If you watch “Family Guy” regularly, once in a while you’ll see a big blue bug on the top of a building at the side of a highway. That now-famous Rhode Island landmark is the mascot for New England Pest Control.

I was deliberately plodding through a stack of business cards, checking out local businesses, when I happened upon their card. So I checked their website out, and ended up spending the next 15 minutes on their site, even though I had absolutely no interest in their services (pest-free, knock on wood!).

What was it that kept me on New England Pest Control’s website?

They made me laugh!

Their creative web designer built a unique and fun landing page with retro menu icons and quirky sound effects, beginning with the Big Blue Bug popping into the page to grab the viewer’s attention. I smiled.

Then I started looking around the page for social media icons like Twitter and Facebook. Nothing there.

But the menu icons invited me to click around a bit. As my cursor approached the cartoon image of a woman standing on a chair screaming, she — well, she screamed!

I started hovering over each icon to see what audio effects they had associated with them, and then I started playing games, hovering over the icons in different succession. Maybe I’m easily amused. But what I did next is what they hoped for:

I clicked a link.

In this case, I clicked “About Us.” Then they had me, weak-willed internet surfer that I am, and the wooing began. New England Pest Control’s “About Us” content was interesting, and kept me on their website for awhile, poking around until I realized I had spent too much time already and went back to work. But I can guarantee you, New England Pest Control will pop into my head next time I need to get rid of some pesky vermin!

Using audio on your website can be a powerful tool for increasing conversions (website visitors who become customers). There are several ways New England Multimedia can implement audio on your website, including audio effects, music playing when your visitors arrive on your website, podcasts, a welcome audio message from you, a call to action, and much more.

What creative ways of using audio have you seen on websites? Or, what do you hate about audio on a website?