So in just a few days, parades of small people, wearing a variety of colorful costumes, will go from door to door in their neighborhood, shouting “Trick or Treat!” and collecting candy. There are some grown-ups who worry about how much sugar kids eat during this holiday, and so they give out things like raisins and pretzels.

When it comes time to sort out the Halloween loot, those well-intentioned adults might be shocked to learn that pretzels rank well below fuzzy lint found beneath the couch cushions in the hierarchy of desirable treats. No one’s going to trade their peanut butter cups or tootsie rolls for your pretzels. That’s just the way it goes.

If you want to be known as the best house to visit on Halloween, you don’t give out pretzels. Give the kids what they want, not what you think they should have.

Your website works the same way. You may feel that it’s best – and it may in fact be best for your data collection purposes – for every visitor who shops your site to create a user account. However, that’s not what your customer wants. For them, it’s faster and more convenient to log into your site using their Facebook or Twitter account. So, don’t go the pretzel route and force them to create an account. Use social media log in tools to provide the customer experience your shopper wants.

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There are other areas where this concept is really relevant. Maybe you think your customer needs long, dry informative articles about your area of expertise. What your customer wants, however, may be the fun quiz that really gives only a small amount of useful information.

Remember: nobody’s eating those Halloween pretzels. Content that your customer engages with is infinitely better than content they ignore. It’s nice to be noble and give people what you think they should have. But it’s much better for your business to give your customers the website experience they really want.