The attention, engagement, and interactions generated by visitors as they browse your website are visually represented in website heatmaps. You can create various maps using either free or expensive tools to better understand user behavior and increase conversions.
What is a website heatmap?
Heatmaps are graphic depictions of the attention, engagement, and interactions your visitors produce as they browse your website. Cool colors highlight ignored portions of the page, and warm colors highlight regions that generate the most interest or engagement.
Let your own customers suggest how you might enhance your website to increase sales, then just make the necessary adjustments and track the results.
When are heatmaps used?
Heatmap tools may count the number of clicks on your website as well as evaluate attention and engagement. They are an essential part of your toolset for optimization.
Here are some of the primary justifications for using these software, along with specific illustrations:
- To gauge participation. Do you ever wonder when readers quit reading online posts that you write?
- You can see a user’s “scroll” and where they interact with your site by using a heatmap. It could be time to alter things if you see that very few individuals actually find your CTA.
- To gauge performance. Where do visitors to my site click? Do they press the correct button? Heatmaps show you if your visitors are doing the steps you want them to take and also show you where they might be having trouble.
- In order to gauge attentiveness Which headlines grab readers’ attention the most? What pictures are the most popular? What components are detracting from the primary message?
Does my form appear to visitors? You may start implementing improvements that will boost your conversion rates as soon as you get clear answers to these queries.
Getting the answers to the questions above can assist you in getting the following answers:
- What section should I put my most crucial material in?
- How should pictures and videos be used?
- Where are my customers becoming absorbed?
- Where should I talk about my product/service?
You may create maps that display user activities from various angles using the majority of heatmap tools. The concept is that in order to learn about your visitors’ behavior, you should make reference to every one of them.
Click heatmap
This kind of map enables the quantification of actions. It shows all of the clicks visitors have made on your page visually. This “map” produces valuable data since it enables you to pinpoint the locations where users interact with your website.
The heatmap places a light dot at the exact location where a user clicks on a certain part of a website. Large expanses of white indicate locations where most users are clicking.
You can easily discover if visitors are clicking where you want them to click by locating the “hot spots” on your website.
Scroll heatmap
The scroll map enables you to observe how far down a page visitors scroll, as well as, in particular, what components they focus on and where they dwell.
Using a scroll map, you may check whether people are being diverted by unnecessary components or seeing the correct portions of your website.
The image and the two lines of text below it are the most popular parts of the post on SEO, according to the screenshot above, which shows that roughly 82% of visitors have viewed these components.
Segment heatmap
In contrast to a view that only displays a “density” of clicks, the segment heatmap enables you to see each individual click on a website. It enables you to determine whether users are attempting to click on unclickable locations and, if so, to solve the issue.
Eye-tracking maps
Eye-tracking tracks a user’s gaze, whereas heatmaps primarily track mouse movements and clicks. Eye-tracking is used to track users’ exact gaze patterns across your website and identify the areas of interest.
Similar to heat mapping, the regions that are highlighted in warm colors show where readers focus their attention the most.
Eye-tracking is undoubtedly helpful, but it requires technology that can be more challenging to implement. Most agencies lack the specialized equipment that is needed for it.
How to choose the perfect tool?
The following considerations should be made while looking for a heatmap tool:
- Using particular targeting and segmentation criteria, the tool should enable you to build heatmaps according to the audiences you choose.
- Map Comparison: It should be simple and clear to compare the outcomes of several maps from various user groups.
- Page Template: If your page is an eCommerce product page and you have hundreds or even thousands of them, having a heatmap tailored to each page might make the analysis challenging. The ability to combine results for all pages of a specific category is required.
- Heatmaps that are responsive must function on pages that are accessed from a mobile device. Touches, scrolls, and swipes that are unique to these devices should be recorded. To properly interpret the data, you must be able to distinguish between behaviors and navigational patterns observed on mobile devices versus desktop devices during the analysis.
- Exportable Maps: This crucial feature makes it simple to communicate your findings to colleagues.
- Retroactive Heatmaps: Has the layout of your website altered since the last time you analyzed it? Instead of simply superimposing the results on your new design, the results wouldn’t make sense, your software should be able to preserve previous results as displayed on the website design that was in use at the time.
Never forget the other methods
Let’s say you utilized a heatmap to have a better understanding of how visitors to your website engage with your company. Your website has both strong and weak areas, and you want to make the necessary improvements.
How would you quantify the success of these changes? A/B testing your improvements is the only option.
In order to assess how well they operate, the idea is to build many versions of your web pages, adverts, landing pages, etc.
Using a heatmap and experimenting, you can create a 3-step process to:
- Identify issues
- Test out potential remedies.
- Pick the best-performing option.
An early heatmap of this home repair website shows that there are too many competing elements for users’ attention and engagement.
In order to refocus visitor attention on one call-to-action, the company made a few changes to the home page with the aid of A/B testing.
Following the adjustments, a second heatmap is created.
Conversions rise as attention is brought back to the primary call-to-action, the phone number.
Conclusion
Heatmaps are effective tools for any plan for conversion enhancement. They are a vital part of your website’s comprehensive user behavior study. Start enhancing website visitor behavior right away now that you are aware of what heatmaps are and how they operate.