You can probably tell from the title that I’m no fan of required registration.

As far as I’m concerned, the idea of required registration goes from bad (making prospects register before completing a sale) to worse (making prospects register to even view a website’s content).

It’s one of the easiest ways for a business owner to stand in the way of his own profits.

Now, there are some out there who will play devil’s advocate and claim that there are very good reasons to require registration.

To that I’ll say that there’s never a good reason to give your prospects an excuse to leave your website without purchasing. But that’s what you’re doing if you require a long, tedious and- let’s face it-annoying registration process.

Requiring registration during checkout is the equivalent of pushing your body against the door that your prospects are trying to walk through to get to your products. You’re emphatically stating, “You’re not getting your stuff unless you follow my rules.” It’s almost a punishment for customers who simply want to buy your products- and that’s not a good thing.

And requiring registration just to navigate your website?

Well, that’s like taking your prospect on a blind dinner date and proposing during the first course. You’re assuming that the prospect has found value in your website before he’s even had a chance to familiarize himself with it. And that there’s more to your relationship than there really is. It’s a little presumptuous. Just a tad. More importantly, it can scare prospects off.

Excuse me while I become Captain Obvious for a second, but…

You should be aiming to facilitate sales, not impede them.

Requiring any registration can be detrimental, but excessive clicking, information inputting and time-wasting can set up insurmountable roadblocks in front of your customers. They keep prospects from arriving at their final destination- an order confirmation. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself if they take a detour and choose a competitor.

Regardless, I’ll acknowledge that every online business is different, with needs that aren’t boxed as easily orders.

So for those business owners who have very good cases for requiring registration, I’m going to provide some tips so that you can minimize the rate of abandonment that always plagues it.

• Require only the necessities

Customers will rightfully question your need for their information. It’d be in your best interest to not get too personal or lengthy with your requests. Remember that identify theft is a very real fear in the real world. In the virtual world, those fears are maximized.

As an aside: be careful when you ask for answers to “security” questions…you may come across as another online “threat” to prospects. I tend to giggle to myself when businesses ask prospects to provide their birthdates or mothers’ maiden names straight off. Would you provide that information to an entity that you’ve never done business with before? No? Then why expect prospects to do it?

I’m also aware that each website may require different types of information at various points during  the prospects’ visit. If your website is set up like this, give prospects the option of entering whatever information they are comfortable with at the time. You don’t need to ask for shipping addresses at the beginning of their visit, for example.

• Minimize the time it takes to complete registration

That means keeping the registration forms simple and intuitive. Setting up registration forms that take 10 minutes or more to complete is unacceptable. Making every field a required one can claim a valued chunk of your prospects’ time. Amongst other things, you have to understand that there will be customers who’ve decided that they only want to purchase from you one time, so accommodate them. One-time purchases are better than no purchases at all.

• Emphasize registration benefits

Linda Bustos notes that communicating the benefits of registration will result in more completed registrations. So by all means, tell your prospects that you’re requesting their birthdays to send them a special discount on their big days, zip codes to advise them of local sales or optional security answers to prevent fraud. Of course, these benefits should be worded to answer that critical “What’s in it for me?” question that’s always in prospects’ minds. Keep the motivation to determine prospects’ average income by requesting a zip code under your hat.

The lesson? Emphasizing benefits makes prospects think that they’ve stumbled upon a “deal” rather than a requirement.

• Offer “later” registration

Ever hear of “lazy registration”? It gives prospects the option to complete registration at a later time. If you use it, there’s a good chance you won’t lose prospects and will end up getting a registration out of them.

• Show prospects the way out

My bet is that if you require registration, your prospects will be a little nervous about it…no matter how used to registration they are. It’s the idea of spreading their personal information to yet another place that makes them shake. So, make sure to offer easy access to your privacy and security policies. Remind them that it’ll be easy to delete or modify their accounts later. Provide contact information (email addresses and phone numbers) of company representatives who can do it for them if they run into trouble. Chances are that they won’t have trouble, but knowing that you’re offering support will help ease their minds. Prospects want to know that you’re working with them, not conspiring to keep information after they’re done doing business with you.

Now, I have to address something…

If your business is involved with technology or you have customers who do a lot of online shopping, you may want to go especially easy on the registration requirement. It seems that these types of customers are most likely to find required registration an annoyance, and it’ll be a costly annoyance for you.

However, “novice” online shoppers may find official registration satisfying…even necessary. They may perceive a business without a registration option “unprofessional” or worse. This is probably because the “big boy” companies tend to require it and they’ve come to expect it.

Like everything else related to running an online business, the answer to the registration question lies in your target market and what they will find appealing/easier.

Do you require registration? What are your required fields?