Recently, Facebook rolled out its Q&A feature, aptly named Facebook Questions. Just like most Facebook apps, your activities related to Facebook Questions are likely to be posted on your profile as part of an inherent viral loop (web marketers come up with the coolest-sounding terms). These updates are intended to be shown to your nosy friends who, from time to time, visit your profile in search of cool things to consume. In the context of Facebook Questions, it is hoped that said friends would also participate in the answered question, thus posting an update to her Wall, perpetuating the viral marketing loop.

Everything sounds great, but we suspect that a great number of Facebook users detest having their profiles defaced by updates that they did not specifically post. Though Facebook users might not think too far in terms of marketing mechanics (a la “How dare you use me as a involuntary viral marketer!?”), they do think in terms of aesthetics and individuality (a la “Why are you polluting my Wall with spammy updates?”). In our experience, when Facebook rolled out Facebook Questions, everyone was excited and busy posing and answering questions. It died down pretty quickly thereafter, presumably because people have learnt to be more selective in the questions that they answer, since they know that whatever questions they answer would be posted on their profiles. Sure, they could remove the updates after that, but that would defeat the purpose of answering the questions in the first place. Over time, users learn to only answer questions that they really, really care about, such that the updates posted on their profile form an extension of their identities.

In our opinion, the solution to this problem is rather simple: remove the “Profile” link at the top-right navigation bar in Facebook. The “Profile” link serves little purpose, other than to tempt us from time to time to visit our own Wall without any specific aim in mind. It simply serves as a reminder of how our Walls look like to others. At Zuupy, we are perpetually concerned that Facebook users do not become too protective of their Walls, as we rely on Like updates to drive viral marketing for our daily deal solution. Removing the “Profile” link would result in less housecleaning, which, from a marketer’s perspective, is good. The only thing that usually comes out of a user visiting and revisiting his Wall is that she would get busy with the “Unlike” and “Remove Post” functionalities.

What purpose do you think the “Profile” link serves? Do you tend to create content more often than delete content when you click the “Profile” link? Do you care about how your Wall looks like to others?

The so-called widget economy of the Web 2.0 era seems to be declining. A few years ago, social bars like Meebo and Wibiya as well as info bars like Snapshots were popular across the web. Based on our recent experiences browsing the web, these widgets have largely disappeared, though a few popular widget types survive: live chat add-ons (e.g. Olark) and feedback tabs (e.g. UserVoice) in particular.

Although in theory the widget economy could work based on a symbiosis model, in practice it rarely works that way. Meebo’s CEO, Seth Sternberg, even declared that the widget economy was a lie. Our guess is that there has been growing awareness of A/B testing among web developers, and most widgets prove to be conversion killers, despite possibly providing ancillary benefits. As to why most widgets detract from site goals, we hypothesize that the mode of deployment (throwing a box with extraneous content in the middle of the conversion funnel) practically annoys users, changes browsing mood, and derails the conversion process. Of course, certain modes of deployment annoy more than others (e.g. pop-ups begging you to sign up for a newsletter vs. static chat box on the right bar), so manner of deployment is also a relevant factor.

The common trait across those widgets that remain successful (e.g. KissInsights, GetSatisfaction, SnapEngage) seems to be that they focus on making the site owners happy instead of ostensibly making end-users happy through social functionalities or enhanced browsing experiences. Also, site owners no longer swallow gibberish like “increase site engagement” when shopping for onsite solutions; they know too well that “increase site engagement” means increasing engagement with the widget solution while reducing the amount of attention that end-users would pay to the main website. There also has to be a way to measure ROI that is tied directly to sales, not vanity metrics like number of followers, traffic, or even “leads,” whatever that means.

These are lessons that we have learnt from building our flagship widget product, Zuupy FriendAdvisor, which we have tried to apply consistently when building our second widget product, Zuupy CrowdDeals. Perhaps the best way to sell widgets is to please site owners first to get past the barrier of deployment, and then work on pleasing the end-users to avoid causing disillusionment in the site owners, or perhaps the best thing to do is not to build things that sit in a box in the first place. Share with us what you think.

