We are in an age of the competitive digital world. Every website competes with others for traffic, engagement, retention, and conversion of users into clients. Thus, it becomes essential for website managers to know the needs and requirements of their users. Tools like Google Analytics, Search Console, Majestic, and others provide a prominent picture of user behavior patterns on the websites. They provide crucial information such as Total Sessions, Session Timings, Time on Site, Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, and much more. However, a need for a clearer understanding of the behavior was felt, thus creating heatmaps. Heat Map is used to detect user activity in terms of user behavior on websites. With the use of Heatmaps, website managers can easily understand the requirements of their audience. Today, in this article, we will discuss the popular heat map tools to attach to your website.
Why is it crucial for marketers to track heatmaps?
Heatmaps are a great way to see where your visitors are clicking on your site. This can help to identify any issues with your website design. Most importantly, it can also help you to improve your web page conversions. It gives valuable information (in the form of graphically represented color codes) about pages that perform well or need improvement. You can then identify which links are not performing well. You can also prioritize these links and consider removing low-performing ones.
Different types of Heatmaps
There are different types of heatmaps that you can track. Let’s take a closer look at each type and how they can be used to improve your conversion rate.
Click tracking heatmaps
The first type of heatmap is called a click heatmap. A click heatmap shows you which links are leading to which pages. It helps determine why your visitors are clicking on certain pages. For instance, you might notice that many of your visitors are clicking on the “contact us” link. It is probably because this is the only prominently visible link on your home page. You can then work on improving the visibility of other navigation links.
Scroll maps
Scroll heatmaps allow you to see how far your visitors scroll down on your website’s pages and how many people make it to the bottom or middle of your page. You learn where to place your most important content on your pages, such as the purchase button and a discount banner.
Mouse tracking heatmaps
The third type of heatmap you can track is a mouse tracking heatmap. It shows you where your visitors are clicking with their mouse and will help you identify any issues with your website design. For instance, if you notice that your visitors are repeatedly clicking on the same areas of your site, you should consider revamping these areas.
Attention Maps
The final type of heatmap that you can track is an attention map. An attention map shows you where your visitors are looking on your website. You can do this by placing “view ad,” “learn more,” “buy now,” and other similar links somewhere on your site. You can then track where your visitors are clicking on these links. It will show you which areas of your site are getting the most attention.
Hotjar
Hotjar has powerful heatmaps to understand how people behave and use your website. They help you see what people do after landing on your web pages, based on which you can make adjustments on your front end. The goal is to make each session more interactive and immersive for your users. Heatmaps by Hotjar primarily provide a color-coded representation of the website elements based on their interactions with the audience. It helps website owners find out the details that have struck a chord with the viewers and help them understand the part of the website that is not so relevant to the audience. Hotjar allows you to install unlimited heatmaps that can be clicked, scrolled quickly, and moved around. These heatmaps can be compared with others over time and combined to understand user behavior better. Over 7.5 billion users worldwide use some form of heat maps provided by Hotjar. The dataset obtained by the heatmaps is eventually used for improving the website through means of A/B Testing, updating important content, restructuring the webpages, replacing main links and buttons to create a better user experience. The clientele of Hotjar includes some of the big shots of the internet like Adobe, Nintendo, Decathlon, Hubspot, Panasonic, Microsoft, to name a few.
Freshmarketer
Freshmarketer is another fantastic website assisting in visualizing visitors’ clicks, scrolls, taps on websites. With the help of heat maps provided by Freshworks, you can identify the elements that capture your audience’s attention and such components that distract them and thus create a seamless browsing experience. Freshmarketer, just like its name, provides new and innovative heat maps that work so much better than the millions of traditional heatmaps available in the market. You can view real-time data with the tools provided, unlike the conventional heat maps where you have to wait for the data to be processed, losing precious time and visitors. Freshmarketer also provides segmented heatmaps for improved optimization of the website. You can capture and segment visitors’ interactions by geography, traffic source, and their devices. It helps you create better awareness about your audience and enables you with the knowledge to personalize the experience for all segments. In addition to the heatmaps, fresh marketers provide an all-in-one sales and marketing solution that combines the power of sales, marketing, customer interactions, chat, and telephony in one solution powered by groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence technology. You can now:
Attract best leads with personalized messagesEngage your audience across multiple channels and platformsClose deals quicker than traditional methods, with the help of AI-powered insightsDeliver personalized experience with 360* customer context.
