December 1st, 2008 | 
Author: When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally and serves its purpose. Here is the fifth of ten important rules of thumb to make sure your website performs well.
Avoid using audio on your site
If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some audio looping on and on.
Peoples’ tastes in music vary, and what might sound like a pleasant melody to you, can be an annoying noise to someone else.
A couple of years ago, having an audio greeting to encourage people to stick around and read the sales letter or sign up for an eZine was all the rage. Every “guru” was plugging the idea. I split tested it on one of my websites and found conversion fell by a whopping 60% where I added the audio greeting. Needless to say, I dropped it right away!
If you insist on adding audio, make sure visitors have some control over it – volume or muting controls etc.
Video is a different matter, however. An embedded link from a video streaming site such as YouTube can really enhance your website. A picture is worth a thousand words, and if you can actively demonstrate something on your website, it can improve your visitor’s experience of your site.
As with audio, you should make sure the visitor has control over whether he or she watches the video. Do not set the video to play automatically, rather let your visitors click on the play link themselves.
Video testimonials can be a real inducement to purchase your product or service as prospects can see the testimonials are genuine and from “real people”. Go easy on the number of videos on your site, though, as too many can really slow your site’s loading speed.
Shaun Pearce is a video maker and webmaster. You can find out more about running a website at http://www.yourwebsiteacademy.com
Article Source: 10 Golden Rules in Website Design: Rule # 5
