What are heatmaps and how can they be used to improve design

Traditional analytics tools will tell you how many people visit your website, what pages they land on, and which pages they navigate. Some analytics tools will also track clicks and conversions too. But, if you want to understand a user’s behavior on a page of your website, you will need to use a website heatmap. But what is a heatmap, and what insights will you gain from using one? Here’s a complete guide to website heatmaps and how you can use them to improve your website’s design.

What Is a Website Heatmap?

Website heatmaps provide you with a graphical representation of user interaction with your web pages. A website heatmap tool displays a web page overlayed with a color-coded map signifying the areas of the page that generate the most engagement. It provides you with an overview of the user behavior to your website.

The colors of a heat map generally run from blue to red. Unshaded or blue indicates the cold areas with which users rarely interact. Red signifies the hot spots that attract the most attention and interaction. And there will be various hues of hot and cold colors representing the different levels of interaction.

What Are the Various Types of Heatmaps?

There are various types of website heatmaps that track different aspects of user interaction. Most heatmaps apps and plugins utilize several of these types to represent how users interact with the page visually. Here’s an explanation of the various types of website heatmaps:

Click Maps

Click maps indicate the frequency of clicks on elements and action buttons of a web page. So, you can see how often people click on clickable images, links, and calls to action. Click maps will also show you what elements people click on to navigate and exit a page.

Scroll Maps

Scroll maps demonstrate how visitors scroll through the content. Scroll map data will tell you how far people read down a page and what page sections attract the most attention. Scroll maps will help you decide on the optimum length of a page and where to place critical elements, like calls to action.

Mouse Tracking Maps

As the name suggests, mouse tracking heatmap tracks mouse movements. This type of website heatmap is also known as hover map, move map, or attention map.

When people read the content of a web page, they tend to track their progress with their mouse. And, when they find something that interests them, they hover over that item with the mouse while they read the content. So, a mouse tracking map will reveal what parts of the content on a page attract the most attention. However, some people “park” their mice while they read. So, a mouse tracking app may not always provide accurate information.

Eye-tracking Heatmaps

The technology also exists for tracking the eye movements of website visitors. Eye-tracking heatmap indicates what parts of a webpage a visitor looks at and how long they focus on that area of the page. However, eye-tracking technology requires the use of expensive sensor equipment. And, even if tracking with a standard webcam were possible, the user’s permission would be needed before such technology could be employed.

What Are the Benefits of Website Heatmaps?

Heatmaps allow you to see how users are interacting with a website. And that can help you improve the design of your site to improve user experience, generate more conversions, improve your conversion rate and decrease bounce rate. Heatmaps also provide another dimension to A/B testing, which allows you to redesign web pages to achieve optimum results.

The visual nature of website heatmaps makes understanding user interactions much less challenging. Instead of trawling through tables of numeric data, you can immediately see what actions users are taking on a page. Here’s how a website heatmap will help you improve the design of a website:

Locate Optimum Positions for Key Content

Where you place a piece of critical content or a call to action (CTA) is crucial. Indeed, if these vital elements on a page are not found, users will not take the desired action. So, you can use a heatmap to discover why users are not following the path you had planned. A website heat map will, for example, help you locate the all-important fold on a web page.

Highlight Engaging Content

The visual representation of user dwell-times provided by a heatmap will allow you to see what sections of your content most interest users. And that will enable you to place the most engaging content in a prominent position on a page. Moving the best content to a better location will reduce bounce rates, which will increase the chance of a conversion.

Track Visitor Actions

Understanding what users do on a web page will help you refine the page design and layout to maximize conversions. What do visitors click on, for example? What do they read right before they quit the page? Website heatmaps will also help you identify missed opportunities on a page. For example, users might be clicking on a product image that could be linked to further product information.

Identify Distractions

A website heatmap will also help you identify clickable elements on a page that distract users from taking the desired action and disrupt the user flow. You might find, for example, that too many users are following a link to an external site. Or people might be spending more time looking at a non-essential element rather than reading crucial information or clicking on a CTA.

Improve Testing

A heat map will provide detailed information to help you make better decisions when conducting A/B testing. A/B testing often only reveals which of the two pages performs the best. On the other hand, a heatmap will show what aspects of a page’s design make one page more effective than the other.

Increase Conversions

Converting visitors to customers or subscribers is the primary objective of many business web pages. But are visitors to your site even seeing your “buy now” or “subscribe” button? Without a heatmap, the only fact you will be sure of is that people are not clicking on CTAs. With a heatmap, you can determine why users are not behaving in the way you had anticipated.

Conclusion

Heatmaps are an excellent way to understand how people are using your website. It’s definitely one of the best tools to work on your conversion rate optimization. And, once you know what your visitors are focussing on and what they are missing, you can optimize your site to create more conversions. And, because heatmaps present data in a visual format, there is no need to analyze rows and rows of data. So, you can identify with minimal effort but with valuable insights where your web pages need improvement.