Mouseflow
Mouseflow is famous for structuring complex user behavior data, processing it, and providing easy visual analysis from its heatmap software. The website boasts of analyzing every page. It is a unique combination of 6 heatmap tools: click, scroll, attention, movement, geo, and live. These tools help you assess how deep users scroll on your webpage and which content aids the conversion. Furthermore, the location of your user and their interactions with certain website elements like iframes, menus, banners can also be tracked. Mouseflow is the next-generation heatmap tool that provides every day that conventional heatmaps do. It also gives you thorough insight that includes a full suite of user behavior data visualizations. A unique and innovative feature called the friction score by Mouseflow has been a hit among its users. After setting up the heatmap, you will get overwhelmed with the amount of color-coded data they generated. A friction score is a computer-generated score provided to each element of your website, and the ones with the lowest score are the elements that are being least interacted with on your page. So those should be the first ones to go.
Plerdy
The name Plerdy is synonymous with heat mapping websites in the communities of Experienced Marketers, UX Experts, and SEO specialists. They rely on Plerdy to record clicks, hovers, scrolls, and other such interactions on the websites. Plerdy is known to help them increase their conversion rate by enabling data-driven software and tools entirely free of cost. The tools help spot and remove the bottlenecks on the website hindering conversion. With the help of tools provided by Plerdy, you can also manage to find the design flaws in the website and thereby change it to drive the user experience to a more personalized and interactive stage. Heatmap tools by Plerdy include four essential elements; Website Click Heatmap, Hot segments, Website Scroll Map, Mouse Hover Maps, Click Path Analysis, selected Text tracking, Cursor Position map, and automatic synchronization of events with Google Analytics. Plerdy has been getting positive reviews since its inception in the heat mapping vertical of the industry. It is rated 4.5+ by most tech blogs and is trusted by companies like SoftServe, Subaru, Honda, Huggies, Moyo, and more.
Clarity by Microsoft
Microsoft is one of the pioneer companies of personal computers and has made fantastic achievements in the digital space, making lives easier for all of us. Clarity by Microsoft is yet another attempt to enable website owners to create a more personalized and interactive user experience. It is a free, easy-to-setup and uses a tool that captures how real people use your website. With Clarity in your arsenal, you will be able to generate instant heatmaps for all your website pages and know where users are clicking, what they like, and what is being ignored. Clarity generates powerful insights with the help of elements such as dead clicks, rage clicks, and excessive scrolling, converting problems into opportunities. The services of Clarity, viz. Heatmaps, Session Recordings, Insights, and easy connection with google Analytics assists in identifying Pain Points in the website like never before. Clarity users can now locate places of user frustration, product bugs that can damage the entire user experience, and potential issues with specific user groups. Since Google Analytics is the universal analytics tool used by bloggers and other businesses to check user behavior on the website, Clarity offers easy and seamless integration into Google Analytics to provide a richer experience. The clients of Clarity include some of the most prominent multinational organizations like the World Health Organization, Hewlett Packard, Cinemark, Pizza Hut, Forbes, and Steve Madden.
Heatmap.com
Heatmap.com is considered the most suitable for landing pages optimization. Due to its attractive pricing models, it is preferred by bloggers, individuals, and small & medium scale digital companies. The heatmaps capture user interactions, including their location, browser, OS, and their activities on the web pages. The data collected is then uploaded to the cloud for instant reporting on the website owners’ devices. The heatmaps are also easy to install by just taking a minute of adding a simple JavaScript code to the website. Just add that, and you are good to go. The tag by heatmaps.com is asynchronous, and thus it will not slow down the page. It works with all browsers, ajax navigation, fixed elements and can even handle the rendering variation between users. The tag is also configurable for website owners who wish to customize it as per their requirements. What makes Heatmap.com stand out from the crowd is its ability to convert a massive chunk of data, break it down into small units that make sense, and track them in real-time to create a better user experience and the performance of websites. The heatmaps also use Augmented Reality to bring data right on the pages, focusing on the most critical data.
