Form length, high-hesitation fields, competing actions, reading difficulty, exit paths and whether anything on the page lowers perceived risk. Scored, with the specific fix for each — and without inventing a drop-off percentage we cannot support.
Friction is effort plus perceived risk. Both are on the page, and both are countable.
Visible field count (hidden fields and submit buttons excluded — they are not things a human fills in), the share that are mandatory, and high-hesitation fields counted separately. Asking for a phone number is not one field's worth of friction; it reads as "you will call me", which is a different decision entirely.
Also: whether fields have real labels rather than placeholders that vanish when you type, and whether email and phone inputs are typed so a phone shows the right keyboard.
Distinct calls-to-action, and how many are high-commitment. A landing page exists to produce one action; every additional choice is a decision the visitor has to resolve before the one you want. We also count links in the main content — navigation and footer excluded — because each is an exit that is not the button.
Flesch reading ease and grade level, average sentence length, share of three-syllable-plus words, and paragraphs running past 120 words — which on a phone is most of a screen with no break, and is where scanning stops.
Guarantees, privacy statements, cancellation terms, social proof, credentials. Friction is not only effort — it is risk, and a page that asks for eight fields while offering no reason to trust it has made every one of those fields a pure cost.
We also flag urgency without proof. Pressure with nothing verifiable behind it is one of the few things that makes a visitor more cautious the harder you push.
Fix the highest-friction items on the page first, then re-score it to see the difference. Wording problems are easier to find with the Content and Readability Analyzer, and technical issues with the Page Audit. If you want a page rebuilt to convert, see our web development and automation work. Paid traffic is only worth sending to a page that scores well: check your spend with the Google Ads Spend Efficiency Calculator and your outreach with the Cold Email Checker.