The Path of Least Resistance & Website Design
People go on your website and they buy what you're selling. Boom. Easy as that.
…right?
Robert Fritz wrote a book called the path of least resistance. You’ve probably heard of it. He said, “You are like a river. You go through life taking the path of least resistance…”.
The Path of Least Resistance, by Fritz, essentially outlines how as humans we tend to find the easiest or simplest way to go about life, and thus change comes from within. Getting down to brass tacks, the way to make change is to shift our structures.
The thing is, humans do take on the path of least resistance. When you are selling something online you want to create as much ease as possible. Because otherwise, people will give up or find another website.
Some things that create unnecessary resistance are:
Excess clicks
Forms
Needing to locate a button
Leaving the site/redirects
Multiple steps to checkout
Regardless of if you are selling a product or service online, you need to consider how to make the process from sales to sold as easy as possible. Think about the journey that someone must take to get from your home page to actually giving you money.
For example…
Let’s say you are an executive coach with a website.
How many steps does it take for a prospect to become a client?
On the home page, I click services.
From services, I click work with you.
From work with you I’m taken to an external form.
I fill out the form.
Now I’m being redirected to your scheduling site.
I book a call with you.
Now I have to wait until the call.
On the call I learn about you, I’m sold.
You send me the signup information.
One website is a contract. I fill that out.
I have to go back to your email to select the payment link.
I make the payment.
Now I have to email your assistant to set up our weekly call time.
We go back and forth and finally have a weekly call time.
That took me 14 steps to get to become a client. That’s a LOT of opportunity for resistance.
The important thing to note here is that some clients need all of these steps to make sure they are on board. But some don’t. For some people, they want to go to your website, click “book”, sign the contract, and pay the deposit. They don’t want to do a sales call. They don’t want to learn about your services first. They don’t want to fill out a form. They want to take the path of least resistance.
A website needs to have multiple paths to the destination. It needs to have a path that sells, a path that nurtures, and a path with least resistance.
How many different paths does your prospect → client process have?
Ready to streamline it? Check out my current offerings here.
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