Your customers aren’t rational. They are biased.

Every single day, cognitive biases quietly steer how people *behave* on your website.

They’re not thinking deeply about your menu structure or your beautifully written “About Us” page (leave that for the SEO bots).

They’re scanning. Judging. Clicking and reacting based on mental shortcuts they often don’t even know they’re using. We call these “cognitive biases” and there are hundreds of them.

Here are some you’ve probably/definitely seen in action (even if you didn’t realise it):

1. Confirmation Bias 🪃
People look for things that prove they’re right. If they already think your brand is quality, they’ll latch onto one good review and ignore the rest.

2. Anchoring Bias 💰
The first number they see sets the tone.
That $249 ‘was’ price? Makes the $179 offer feel like a win even if they don’t fully trust it’s true. (add to this by testing strike through, colours, font size)

3. Loss Aversion Bias 💥
We hate losing more than we like gaining.
That’s why “Only 3 left” often works better than “Save 10%”.

4. Choice Overload ✋
Too many options? Paralysis. They bounce, or worse… they pick nothing. So Simplify… Guide… Highlight a ‘best’ choice.

5. Social Proof 👬
[BTW I can hear the “duh!” and feel the eye rolls here.]
Yep… people copy people - especially when they’re unsure.
But, for all you eye rollers can you name 26 different ways to display social proof on your website?  Comment below “Prove it Beeson!” and I will DM them to you with a picture of a cat. (no-one is reading this far... my scroll map told me).

🦫 And that’s just scratching the surface. There are *hundreds* of biases at play on your site right now. If you only think of the 5 above then you are missing the massive opportunities and the insights.

🤸♂️ CRO/Experimentation is about understanding what really makes people tick and helping them move forward. It’s not always about what is seen. It’s about what people are thinking.

🥬 If your approach to testing and optimisation is a UX review and best practice. Then you are like a guy with a lettuce sticking out of his undies… it’s only the tip of the iceberg (when you are this far down a post you can say what you want, most people read the headline and then commented for "reach").

If your website isn’t converting like it should…
It might not be the traffic. It might not be what you see. It might be the psychology. 🧠