The power of habit

A month or two ago, I downloaded the Opera browser. Why? I was bored that day and looking for something to do.

I was astonished at the blazing speed of Opera. I mean, I'm talking lightning fast, blink-of-the-eye web page downloads. I'd always thought Firefox was fast, but it was a turtle compared to Opera.

I still use Firefox. Why? Out of pure habit.

Yeah, I have some Firefox extensions that I would miss a little, but really, if I were being totally honest, I wouldn't miss them all that much. When I moved over from IE to Firefox, it was a pain to rewire my brain into doing things a different way than I'd done for so many years. But the thought of being more secure was a strong enough push for me to make that leap.

I guess speed isn't a strong enough push for me just yet. Speed, so far, doesn't outweigh habit. But logically, it should. I cram so much stuff into every second of my working day, that increased speed would be a huge thing for me. Still, habit wins out.

As SEOs and Internet Marketers, how do we get users to change their habits? How do we convince them to join whatever revolution we are trying to sell them? I'd say you'd better have a hugely compelling reason to get them change their habits. If you don't, start inventing one now. 🙂