Low conversion rates are a sharp pain point for any company doing business online. There seems to be a common obsession centered on simplifying the conversion funnel, eliminating all distractions that detract from the core offering, and basically persistently pushing the visitor through the conversion funnel. Simplicity is good, but simplicity at the expense of function and user experience is foolish. Companies that insist on oversimplifying the conversion funnel, e.g. by reducing the number of stages to a ridiculously low number (look at work-from-home, passive-income ebook web pages that ask for your credit card information on the landing page), will find that simplification at some point means simplifying away the essential elements that actually drive conversions.

When I was in school, my science teacher taught us to think of extreme cases if we wanted to determine the effect of A on B. For instance, if one is to determine the effect of varying the magnitude of the denominator of a fraction on the magnitude of the fraction itself, one should test said effect using a very, very large and small denominator, respectively, while keeping the numerator constant. In ecommerce, if one is to determine the effect of conversion funnel simplification on conversion rates, one should imagine an ultra-simple conversion funnel, say, a one-page website with the product title, product image, price, and buy button. The question to ask then is whether said page would reasonably be expected to convert better than a website with fluffy “extras,” such as social proof, detailed specifications, and multiple images. The answer is probably “no.”

There are Distractions, and There are Distractions

One of the problems associated with simplifying the conversion funnel is determining whether a given page element is a conversion-enhancing or conversion-suppressing element. Chances are there are several things on the website that can be eliminated without hurting conversions, some that can be eliminated to increase conversions, and others that, when eliminated, cause a decrease in conversions. For every argument tendered for keeping a page element, one could find a counter-argument of equal persuasiveness, so, naturally, one would end up conducting A/B testing to compare conversion rates across different versions of the website. The problem is that, for low-traffic websites, the tests take forever to reach statistical significance, and it becomes technically-challenging to conduct, manage, and interpret an increasingly-large number of multiple tests. It is just easier and much more tempting to remove elements based on gut-feel.

The other problem in simplifying the conversion funnel is that of oversimplifying the stages of the conversion funnel. One of the worst usability problems occurs when users feel like they are forced or rushed into acting or making a decision. For instance, no user would be charitable enough to fulfill a call-to-action without a clear benefit or sufficient information. Images, videos, live demos, full specifications, etc. go a long way in earning the trust and confidence of users.

Alas, the point of this article is not to propose specific methods for conversion funnel optimization, but to illustrate that there is such a thing as oversimplifying the conversion funnel to the point that it hurts conversions. I will leave you with a list of things to determine whether they fall into the “distraction” or “attraction” category: Facebook Like buttons, AddThis/ShareThis buttons, Google AdSense advertisements, live-chat widgets, Twitter streaming widgets, Twitter/Facebook icons, reviews/testimonials, currency converters, stock images, FAQs, and talking presenters.

The short answer to the title above is simple: use them.

Modal windows that appear out of nowhere are the new pop-ups. They are much like the old annoying little things that appear uninvited, except that they are not advertising custom 3D emoticons or online poker but begging you to participate in surveys or register for newsletters. Plus, they cannot be blocked using pop-up blockers, since modal windows are essentially HTML divisions. The fact that they are unavoidable save for not visiting the website at all means that the visitor is possibly forced to make a hard choice.

I call pop-up modal windows the anti-converter: something that neutralizes conversion optimization efforts. I was reading an awesome blog article today and intending to retweet it when this modal window confronted me:

It was nice that my email would never be shared, but I am afraid that the fact that “This form appears only once” is once too often.

I hope to make this message clear to developers: never interrupt your visitors with unsolicited modal windows. Nothing is urgent or important enough to warrant standing in between your visitor and whatever she is doing, no matter what short-term improvements in conversion rates may result. Personally, any website that swears by irritating me with modal pop-up windows gets closed immediately and blacklisted permanently, and I am sure that I am not the only one doing this.