HeatMap Tracking: What is a heat map? (and why you need them)

What is a heat map?

A heat map is a powerful tool that visualizes data, illustrating how visitors interact with a web page. It can tell you useful analytics like where users click and, even more importantly, where they don’t click. A basic heat map looks like this:

An example of a heat map showing “hot” and “cold” zones where users interact with your web page.

Heat maps:

• Visualize data
• Help you determine what works and what doesn’t on your website
• Expose flaws in your customer funnels
• Show you exactly what your website visitors are doing
• Optimize your website

Heat maps use a hot/cold visualization to see where your web page’s “hot” and “cold” areas are. A “hot” area garners a lot of attention and gets clicks while a “cold” area does the opposite. With this information, you can see exactly which page elements work. And once you know that, you can optimize your web page for maximum conversion.

A web page should act like any other facet of your business. It should be tested, tested, and tested again, making sure you always give your customers the very best version of yourself.

Charles Becker | Client Success at GrowDirectBookings.com

A successful web page will have very little friction. Friction is any part of the conversion process where your prospect becomes less likely to convert.

For example, a webpage with too much text will have a lot of friction. It stops the prospect from completing the intended goal of understanding information quickly. Another example is a poorly placed CTA (call to action). If your prospect doesn’t see your CTA or it doesn’t capture their attention, you’ve already lost the sale. Heat maps will point out these areas of friction, allowing you to A/B test and optimize.

Who should use heat maps?

Anyone and everyone using the internet for their business, which in 2021 is a necessity, should look into heat maps. Websites are the NEW storefronts for businesses, leading to more competition online than ever before. With more people relying on the internet to do their shopping, booking, etc., you cannot afford to not update your website constantly.

Heat maps give you the information you need to jump-start conversions on-demand by finding points of friction and so much more.

Who should use heat maps? You.

How to analyze heat maps

You can judge how effective a web page is by analyzing a heat map on the following two things, according to Instapage:

1. How much information visitors engage with: Look at how much of the page visitors actually read, based on this information you can assess which page elements are working well and which are not (a scroll map would be used for this).
2. What actions do users take: What are visitors clicking? Do they click the CTA button, type in the form fields, etc?

The 4 types of heat maps: Eye-tracking, scroll maps, mouse-tracking, click-tracking.

There are 4 types of heat maps

1. Eye-Tracking
2. Scroll Maps
3. Mouse Tracking
4. Click Tracking

Each type of heat map has its own analytics that will help you optimize your web pages in no time at all. Next week, we will release another article about the different types of heat maps and what they mean. In the meantime, check out some of our other articles and lessons.

Source: Instapage