Making a personal connection with your readers marks a great way to sell your books – and one solid way to do that is to use audio on your website.

When website visitors hear your voice, they’re more likely to pay attention than if they simply read text that they know is polished. Further, speech allows you to vocally emphasize points that readers might miss when they just scan your website.

The first step to getting audio on your website is to download and install software or an app that can record your voice. A number of such programs are available online. A popular one is Web Audio Plus.

You probably have a microphone on your computer, but it may need to be readjusted so that works best for you. If using Windows, you can adjust the microphone by going to your Control Panel’s Hardware and Sound section. Should your PC mic not be up to the job, you can purchase better quality mics that plug into your computer for under $50.

The next step is to write a script for your audio presentation. It can be as long as you like, but depending on its purpose, various lengths are better than others. A welcome to you website probably shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes. A recording of an interview with you or a presentation you gave ought to be the exact length as the original so that visitors don’t feel cheated of information.

Topics of an audio presentation could be a welcome to your website, snippets in which you explain cool stuff about your books (like who your favorite character is, how you came up with the idea for the story, an alternative ending you didn’t go with), and an interview of you.

Once you write the script, rehearse it a couple of times then record. Always play it back before posting to ensure you’re satisfied with it. If you aren’t, then re-record.

Once you’ve got the recording you like, you can post it to your website. Usually this involves pasting the audio file into your web page’s html.