Improving your website so you can convert more visitors into leads and customers is one of the smartest investments your business can make. But how do you know what to improve without guessing?

Knowing what to improve on your website is easy when you have the right data. And conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools can provide you with the data you need.

With CRO tools you don’t need to guess how to improve your website. The right CRO tool will help you gather the data you need to make informed website updates. There are numerous ways CRO tools can help you including heatmaps - which is the topic of today’s post.

Let’s dive in…

What are Heatmaps?

Heatmaps provide you with a visual representation of how visitors interact with each element on a web page. Element interactions are typically represented by the colours red, green, and blue. Elements with the most interaction are displayed in red while elements with the least interaction are displayed in blue.

Website heatmap example

Here is an example of a heatmap for a plumbing company. In this example, we can see that visitors are clicking on the navigation links and the buttons.

How can you use a heatmap to improve your website?

Heatmaps can provide you with critical insights to questions such as, “why aren’t website visitors converting into leads and customers?”

In the heatmap above we can see that a lot of visitors are clicking on the Services, About, and Contact links in the navigation, and the two buttons below the text. A question that might come to mind is “Why are so many people clicking the Contact link instead of the Request job estimate button?”

Another question might be, “Why are more people clicking the Request a job estimate button below the text as opposed to the Request a job estimate button in the upper right hand corner?”

Heatmaps can provide you with lots of insights and questions. Use these insights and questions to improve your website, so you can convert more visitors into leads and customers.

Think about your own website. Have ever wondered what would happen if you changed the design of a web page? What if you changed the text or colour of a button? What if you changed the font size of your navigation links? With heatmaps, as part of a suite of conversion rate optimization tools, you no longer have to wonder. You can gain the insights you need to put your website on the path to better results.

In addition to heatmaps, you can also utilize scroll maps and attention maps. Let's take a look at those while we're at it.

What are scroll maps?

Scroll maps provide you with a visual representation of how far visitors scroll down a web page.

Website scroll map example

Here is an example of a scroll map from the same plumbing company website. In this example, we can see that only 76% of visitors scroll below the average fold.

How can you use a scroll map to improve your website?

Scroll maps can help you determine where you should put the most important content on a page. For example: if you know that the majority of visitors do not scroll half way down a web page, you’ll want to ensure your most important information is above the half way point.

In the scroll map above, 24 out of every 100 visitors do not scroll down the page beyond what they are initially presented. This may be valuable information depending on the web page in question.

Think about your own website. Do you have important information near the bottom of the page, such as a web form. Try moving the important information further up the page and see what happens. It’s little changes like this that can transform the results you get from your website.

What are attention maps?

Attention maps provide you with a visual representation of how much time people spend on each section of a web page.

Website attention map example

Here is an example of an attention map from the same plumbing company website. In this example, we can see that 91% of visitors spend 138 seconds viewing the top portion of the web page.

How can you use attention maps to improve your website?

Attention maps can help you improve the content on a web page. Imagine a web page that has a web form you want visitors to complete. You notice that visitors are spending a lot of time viewing the web form - more time than is necessary to complete the form. This may indicate that the form is not clear to your website visitors. Perhaps you are asking for information they are not comfortable providing, or you are not asking for the information they believe you’ll need. While you may not know the answer, you’ve identified a question that may warrant further research.

Think about your own website. Do you know how visitors are spending time on your web pages? Are they spending time viewing the information you want them to?

See how consumers are engaging with your website?

Want an easy way to get started with heatmaps, scroll maps, and attention maps? Check out PageSense by Zoho.

While there are lots of conversion rate optimization apps that include behaviour maps, Zoho PageSense is one of my favourites. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools to help you improve your website, It’s affordable, it’s easy to use, and you can get started with a free trial.

NOTE: Zoho PageSense is the conversion rate optimization app we use at STRADEGY.CA, to optimize our own website and all of our customer’s websites.

Takeaway

Heatmaps, scroll maps, and attention maps are an important tool when it comes to making informed decisions about your website. However, they don’t provide you with answers, they provide you with insights. They are part of a suite of conversion rate optimization tools your business should be using. 

The insights you gain from these behaviour maps can help you form a hypothesis, as to why visitors are interacting with your website the way they do. You can then test your hypothesis using other conversion rate optimization tools such as A/B split testing.

Conversions rate optimization tools including heatmaps, scroll maps, and attention maps can help you improve your website’s conversion rate. When you improve your website’s conversion rate you can generate more leads and customers for less money.

I’ll conclude by repeating what I said at the beginning - Improving your website so you can convert more visitors into leads and customers is one of the smartest investments your business can make. And heatmaps are one of the tools that can help you do it.