Data is valuable. However, in its tabular form, sometimes it can let people down and not able to provide the best way to analyze the data. This holds especially true when trying to visualize how people are interacting with a website.
Webmasters, as people that are also called web architects, site authors, or website administrators, are people responsible for maintaining one or many websites. These also include: ensuring that the web servers, hardware and software are operating correctly, designing the website, generating and revising web pages, A/B testing, replying to user comments, and examining traffic through the site.
There are numerous tools available to aid webmasters examining traffic through a website, the development, and the design of their website. And one of the most overlooked web analytics tools is the heat map. It has been proven that websites have specific areas where human eyes always spend the most time, and website heat maps are the tool to help determine exactly where they're looking.
Understanding Website Heat Map
A web's heat map is an easy way to understand what users do on a website. It’s a visual representation showing you where users click and what they do. The heat map is shown as a graphical representation of data where the individual values contained in a matrix are represented as colors.
A heat map is a color coded overlay used to show the high and low "attention areas" of a web page. There are basically two ways that a heat map can be created: by tracking eye movement, or by tracking the path a mouse cursor takes when a visitor uses a web page.
In a web's heat map, colors are hot or cold, depending on where people are clicking. So if, for example, a logo receives the majority of clicks on the page then it will glow red (hot), if the sign up button only gets a few clicks then it will be blue (cold). This visual overlay of a website allows webmasters to quickly see where people are clicking and what they're doing.
There are a number of tools available for webmasters to see heat maps of their sites. Beside being used for displaying areas of a web page most frequently scanned by visitors, web heat maps are also often used alongside other forms of web analytics and session replay tools.
The Golden Triangle
The "Golden Triangle" is an industry term referring to the sweet spot on a search engine results page, which happens to be shaped like a triangle with its most viewed point near the region where a website's logo typically rests.
The Golden Triangle is where people look most, both in the organic listing section and in the paid ads area, as well. This kind of data is used by companies like Google to enhance the placement of objects on pages.
This particular heat map region is a benchmark not only for websites, but for articles and even search engine results pages. It is also a major determinant for ad placement. In this example, when looking at Google AdWords placement: the top/center region gets the most visibility, with the top of the right column getting second string.
By placing ads in the "hottest" Golden Triangle regions seen in a heat map, the website will be able to give its ads the most exposure.
Collecting Data
Assuming webmasters have heat map software installed and collecting data, what exactly should they be looking for and how can this data help?
For the basic analysis, webmasters want to take a broad overview on where people are clicking, specifically on which call to actions the website have on its page. Depending on the type of page, whether it be lead generation, e-commerce or information, heat maps allow webmasters to see how visitors complete a certain action. If the heat is cold, clicks are low, and this can be seen as an issue.
Webmasters also want to look at areas they didn't expect to see high clicks; if a certain link or a secondary call to action is getting a lot of clicks, then that's something the webmaster need to look into.
Beyond that, webmasters can also look into the checkout process and which areas are or aren't being clicked. Webmasters can look at sign up pages and landing pages to see how they are performing.
Heat maps can also be used to analyze re-designed websites to test if call to actions are performing as expected.
Although heat maps give a nice way to visualize where people are clicking on a website, heat maps don't give information about other insights into what is going on with the page (time on page, keyword that drove the visit, number of previous visits, and forth). Heat maps just add information to the overall picture of a visitor and their intent rather than explaining completely. This is why web heat maps are commonly used with other form of web analytics.
The data from a heat map is more than just pretty colors: they show what areas of the page your users are looking at, or ignoring. This is invaluable data that webmasters never be able to get from any conventional analytics package. And just like any other data, sample size is important to get a truly fair and representative picture.
By taking full advantage of the "hot" areas on a heat map, you can either enhance your site's navigation to boost usability, or improve the visibility of your ads to increase profitability. It's like having a focus group for your website, telling you exactly how to improve.
With heat maps, webmasters collect the data, use it in conjunction with other data and as part of their split testing strategy to improve clickthroughs on their key call to action.