VWO
VWO heatmaps help you see how users browse your website, what captures their attention, and what elements distract them. The outstanding visual representation of users’ interaction with the website makes it easy for the users to identify strategic points for their digital business. The innovative navigation mode of Dynamic Heatmaps by VWO lets the website owners browse different pages while viewing data on elements of these pages. It not only gets you all the necessary data but also puts you in the audience’s shoes simultaneously, enabling you to see your product from both perspectives. In addition to the heatmaps, VWO also provides other types of maps. Click maps by VWO to bring the real-time data of elements where the visitors are clicking. This data can be used to find out the key action points and thus remove the parts that distract the users. Scroll maps by VWO provide information on the users’ scroll on the web pages. The data by Scroll maps can ensure that the users do not ignore any critical links and elements. Other products by VWO include Click Area, Element Lists. Heatmaps by VWO are always on, providing real-time data of cross-platform tracking, which can be downloaded and shared. The heatmaps are also customizable, where you can add observations of the user behavior and takeaways to your heatmap.
Lucky Orange
Lucky Orange is on a mission to make your pages as dynamic as your website, turning each page into a conversion machine. Lucky Orange provides dynamic analysis, element analysis, and segmentation like no other heatmap in the market. Lucky Orange is found suitable for all types of business. With the help of Lucky Orange, you can generate more leads by adjusting form fields and optimizing CTA locations to increase conversions. Unlike what industry you dwell in, Agency, eCommerce, or Enterprise, Lucky Orange will be lucky for you. With features like full tracking, effective fold, shareable screenshots, comparative segments, visual customization, and platform compatibility, Lucky Orange provides full liberty to the website owners in building their personalized heatmap that is as unique as your business idea.
Smartlook
Smartlook provides click, move and scroll heatmaps that ensure users get what they are looking for. With the help of heat maps provided by Smartlook, and the combination of data obtained from all three layers of these maps, the website owners develop an awareness about the direction their website should go for better conversions. Smartlook is preferred over its competitors for providing Historical data, Types of visitors, Download and Share, Device and Segment, User Privacy, and many more similar features. The tool has become a quick favorite for several companies, and the list includes some of the big names. Smartlook also offers easy integration with several platforms and tools like intercom, Mixpanel, Zendesk, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Magento, PrestaShop, Shopify, WordPress, etc.
MouseStats
MouseStats is not just a tool. Instead, it sells itself as a heatmap suite providing help to small and big companies, viz: Stack Exchange, and Adidas, to optimize their profile in the best way possible. MouseStats Heatmaps come with responsive design support for the different user experiences of every device. In addition to most desktop browsers, the MouseStats heat maps work and track mobile and tablets. The reports generated are device-specific and can be implemented to create different models for different kinds of devices. MouseStats provide Move Heatmaps, Click Heatmaps, Scroll Heatmaps, and Attention Heatmaps. Other than the heatmaps, the tool also offers Visitor Recordings, Micro Surveys, and Form Analytics.
Inspectlet
Inspectlet tracks user behavior on the website to prepare a data set for the website owners that they can use to create a personalized experience. They also record videos of visitors as they interact with the website. With Inspectlet, you learn and see exactly what your users are doing on your website and how they feel while interacting with your content. It increases your conversion and helps you understand their mindset and use that to strategize your business goals. Inspectlet offers features like potent filtering capabilities and funnel analysis; you can even watch recordings of people who added items to their cart but did not proceed to checkout. The conversion funnels let you select a series of pages that lead towards a goal, track users’ movement through those pages, and find the exact pain points in the user journey.
PTengine
PTengine collects data from all sources and then analyses your website from every angle. The report of PTengine includes a website performance overview in real-time through a series of analysis tools like funnels, page groups, campaigns, traffic sources, and much more. You can even dive deeper into the analysis with the advanced stages provided by the tools. Segment your viewers based on their geo-locations, age-group devices, and even create your custom filter. There is no coding involved, making PTengine super easy and convenient to use. Simple clicks and even more straightforward reporting can help you track your website performance without much hassle.
Conclusion
Every website demands upgrading and overhauling because of the dynamic nature of the internet. You cannot rely on age content to convert users of today. And there is no better way to understand user behavior than being able to see their activity on your online shop. The heatmaps listed in the article are the best in the industry. You can plug any of them on your website and track user behavior, bring all the essential elements to the most active part of the page and remove the others that make way for the user’s frustrations. Following a disciplined routine of inculcating data sets of heatmaps into your online business strategy will turn your hundreds into millions.
