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Friction comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be hard and grating, or so soft you don’t even notice it until it either builds up or fades away. Sometimes, it’s not even where you think it is.

For instance, in my quest to ride longer distances for an upcoming charity cycle ride, I have noticed that it’s not the cycling that could potentially stop me from completing the ride, it may be the saddle soreness, the back-ache after 30 miles, or as Rob pointed out to me the other day, one blister in the wrong place could make it all very difficult.

My point? Well, sometimes, we focus so much on the main aspect of a project that we miss the areas of friction that could potentially make just as much difference to the success.

Take for example an e-commerce website. The purpose is to sell stuff right? But, many new businesses take a look at the platform, the ease of processing transactions for them, the costs, etc. above so many other things that often get completely overlooked:

• Where is the website traffic going to come from?
• How optimised are the product web pages?
• How well are the Google Adwords Optimised?
• How effective are the appropriate landing pages?
• How does the checkout work for a user that knows nothing about my business?

I am quite pragmatic in these instances because sales are the number one priority of any business looking to grow and make a profit.

Any commercial web solution should be focussed on sales of one kind or another, and that is driven by attracting customers and giving THEM a good experience: Not a CEO’s personal preference, or what platform is used, who hosts it or how easy it is for your to process a transaction. Customers make or break your website.

Therefore, reducing any friction your website may have is completely driven by the customer experience you can create and your cost restrictions, which by the way, your customers don’t give a damn about. They are selfish and when it comes to supply and demand they can afford to be - if you don’t offer what they want, in the way they want it, they will zip back to Google and hit one of the other results.

Identifying Friction

And that is where web stats come in. Web stats are fun and I must admit I sometimes get caught just trying to get more visitors to make my graphs look nice, but at the end of the day, to get the most out of web stats, it is about finding the friction. The page where someone stops, the link that could be more direct. Finding that page, and doing usability testing can open your eyes to things that, as the business owner, you probably would never have seen.

Constant Friction

The problem is, when you reduce one element of friction, another one may well pop up. Additionally, external forces that change may also impact you creating new areas of friction. That’s why you can’t stop adapting. There are alway improvements to be made - especially if you want to maximise your online success.

One final word of warning - lose the ego. Your ego won’t back you up saying “But it’s obvious” when your business fails. Your customers are the people that matter. Let them exercise their egos.

Further Reading

• Scissors, Grease, Friction & Conversion Rates
• Ten tips for product landing pages