Where did Customers Go?

Many factors influence where and what a person decides to buy. Although Yellow Pages are no longer an automatic part of loop, many buyers consult both Internet and directory, not relying on either one alone. However, many shoppers only call Yellow Page ads that show a website, even it they don’t intend to visit it. It goes to credibility issue. What’s different? - Buyers are less trusting and more willing to shop around - Availability of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) - Expanded options and more ways to find them - Aging population uses Yellow Pages differently than young people - Development of unique, narrow niches and specialties - More choices for a "better deal" - Increased immigrants and those from other cultures, unaccustomed to Yellow Page use - Larger cities with multiple directories, rather than one large one - Local search, whereby search engines locate suppliers by zip code, state, city, region

Time for a Reality Check - Can You Find Yourself?

The next time you go online (or have a friend walk you through it), see how you rate in some local searches. Conduct a query in Google (then Yahoo, and MSN). Enter your type of business + Your town (“Pet Stores” + Scottsdale, Arizona).

Does your business show up? How many of your competitors are on that list? How many are ahead of you? That list is what your “missing customers” are likely to see when they’re ready to spend their money. Does that experience motivate you to make a better Local Search showing?

Next, check out whether your business appears in various Internet Yellow Pages (IYP). Work your way down list: http://www.yellowpagesage.com/localsearch.html

Start noticing how visible you are to customers researching their local options online. You really can’t afford to miss boat.

Download "MP3Tag" from mp3tag.de/en/. Install software, and start it up. Then just choose to "Remove All Tags" from your OGG files. This process takes literally two minutes but is very important.

Now after you've converted and de-tagged OGG audio, you'll need to upload it to your server of course.

Then you'll have to change all your download links. This is fiddly, but needs to be done. For example - you would need to change all your links from:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.mp3

To:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.ogg

Then test every download link to make sure it's working correctly.

Important Note: Don't forget about audio you've got in Zip files too. You'll need to recreate those Zip files with OGG audio instead of MP3 audio and re-upload them.

If you're not sure where all MP3 and Zip files are on your websites, here's an easy way to list them:

Now, this only works on Unix-based servers (which covers Linux servers, FreeBSD...etc - ask your web host if you're not sure)...

This is pretty advanced so don't do this if you're not comfortable with process. Or ask your web host to do it for you if they're happy to do that:

You need to Telnet into your server and then type following:

find . | grep mp3 > allmp3

Then type:

find . | grep zip > allzip

This will then give you two files on your server: allmp3 & allzip

Download these files and take a look at them in a text editor. They'll show you path of every MP3 and Zip file on your server so that you can quickly and easily find which files you need to convert to OGG. Dead handy.

Okay - so after you've converted and uploaded audio, you'll need to change text around download links. You'll need to take out any mention of "MP3" from your website.

I don't suggest replacing it with "OGG" on a sales page for example since that will probably confuse people. Just replace "MP3" with "downloadable audio" or "high quality downloadable audio".

And then on your download pages mention that audio is in OGG format which is just as high quality as MP3 and just as quick to download. Then link to a couple of audio players that you know for a fact support OGG.

The audio players I personally mention are Winamp from winamp.com and Quintessential Player from quinnware.com.

Important Note About Winamp: As I write this only Full version (not Lite version) of Winamp supports OGG successfully. So make sure to tell your visitors to download and install that version. It's still free though so your visitors won't have to spend any extra money just to listen to your audio.

And that's pretty much all steps needed to convert your published audio from MP3 to OGG, which can save you a small fortune in licensing fees without compromising audio quality or speed of download.