Have you ever heard of decision fatigue? What about paralysis by choice? Two similar terms that essentially mean the same thing – we become overwhelmed with choices. We all want to increase conversions and decision fatigue can inhibit that.
We make choices all the time, in every aspect of our lives. You buy a certain brand of cereal, this specific pair of jeans, this option, that option, so many options to choose from. A drop-down menu on a website you are registering at, so many products to choose from, places to eat at… Being overwhelmed like this can cause serious issues, making us refuse to make an actual, good choice at all. Well, you want to avoid provoking this reaction.
How Does Decision Fatigue Happen?
Decision fatigue occurs when you put too much pressure on your consumer by giving him or her too many options to choose form. Namely, the more options you put in front of your users, the more time they will take on in order to make a choice. And since you should know that reaction times, that speed that quick choices are everything when it comes to eCommerce, all this time spent on procrastination will negatively influence your conversions. What you really want is a positive impact on your conversion rates.
Then again, decision fatigue can lead to some other things as well. Namely, they might make the wrong choice, saddling you with refunds and dissatisfied customers. The human brain can only process so much data. After a time, we just shut down, get angry, like an overwhelmed computer that is overheating, and getting really slow.
A great way to look at this problem is as a business – creating competition for yourself.
What Can You Do?
We know you’re focused on conversion rates, and that’s totally normal. So, we have to be blunt here and state that too many options, no matter how hard you worked at them, will just drive people crazy. Of course, this is all well and good, but without specific examples of what you should do, there is no point to this all. So, we suggest you read the article below and see exactly what we mean.
Stick To One Promotion
Here is a quick tip – promotions. Namely, promotions are a great way you can get more visitors, and to have them actually buy something. However, the same tune is played for promotions as will be played for the rest of the article. If you give people too many choices, they probably won’t make any choice at all.
Of all the many deals and choices you offer to people, they won’t even know where to start. You are just letting too many deals battle for your client’s attention.
Clean Things Up A Bit
Clean up your website’s design. You need to have a properly organized navigation, people need to find what they want quickly and easily. If you do offer them too many options, having a way to quickly change from one area to another, from one page to the next, is vital if you want to get your conversions going.
Now, you can do this in the house, or get a good company, like Alinea for example, to help you (among other things) with your website and your goals. The point here is – outsource if you have to, clean things up, and turn your website into something usable and useful.
We are certain that there are many features to your website that you simply adore. However, these features simply have no point if they are driving people away. A cluttered website is not an attractive website. Going a bit minimalistic, both in terms of design and functionality, is rather popular these days. Sticking to one option, keeping things clean and nice, all of this is vital for your success, and your conversion rates.
Stick To Recent Content
Things like video marketing, infographics, podcasts, they are all great because consumers enjoy varied content. Understand that variety does not cause decision fatigue, but how it is presented does.
Namely, if you bombard your users and potential clients with a variety of choices of content, media, and just general interest, they will become overwhelmed (hence, decision fatigue). However, if you play your cards right, if you present things properly, you only stand to gain more through this.
When people search your websites, when they look at the content you offer them, it needs to be presented in a very clear manner. Use a recent post slider, or perhaps present content so that it’s clearly separated by categories. While users may hem and haw at choosing one specific piece of content to read or watch form a list of similar things, having clear categories in front of them will certainly help.
To give you an example – a person might want to look up your website’s blog, while your company deals with farm equipment. While this visitor might not be able to choose a specific article on growing your plants, you can be pretty certain that he or she will ignore categories like machinery or safety tips.
Conclusion
And there you have it folks, a couple of tips on how you can decrease decision fatigue, all the while boosting conversions to a significant degree. The top web development companies can easily do this for you. Things like cleaning things up a bit, removing excess and superfluous features, or sticking to clear content categorization – all of this will greatly improve your results. Just remember to always keep your visitor’s psychology in mind.
Our Guest Blogger
Nick is a blogger and a marketing expert currently engaged in projects for Media Gurus, an Australian business, and marketing resources. He is an aspiring street artist and does Audio/Video editing as a hobby.
