What is Friction?

Friction in CRO is anything that slows down, discourages or confuses a visitor on the way to a conversion. Friction increases the bounce rate and lowers the conversion rate. Removing friction is one of the fastest and most effective ways to get more out of your existing traffic.

Examples of friction

Forms that are too long with unnecessary required fields, mandatory registration before a purchase, unclear prices or hidden costs, slow loading times, missing social proof, confusing navigation, unclear CTAs and unexpected shipping costs at checkout.

Identifying friction

Heatmaps show where visitors drop off or click on elements that are not clickable. Session recordings show where frustration becomes visible in behaviour. A funnel exploration in GA4 shows at which step of your checkout visitors drop out.

Reducing friction

Simplify forms, remove unnecessary steps, communicate trust through trust marks and social proof, and improve loading speed. Every barrier you lower pushes your conversion rate up.

Is all friction bad?

Not always. A required sign-up filters out unsuitable leads. Context determines when friction is acceptable or even desirable.

Why do people abandon their shopping basket?

Often because of unexpected shipping costs, mandatory registration or a checkout process that is too long. More at developers.google.com/search.