Utilizing Heat Maps to Track and Analyze User Behavior
How Heat Maps Help You Understand and Improve User Behavior
Tools like Google Analytics provide valuable insight into how people find and move through your website. You can see traffic sources, session duration, conversion paths, and more. What they do not always show is how users actually interact with your pages.
That is where heat maps come in. Heat maps give you a visual view of user behavior so you can see where visitors click, scroll, and focus their attention. They turn raw data into clear patterns that help inform better design, content, and conversion decisions.
There are different software applications that allow you to use heat mapping for your site (Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, CrazyEgg, Mouseflow), but in this case we’re going to refer to CrazyEgg, one of the tools we use and recommend to our clients. CrazyEgg is affordable, easy to implement, and simple to use. All you have to do is follow the installation instructions depending on the platform you are on, although you can always utilize Google Tag Manager as well.
Site administrators have the ability to visually analyze CrazyEgg data in a variety of different ways: heatmap, scroll map, confetti, overlay, and list. The most useful (in our opinion) views are the heatmap, scroll map, and confetti views. We will go over the details and insights each view provides and how that can look visually.
What is a Heatmap?
A heat map is a visual overlay that shows how users interact with a webpage. It uses color gradients to represent activity levels: Blue = Cold (Lower Activity) Red = Hot (Higher Activity)
Click Heat Maps
Click heat maps show where users click on a page, including buttons, links, images, and sometimes non clickable areas. This type of heat map is especially useful for improving navigation, forms, and conversion paths.
They help answer questions like:
- Which calls to action are getting attention
- Whether users are clicking where you expect them to
- If important links are being overlooked
- If users are clicking on elements that are not interactive (dead clicks)
Scroll Heat Maps
Scroll maps show how far down users are scrolling on your page before going to a different page or exiting your website. White and yellow = Hot (most visitors are scrolling to that portion of the page), Blue = Cold (very few visitors are scrolling to that portion of the page).
Pros:
- Color-coded
- May provide insight on how engaging content is
- Shows exactly where people start leaving page
- Whether key information is placed too far down the page
Cons:
- Does not show user duration on page
- No insight to where users go once they leave the page
Confetti Maps
Confetti maps break down clicks by source, device, or other attributes. Each click is represented by a small colored dot.
Pros:
- Shows exact location clicked
- Shows referrer, search terms, source, etc.
- Visual (Color-coded via source)
- Can help determine new features or design elements to test
- Can help segment traffic to understand how different user groups interact with the same page
Cons:
- Can quickly become overwhelming and visually crowded on high traffic pages
How to Get Started With Heat Mapping
If you are new to heat maps, here is a simple process to follow.
1. Define Your Goals
Decide what you want to learn. Examples include improving conversions, increasing engagement, or reducing drop offs. Clear goals lead to more useful insights.
2. Install a Heat Map Tool
Most platforms provide a small tracking script that can be added to your site.
Make sure it is installed correctly across the pages you want to analyze.
3. Collect Enough Data
Let the tool run long enough to gather a meaningful sample. Small data sets can be misleading.
Traffic volume and page importance should guide how long you collect data.
4. Analyze Patterns
Look for trends such as:
- Highly clicked elements
- Ignored CTAs
- Drop off points
- Confusing layouts
5. Make Improvements and Retest
Use what you learn to adjust layout, messaging, and hierarchy. Then continue monitoring to see if performance improves.
Heatmapping along with scroll mapping and confetti views can provide great insight as to how users are viewing and using your site. The game changer is that these tools give site administrators the ability to see firsthand what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve done extensive heatmapping on our own website and as a result we’ve tested new buttons, call-to-actions, menu/page layout, content restructure, amongst other things.
Have any questions, or simply want to learn more about heatmapping? Our certified team of digital marketing strategists is happy to help. Contact us today.
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