Heatmaps are being used more and more to express complex data analysis with an easy-to-understand visual. This graphic allows you to quickly determine what your visitor experience is. For example, if you are wondering which parts of your site are lacking in interest, your heatmap will show you where those “cold spots” are happening. We have compiled a list of heatmap expert tips so you can understand your visitor behavior and fix these issues, to create the ultimate user experience on each of your pages.
Tip #1 – Start with a hypothesis
Questions are the best way to understand how your visitors are viewing your site. Do your visitors appreciate and weigh your different site options? How does your audience respond to your image and does it attract them to your call to action, or repel them?
Heatmaps experts all recommend being a scientist when it comes to looking at this form of data. Instead, of looking at your sites map and making changes, asking the right questions, will help you follow your visitors’ experience and make the right changes.
Tip #2 – Picking the Right Type of Heatmap
Heatmap is really an umbrella term, as there are many different types of heatmapping tools. Choosing the right tool is very important. These include scroll maps, click maps, and move maps. Let’s take a quick look at the differences:
- Scroll maps – these show the exact percentage of people who scroll to any point on the page. Red = more visitors and Blue = low to no visitors
- Click maps – this is an excellent tool to see the aggregate of where your visitors click their mouse for desktop. They can even report the taps on mobile, these are also called touch heatmaps. These colors vary from red, orange, and yellow.
- Move maps – You will want to track where your visitors move and pause their mouse so you can see where people are looking vs where their mouse
Using each of these heatmaps will answer critical questions so you can understand, why visitors are not converting or how to move your call-to-action button to the right spot for maximum interaction.
Tip #3 – Mix and Match Heatmaps with Other Analytical Tools
Heatmaps experts all agree that a heatmap when combined with other tools, provide a well-rounded and clear vision of how to improve your site and generate more the most conversions.
- The A/B Test- Use your heatmap info to help answer that hypothesis for a split test or you can run them to test out different variations of your A/B test, so you can see why some pages are more or less successful.
- Recordings – Visitor recordings or session replays show you entire browsing sessions. In a way, the heatmap provides a snapshot while a recording gives you the story from start to finish. Together, this is an excellent combo so you can know exactly how your visitors are experiencing your site.
- On-page feedback- Analyzing data is great but don’t forget that your users’ feedback is also equally and sometimes even more crucial. By just having a one question pop-up you will be able to really give your visitors the UX they want.
Takeaway
As you can see heatmaps are an excellent way to understand how, what, why, and where of your visitors’ interactions with your site. Being able to determine what is and isn’t working at a glance is critical to optimizing your website and generating as much value and conversions as possible. Use a combo of these expert tips to take your site to the next level. Start with your hypothesis, such as “are people clicking on key page elements?”, then using the right type of heatmap look at all your data. Finally, mix and match with other tools to get a complete picture and alter, edit, and move accordingly.