How to Add MP3 Downloads to Websites
"MP3," short for MPEG Audio Layer 3, refers to a type of digital audio compression technique that is used to reduce the sizes of uncompressed audio files. The larger a file's size, the longer it takes to download. Converting an uncompressed audio file into an MP3 makes it easier to transfer from one source to another while preserving much of the audio's quality. Adding MP3 downloads to a website involves uploading the files to the website's host server and then creating links on the website pointing to the MP3 files.
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Instructions
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Verify that the Web-hosting service that you use for your website supports MP3 files.
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Use your FTP client software -- or the file-transfer program offered by your Web-hosting service -- to upload the MP3 files to your website's public directory. Make a note of exactly where the MP3 files are saved.
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Determine the URL address for each MP3 file that you uploaded to your website. For example, if your website's domain name is "example.com" and you upload an MP3 file titled "sunshine_poem" to a folder in the website's public directory called "spoken_word," the URL address for the MP3 file should be "http://www.example.com/spoken_word/sunshine_poem.mp3."
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Insert links to the MP3 files on your website's pages. To create a link in an HTML document, follow this basic formula:
<a href="URL ADDRESS">Link Text</a>.
For example, <a href="http://www.example.com/spoken_word/sunshine_poem.mp3">Sarah's Sunshine Poem</a>.
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Test the link. Go to the page(s) on which the links to the MP3 file downloads are offered. Click on each link to make sure that they are all working. If you click on a link and receive an error message, you may not have entered the correct URL address for the MP3 file to which the link is supposed to point.
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Tips & Warnings
Before you can add MP3 files to a website, you first have to create them. MP3 files are created by MP3 conversion applications that encode MP3 files from uncompressed audio files, such WAV files. There are many audio conversion that are capable of encoding MP3 files; many of them -- such as Wimpy Audio Encoder, MediaCoder and even iTunes -- are free.
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