Website or app heat maps express varying degrees of one metric on your website or mobile app by using different colors. As a marketer, it is very important that you continuously improve your website using heat maps. It helps you understand how many people interacted with a certain part of a web page.
The more a certain part is used, the deeper the shade of red that represents it will be. Lesser a certain part is used, the website heat map will display it using lighter shades of orange, yellow, etc.
Website heatmaps have the potential to be a very powerful tool while optimizing websites for conversions.
How Can Website Heat Maps Help You?
Website heatmaps are roughly divided into two groups: mouse-tracking heat maps and eye-tracking heat maps. Since mouse-tracking heat maps are generated when you are using data from actual visitors and is cheaper, most people seem to prefer this.
Here’s how website heat maps can help you realize certain things:
Positioning Your Content
People scroll. But they are impatient. Usually, they do not go below the fold of your website. Visitors spend 80% of their time focusing on the content that is above the fold. The rest they spend below it. Even though this study was conducted on a lower resolution, the percentage might vary a bit. But if you use a website heat map, you will see that most visitors will not scroll down unless your website encourages them to.
Left Is Right
A lot of studies on the internet say that people look at the left side of your website before they look at the right. 69% of the viewing time is devoted to the left side. This means that people spend more than twice the amount of time looking at the left than the right.
People Seldom Read Entire Content
If you look at your website heat maps, you will see that people tend to spend more time at the heading and subheading. Then they will spend some time at the beginning of an article and selectively read the rest of it. So, it makes sense to provide important information as well as try to hook a visitor to make them read the entire content.
The more subheading, bullet points and paragraphs you use, the better. This will help make your copy more readable.
People will always skim through your copy. It is your job to take advantage of this information and use it.
Banner Blindness
If you analyze your website heat maps, you will be able to figure out if your visitors suffer from banner blindness. This phenomenon is a common one where website advertisement banners distract your visitors. This leads to them thinking that they will not find the information they need.
Is this happening on your website? Rectify it. Just ask a web design expert experienced in online marketing to re-design your website or suggest changes.
Colors Are Important
If you have read our previous article on A/B color tests, you will know how important a role color plays on your website. At times, you will see that visitors are not clicking the CTA button on a certain landing page.
Now, if you check your website heat maps, you will probably see that people are actually avoiding it.
Why? Because the color scheme on your website is not letting this button stand out. You might have to consult heat maps of other web pages to see which colors your visitors like. It might be that people do not like the shape of the button. Then you will have to change that as well.
Photos Of Real People
One thing that people notice on your website even before they read the copy are the visuals. People like viewing pictures. But, you will have to use authentic photos, with real people.
Website heatmaps do reveal that people interact more with real pictures than with “stock photos”. Humans are clever enough to figure out if your picture is a stock photo or a normal image.
Strike Fast With Emails
People usually spend 51 seconds on the newsletters that you mail them. So keep it short and sweet so that it aids them to skim through it. They read only 19% of the newsletter so have clear call-to-action buttons.
Trial & Error
Using website heat maps to optimize your website is a process of trial and error. You will have to figure out what works for you and what does not. But I am sure, the above finding will make your task easier.
Just make sure that your visitor gets what they need on your website.