Ever wonder where visitors click or scroll on your firm’s site? Have you added buttons and links to specific pages but you aren’t sure if anyone is even clicking them? If so, then heat mapping may be an easy way to find the answers to these questions.
What is a heat map?
Heat mapping is a type of data analysis software that allows you to track the movements and actions taken by visitors to your firm’s site. Similar to a weather heat map, color-coded systems are used to show the areas, links, and text visitors click on. The “hot” zones, or are areas frequently clicked, are marked as white. The “cool” zones or areas with the least amount of clicks are blue. Red, yellow and green fill in the in-between areas.
Similarly in a scrolling heat map, you can see how far users actually scroll on your page. The same color-coded system is in place as the heat map for clicks (also known as a click map). If you see halfway down a page of content the page begins changing from yellow to green to blue, it means less and less visitors are scrolling down the page of content.
Why use heat maps?
Heat maps help give a better understanding of how visitors interact with your firm’s site. If you are looking to redo your firm’s site but do not know where to begin, by analyzing the heat maps you will be able to tell which aspects of the site are more popular than others. Proper adjustment can then be made to update your firm’s site.
Heat maps are helpful when analyzing links your firm has on specific pages. Let’s say you have a page of content on qualifying for disability benefits with cancer with two links embedded within the content. One is to a page on medical documents that are needed filing a claim with the anchor text “required medical documents.” The other link is to a page on the general qualifications of SSDI with the anchor text “qualify.” You may notice that the longer anchor text glows red while the shorter anchor text is blue. This means the longer anchor text had more people click on it than the shorter one. From this observation, you may want to make your anchor text longer so more people will click it. This will ultimately help with keeping them on your firm’s site longer, increasing session durations.
Heat maps are also helpful when analyzing a form. If your firm has a multi-step contact form, you can monitor the form’s trends and see if there are any gaps or holes causing people to not complete the form. For example, based on the click map, you may see that people are filling out the form, but are not clicking on the button that allows them to submit. You can then play around with the size, color, or even the call to action on the button to see which helps increase the number of potential claimants that complete and submit the contact form.
Where do I get a heat map analysis?
There are a variety of different online software that you can purchase to install onto your firm’s site and monitor your heat maps. Though each differs slightly, most offer click maps, scroll maps, and page recordings. Many offer free trials anywhere from one week to one month. Once you find the heat mapping software right for your firm’s needs you can work with your site’s developer to have a script installed. This script will allow the activity of your site’s visitors to be tracked. Then, you can begin optimizing your firm’s site based on your findings!