The UX Iceberg Effect & Your Website
Mar 16, 2022
Published by: Lucky Orange
Your website has launched, and the results over the last few weeks and months have been mixed:
Traffic volume? Climbing
Bounce rates? Better than the industry benchmark?
Rankings? Increasing
Conversions? Flat-lining
Wait; what’s happened?
Something about this doesn’t look right. You may make a few tweaks here and there, but the anxiety is starting to increase. Revenue is being lost and with that comes concerns about the future of your business.
What do you do to regain your conversion momentum and continue to grow your revenue? How do you optimize your landing pages to provide a quick conversion path?
The answer: Look beyond the tip of the iceberg at the entire website design.
What visitors don't see under your website
Here’s the thing about icebergs – what you see on the surface represents just 10% of the iceberg. The rest of the 90% is below the waterline.
Believe it or not, your website acts a lot like an iceberg.
You put a lot of effort into developing, updating, analyzing, validating, improving, and maintaining your website. All of that effort goes to support the 10% that your visitors actually get to see and experience.
The success of your website depends on more than just the tip of the user experience (UX) “iceberg” though.
The 90% of your UX iceberg that lies hidden below the surface is responsible for shaping the 10% that’s actually seen by your visitors.
How the UX iceberg effect helps websites
What does the UX Iceberg Effect mean for websites like yours? Here’s a quick look at what it could mean for your website:
Traffic isn’t everything. Focusing efforts on driving traffic to your website is only half the battle. If 99% of your traffic isn’t converting, you have to ask if you’re bringing in the wrong traffic or if your website isn’t optimized for conversions.
A solid foundation makes all the difference. Without a solid website, marketing would be inefficient. Without insight and analytics to drive effective updates, the website would struggle to grow and improve. What happens “below the surface” significantly impacts what your users do on your website.
Remove emotions, opinions, and bias. Don’t make an update, change, or tweak based on a hunch or opinion. That’s not a winning strategy! Use the insight of the UX iceberg to understand why the changes are needed and validate its success. It will be clear what works, what doesn’t, and what should be changed immediately.
Conclusion
What happens in the 10% of your website that’s visible to visitors will lead to conversions, but it’s the 90% that shapes and drives the success of the 10%.
The more insight you use to make effective insight-guide changes to improve your website’s UX or optimize conversions, the more success you will see today and in the future.
