What is Friction?

With the holiday season in full swing I find myself in situations that are more trouble than they are worth. Traveling through certain intersections, finding people driving cars that just aren't following the road signs causing congestion. More programs and competitions for my daughter - that sometimes occur on the same day causing me to become Wonder Woman to get her to both...

I'm sure you've had your share of frustrations trying to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. In the web world we call that friction and it happens more often than not.

Examples of friction:

• Websites that ask for more info than I am willing to give in exchange for a simple newsletter sign up or white paper download.
• Being required to "create an account" just to browse a shopping site.
• Clicking a link from search engine expecting to see something specific only to discover that actually finding the item on the website is impossible.
• Trying to "check out" and being required to use PayPal when I prefer to use my credit card.

Those are just a few of my recent encounters - what examples of friction have you encountered lately? Take the friction poll on our Facebook page.

The point is that the more friction there is in any process the less likely a person will be to complete the process. If you want someone to complete a form, don't make them click 3 or 4 times to get to it. If you want to offer a newsletter, keep it simple - all you really need is an email address. And if you advertise something, for goodness sake make the link go straight to the subject, not the home page where I'm left wandering around.

Business owners: take a look at your website and ask yourself, "where can I reduce or remove the obstacles to the goal?" If you can follow that thought process I'm sure you'll find where you can make things easier, more clear for your web visitors and that will lead to an increase in conversions.

Comments? Questions? Please feel free to comment!

Satisfycing

People who research online before making a decision are often overwhelmed with the quantity of information and choices available. The habits of search engine users has found that 90% of searchers don't even go past the third page of results.

If you are like most people, you start with your favorite search engine, visit one or two sites that look like they may have what you are looking for, focus on a couple of sources of information, learn a bit about the product or service you are researching then make a decision. But what if there is a better site that you haven't seen? A better option that you weren't aware of?

Chances are you stop searching when you find a solution that will work, but not necessarily the best answer. This is called "satisfycing" and when you are tired of looking through the endless choices of products and solutions you'll choose one that is just acceptable.

Most people who visit your website will not want to invest time or effort to search through it for the possible answer if they don't have a strong sense that you have what they are looking for. They'll most likely leave and go with the most acceptable solution up to that point.

Make sure your site isn't ignored . . . be sure your page descriptions are accurate and the site meets expecatations. Web analytics can give you a clue as to whether or not your site is living up to expectations via the bounce rate on each page and, of course, visitor conversions are a very important indicator.