Heatmap is a window into your visitor’s mind
When your car acts weird, what would you do? Would you just open the hood and start meshing with the parts? I might say, it's not a great idea. Doing so might get you to a condition when you make the things more complicated even for the mechanic. I hope, you don't choose this path. Same goes to your website. When things go crazy and your website’s conversion rate begins to fall, you do not just start messing with the things. Instead, you try to find the cause and then go for a fix. Trust me, you might fix your car by blindly tinkering the things, but fixing your conversion rates is not the same. Here you are dealing with decreased conversions, sales loss, waste of time and money. A blindfold approach is not that you want here. Every visitor to your site, possess a different perception, different way of browsing, and most important is the difference in requirements. So what should you do then? Just track the heatmap, and you are ready to fix the disaster. Wait ! What are website heatmaps? And how would you get them? A heatmap tool is an answer. A heatmap tool is used in conversion optimization strategies which function by showing a graphical representation of visitors’ interaction with a site element, webpage or a website. The graphical representations are shown in the form of different color combinations that differentiate a performing element with a non-performing element. Heatmaps are something that you can go for blindly. They are like homeopathic meds; no side effects. Instead, the best way to know the usability of each and every site element you have put online for your visitors. The color variation on a heatmap suggests the level of actions happening on the page. Warm colors
(red, yellow, white) suggest more action while the cool colors (purple, blue, green) says the actions is less here.
How do website heatmap tools help? When you create a webpage, you have a certain level of expectation with it. You have expectations for your visitors. For example, if you have a blog site, you want your visitors to scroll down till the end ready your post completely. Similarly, if you are an eCommerce site owner, you expectations lies in getting your visitors to the checkout page. Both the goals, define the kind of heatmap you have to use to track the visitors on both the sites. The first case can be dealt with a Scroll Heatmap tool which will generate the color variations with respect to how far the visitors scroll down on your pages. Like the Scroll Heatmap in the image below. The warmer is the color, the more visitors pause to the particular fold.
The second case of navigation to the checkout page can be well defined with a Click Heatmap tool. The Click Heatmap tool will track the click activity of the visitors and let you know how often the visitors click on a particular checkout button or any button that leads to your checkout page. You can track to find out if there is any element on your eCommerce site which is hindering or distracting the visitors from going to the checkout page. Not only that, a Click Heatmap tool will also let you know about how visitors are interacting with different elements on your checkout page too. On the whole, you would have a complete usability report of each and every element on your website. How to get a heatmap tool? Typically, both the Click heatmap and Scroll heatmap tools comes together in package of a heatmap tool. In Addition there are certain tools that also provide the A/B testing tool in the same package. For example, With MockingFish Heatmap tool you get all kind of tools like Scroll heatmap, Click heatmap, Mouse movement heatmap, Insight heatmap, list heatmap and envelope heatmap. As a bonus, the A/B testing tool is in the same package.
Finally,
So a proper combination of Scroll Heatmap and a Click Heatmap is all you need for conversion optimization of your whole website. From how far the visitors are scrolling to how much they are clicking on your CTA buttons, everything you need to know. That is like a transparent window to your visitor's mind. After knowing which part of your website needs your attention, you can adopt 101 ways to optimize the pages and secure better conversions. Important: A/B testing is one of those 101 ways.