How to Create Audio Files for Websites

There are many pieces of content that must be thought about when designing your website. Among them are written text content, pictures, video clips, animation or audio content. Creating audio content for a website isn't difficult but there are some things to take into account. Most types of audio file format can be included but may require a specific plug-in to your browser to be able to hear.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Select the audio pieces that you want to have on your website and collect them together in a folder on your desktop. Placing them all on the desktop will help when you are converting them; you will always know where they are and won't have to hunt for them on your hard disk.
2. Open your conversion program. Select the source file to convert and the type of file you want to create. Convert the file. Most conversion programs accept a number of different file formats and will create a number of formats as well. The file formats that are handled by your browser without a plug-in application are .midi and .wav but most computers have plug-ins already loaded to handle .au, .mp3 and .wma. You need to select which you want to present on your website and create all the audio files into those formats.
3. Upload the created audio files to your server so that when they are supposed to play, they are present and can start immediately.
4. Recode your website to use the new audio content that you have made. Most of the time this can be done with a small change to the HTML coding if you are familiar with that, otherwise you can use one of the website creation pieces of software to attach your new audio content at the right places in your site.

Tips & Warnings

• In general it is better to use file formats that don't require the download and install of any plug-in applications. If you absolutely need a plug-in to have the effect that you desire, make sure you put in a link to get the application that will be required.
• When adding music to your website you should be aware of copyright laws and what you can and can't do with a piece of music that was performed or written by a particular person.