Have you ever heard of website heatmaps?
When you try to go through the process of analyzing your website performance, you might only think of looking at user analytics. These consist of how many people visit your website and which pages they spend time on.
But how do you know how well each individual page functions? How can you see whether or not their attention is drawn to the right parts of the page?
This is where employing website heatmap use comes in. By employing heatmaps, you will be able to assess what works on your website and what doesn’t.
Want to learn more? Keep reading!
The Value of Discovering User Experience
Are you wondering whether or not finding out about your visitor’s user experience is good for you?
Many expert marketers now put a lot of emphasis on understanding your website’s performance, but if you’re still on the fence about whether or not you should analyze user behavior, let’s get into why it benefits you.
Think of your online presence as the digital representation of your business. Most of the time, companies use their website to advertise their products and services, much as they would in a real store. They also share the story of their brand, attempt to establish themselves as an authority in their field, and try to get people invested in them.
When you go through the process of discovering your user’s path throughout your website, you give yourself the ability to learn more about what works for you and what doesn’t. For instance, if your goal is to get people to buy your products, are your visitors clicking onto your products page? If you want to establish yourself as an authority, do they read more than one page on your blog?
If so, then congratulations. Your website works well in your favor. If it’s not, though, you need to pivot your website design to get people to click on it more often.
Means of Measuring User Behavior
There are a variety of different means to measure user behavior on your website. At the most basic level, you have backend portions of your website platform. Usually, this includes a statistics portion, which shows you details such as how many people visit your site, where they’re located in the world, and which pages they visit.
Yet, many business owners find this isn’t enough. They want to know from which campaigns their users come from, which videos they interact with, and which forms they fill out. In addition, they want to know how many people are clicking onto key pages on their website and fulfilling the actions they want them to take.
To do this, many companies use Google Analytics. Google Analytics helps you track how well your pages are performing, how many people come from different campaigns, and how many people click onto different areas of your website.
It also measures how much time people spend on your website, where these users are from geographically, and whether or not they complete the action you want them to take.
What Are Website Heatmaps?
But often, just using Google Analytics isn’t enough. Rather, business owners also want to know how their individual web pages do, and this is where a heatmap comes in.
So, what is a website heatmap?
Think of website heatmaps as informational tools that help you identify to which areas of your web page your user’s attention is drawn. How does it measure this, exactly?
Heatmaps keep track of where your visitor’s mouse goes when they interact with your site. This follows the theory that your user’s attention is generally reflected in the placement of their mouse. For instance, if they’re engaged in an article, their mouse will move down the page as they scroll. If they think about clicking on a link or a button, their mouse will hover over it.
Then, heatmaps interpret this information for business owners, turning it into colors on a screen. The warmer colors indicate a higher amount of mouse hovering or clicking, while the cooler ones show areas in which there is not as much traffic.
Geographical heatmaps also show which areas your users come from. This gives you valuable insight into whether or not your targeted geographical SEO campaigns are working and how might even help you decide whether or not it’s time to expand your advertising to different countries.
Why Use Heatmaps?
When you’re a business owner, you need to know two things:
- Your website’s goal
- How well it accomplishes that goal
Heatmaps help you do this by determining whether or not your customers go to the pages you wish to direct them to and complete the actions you want them to take. For instance, if you want your customers to contact you for a free quote, do most of your customers click on that button and fill out the form?
If not, you will need to rework your website to point them toward that link or form.
Before you start adding heatmaps to website pages, sit down with your team and determine the main objective of your website. Getting the input of the people who work on your site will help you figure out how to implement your goals and get everyone on the same page.
You should also put someone in charge of looking at the heatmap and interpreting the results. Then, have this person present their findings on a regular basis so you know how well your website performs.
Do you want to know more about heatmaps? Get a better understanding.
Ready to Get Started with Website Heatmaps?
So, are you ready to implement website heatmaps on your platform?
Heatmaps help you determine which parts of your website work the best. By employing a heatmap, you’ll be able to tell how well your individual pages are performing and what works and what doesn’t. This helps you decide what you need to change and how else you can improve your site’s performance.
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