August 18, 2014 - New York, NY – “For any business with an online presence, the one single metric that overrides all others in significance is the conversion rate,” says Peter Crisafi, President of dzine it, Inc. (www.idzineit.net), a leading website design and website development firm based in New York, and offering services to clients worldwide. “To convert, a business needs to get a few things right, including content, SEO, social media, advertising, and website design.”

In order for a business to use its website to positively affect its conversion rates, Crisafi says that business owners must first understand the role that website design plays in boosting conversion rates. The principles of good website design remain the same, regardless of the size of the company’s website or what page of the website is being designed, he says, and it all relates back to conversion rates.

To harness your website design to improve conversion rates, Crisafi says that business website owners should consider the following:

1. Make sure that the business website fosters usability.

“First and foremost, a business website needs to be intuitive and user friendly,” says Crisafi. “These are the key design features that will influence conversion.”

According to Crisafi, usability is measured in terms of the ease with which users can perform tasks on the site and the speed with which they can complete them. Usability is important, he says, because a visitor’s opinion about a website’s usability is formed within the first few seconds of arriving at a page.

2. Make sure that the business website offers conversion-centric design features.

Crisafi says that there are certain design features that have a direct influence on conversion. When a business website gets it right, he says that visitors will take the desired action.

“A conversion-centric design features large headings on the most important elements and vital pieces of information on the page,” he says. “It is also important to maintain font hierarchy, this helps readers derive important cues from about the nature and importance of the website’s content.”

Crisafi also says that it is important to place important site elements above the fold without cluttering the page. These site elements include navigation buttons, search bars, sign-up forms, calls to action, and social media links.

3. Have a fast-loading website.

Crisafi says that the best and most insightful content in the world won't be enough for visitors to stay on a slow-loading website. To speed up web load times, Crisafi says that a quality website development firm will know enough to combine multiple scripts and style sheets into one. He also suggests using CSS instead of images, background colors, buttons, etc. and warns website owners to avoid using Flash at all costs.

4. Adhere to best-practice design principles.

“Finally,” Crisafi says, “it is important for business website owners to recognize that colors and visuals influence purchase decisions, affect emotions and boost brand recognition. Images, text, arrows, lines, buttons and white spaces can all be used in aesthetically to direct a visitor’s attention to your calls to action.”

Established in 2003, dzine it, inc. is a leader in custom web development, programming and design solutions for small and large business, agencies. The company offers a wide range of business-centered visual communication solutions, including web-based content management, web design, graphic design, custom web software applications, ethical white hat search engine optimization (organic SEO), video encoding, and print media solutions. For more information, call 212.989.0813 or visit www.idzineit.net.