visual elements have become a vital part of the mix - catching the eye with stunning graphics and moving images all help to draw the visitor in. Couple this with a voice-over and you can start to TELL your story. As I am sure you have noticed, video is becoming an incrreasingly important consideration for businesses marketing themselves effectively via their website and across social media.
  
• Sound is also being used increasingly to enhance brand. In the same way that a business can be identified by its logo or strap-line, sound is being used more and more on the internet to create brand identity and project brand personality.

So, there are already some very valid reasons to think about using sound as part of your internet marketing.

Now, there are yet more changes afoot that begin to raise the question "Is sound on your website now becoming essential?"

The latest change that could have a major impact on the way in which sound is used comes with the launch of Google Audio Indexing (GAudi):

"After mastering the indexing of texts, images, news, blogs and videos, Google has made another important step forward; the search engine can now index audio files. This new service, at the moment still in its beta version, is called Gaudi, short for Google Audio Indexing.

For the time being, it only works on YouTube and gives you the possibility of finding keywords in YouTube videos.

The future of search is multimedia: audio, video and images. So, be careful what you say… Google is listening!"

Legitiname

"With the manifold increase that audio and video have recently gained on the Internet, it is becoming extremely difficult for users to find exactly whatever it is that they are looking for. In order to make the task simpler, Google has launched a speech recognition tool that enables searching within audio and video files.

Google Audio Indexing works in conjunction with YouTube. The tool will catalogue all the words that are spoken in a particular audio or video clip. This data will then be entered into a database, which users can then search for the audio or video content they require, in much the same manner as they use search engines for text based material. GAudi will provide a whole list of results, based on the keyword entered."

Accuracast

Blended Search already exists - the technology where search results come from a range of digital media - video and images included.

There seems to be little doubt now that the future of blended search will also include results taken from transcripts of the spoken word.

Think about it. Sound can already make a difference to marketing effectiveness of your website. Audio-visual elements are rapidly taking over the way in which you tell your story. In the very near future, sound could also play a vital part in your search engine ranking.

If you would like to discuss sound for your website or email marketing, please contact Ian Rutter at Argent Ram Media - sound@argentrammedia.com

Argent Ram Media can also help with:

Video production;
Digital Screen marketing and advertising;
Website Design and Development;
Email marketing and micro-site marketing