Heat maps are a specific type of data visualization that demonstrate how people interact with your website. Let's say your SEO and PPC are performing well, and you're getting steady traffic to an important product page. Now what?
With the help of a heat map, you can see which products website visitors click on the most compared to those that didn't get any attention. Typically, the areas where users click the most are red or orange, whereas areas where users only clicked a few times are blue or green.
Source: Crazyegg.com
How Marketers, Designers, and Brands Can Use Heat maps
Heat maps are a powerful tool - especially for e-commerce websites and brands - and can help marketers uncover tactics or changes needed to turn website visitors into paying customers. Here are a few ways to utilize heat maps most effectively:
Track Popups and Dropdowns
Popups and dropdowns can effectively promote specials, offers, and timely information. They can also be annoying. That said, a heat map can help you understand how your customers are interacting with these features and whether they are effective.
Category Pages
Heat maps on category pages can yield a goldmine of information about what types of products your customers are most interested in - even if they didn't conduct a specific search on your site. This data can inform your on-site conversion funnel strategy along with category tagging and prioritization for products.
Product Pages
On individual product pages, you can use heat mapping to uncover exactly what type of information your customers are interested in finding about a specific item on your website. If users consistently click on a specific thumbnail when they land on a product page, for instance, consider surfacing that image first.
Menus and Navigation
Large sites, especially e-commerce sites, are notoriously difficult to navigate. Utilize heat mapping to find out exactly what your customers want from your side and top navigation, and consider making those elements more accessible. Additionally, make sure the content on the associated pages are robust and detailed.
Heat Mapping Providers
There are many heat mapping tools available, so we've narrowed down a few of the most reputable. These include:
Hotjar - an industry leader in heat mapping visualization and is used by many brands.
Lucky Orange - provides heat mapping along with end-to-end conversion tools like chat and session recordings
CrazyEgg - another industry leader in heat mapping technology, but also provides A/B testing capabilities in addition to simply tracking user interactions.
To learn more, or to see how Interstellar uses heat mapping to benefit customers like you, contact our team today.