What is a site heatmap?

The heat map of the website is a visual representation of user behavior. It is a tool that shows which areas of the website are “hot”, and therefore more eye-catching, and which are “cold” – much less interesting from the visitor’s point of view.

The heat map can be produced in various ways and based on several types of data (more on that later). Prepared for a given website, it is in the form of a screenshot with marked spots in different colors. Deep red signifies the greatest interest, orange, yellow and green are intermediate colors, while blues and purples denote the “coldest” places that are the least popular among Internet users.

Heat maps tell you if users:
– reach the most important information,
– they can easily find links, buttons and other links on the website,
– focus their attention on unimportant elements,
– face obstacles to the free and comfortable use of the website.

The analysis of the data collected in the form of a heat map allows for a much better adaptation of the website to the expectations of users and increasing its functionality. The knowledge gained in this way can also significantly help in increasing conversions, i.e. the number of orders, inquiries or other forms of contact with the company.

How are heat maps made?

Typically, a heat map is cumulative data collected through several studies. Sometimes it is identified with the so-called eye tracking, i.e. tracking the movements of the eyeball, another time with the map of clicks. In fact, it is a combination of several types of information collected in different ways. Most often, when creating heat maps, the following are used:
– click analysis – clicktracking,
– page scrolling – scrolltracking,
– examination of elements that attract attention – attentiontracking,
– tracking cursor movements on the screen – movetracking.

They can be presented in the form of a combined report or separate analyzes. This is data that allows you to accurately understand the behavior of Internet users, and thus adapt the website to them. This affects not only the already mentioned increase in conversion, but also the friendliness of the website itself, and therefore the satisfaction of its users.

It is worth preparing separate heat maps for the desktop and mobile websites. This allows you to compare how users of different devices behave and see if your website offers a similar level of conversion in different variants.

Heat maps and eye tracking

Eye tracking is also a popular method of measuring the engagement of website visitors and testing its usability. Its results are often presented in the form of a heat map, but it is a separate analytical tool. Eye tracking allows you to track the movement of the eyeballs. The research is used in many areas, it works well, among others in the case of website usability analysis.

During the procedure, a device that analyzes the eye movement is connected to the computer. Then a focus study is performed. Its participants are asked to perform specific tasks within a given page. Thanks to this, you can check, for example, how easy it is to find the necessary information or carry out activities such as making a purchase or registering on the website. While the data provided by eye tracking can be very valuable, heatmaps should not be equated solely with this study. It may be part of the website analysis, but more often a variety of tools are used to study the previously mentioned parameters.

It should also be remembered that the eye tracking research is carried out in created conditions, on a selected group of participants. So it does not necessarily have to be representative. Meanwhile, heat maps are usually created on the basis of data obtained from real site users in natural conditions.

Heat map – who needs it?

Are you wondering if creating a heat map will pay off? Do you need this type of solution at all? This is a very useful option – provided, however, that the results obtained in this way are properly analyzed, and the conclusions drawn will translate into activities aimed at adapting the website to the expectations and needs of users. The benefits of preparing a heat map will primarily affect people who:
– despite the SEO activities carried out, they do not enjoy a satisfactory conversion;
– are worried about the high bounce rate of the page;
– they achieve good results in terms of organic inputs, but significantly worse among mobile users;
– want to adjust the website template to the user’s needs;
– they have no idea for functional changes within the site;
– want to find out if the mechanisms used are working as intended.

In short, heatmaps are for anyone who wants to improve their website and make it more effective. A user-friendly, functional website more and more often translates into real benefits. However, keep in mind that analyzing the heatmaps is only one step in improving your website. SEO, competition monitoring and other activities cannot be forgotten. Only a holistic approach to creating a website can bring clear results.

Heatmap of the site – how to use it?

A reliably prepared heat map is a great source of information for website administrators. The only question is: how to use them? There are many possibilities. Let’s check what the heat map data says and how it can be transferred to a more functional and, more importantly, more effective website design.

Content analysis
It has been known for a long time that texts on websites are scanned rather cursily, not read by visitors. The heatmap can tell you which elements grab your visitors’ attention and therefore where to put the most important information. Thanks to scrolltracking, you will also find out where on the website its users usually reach. This may suggest that you need to shorten the content or divide it. It is also worth taking care of the form of their presentation – short paragraphs and bullets containing concise information will bring a much better effect. Also, don’t forget about your headlines – they should be attractive and enticing, while still containing your most important keywords. At the very bottom of the page, you can include texts that are less important from the user’s point of view, but they will help in positioning the page.

Improving site navigation
The heat map analysis will tell you a lot about the effectiveness of the links on the page. Are buttons and links receiving sufficient attention? Do users have no problem finding the tab with the offer or the icon transferring the product to the basket? The click-through study will also help you check that the links in the text are in the right places. If their effectiveness is unsatisfactory, try to move them to places that attract more interest from website users. It’s also worth checking if those links that actually “click” lead to the most important tabs and increase your conversion rate. If the buttons aren’t performing well enough, it might be worth making them bigger, highlighted, or repositioned. Also, make sure they contain a call to action (CTA) – a slogan encouraging action (eg “Check”, “Order”, “Learn more”).

Thanks to the heat map analysis, it may also turn out that some of the navigation elements are unnecessary. If a side menu, banner, or button isn’t interesting, they may just be taking up valuable space where something else would be worthwhile.

Detection of problem spots
Broken or invalid links, especially in the “clicked” area, is a huge wasted opportunity. A user who is “framed” in this way can often get irritated and not return to the site anymore! That is why it is worth checking all links for operation and fixing them as soon as possible – especially if they are very popular among Internet users.

More effective suggestions
Many online stores have sections with other recommended or similar offers on their product pages. It is worth checking with the heatmap that this suggestion actually works. If not, it may be worth changing the form or position of the section. Seemingly it is a small thing, but it can significantly affect the time spent by the user on the website and, more importantly, the conversion.

Improving responsiveness
Responsive design is basically a “must have” of any website. It should be properly displayed on various devices and should be functional and easy to use, regardless of the size of the user’s screen. However, a website that is responsive in theory does not always offer the desired functionality in practice to mobile users. Making a heat map can be very helpful in evaluating the template and adapting it to the user’s needs. If it takes endless scrolling to get to the most important functions and information, some elements hide others, and buttons are not where they should be, the visitor will quickly lose patience and leave the page. These are unacceptable errors that can significantly affect the number of users on the website, as well as the conversion.

What is the bounce rate?

The bounce rate also known as bounce rate tells you what actions and behaviors Internet users take on a given page (www subpage). Bounce rate is primarily interested in what percentage of users leave the subpage without performing any action, e.g. switching to a product card, blog, to the next article. The bounce rate is calculated for both the entire site and its individual subpages. Users’ actions that are included in the bounce rate are:

– Closing the card / page / subpage as soon as you enter it,
– Clicking the back button, i.e. back to the previous page,
– Clicking on the outgoing link,
– Entering a new URL after leaving the page,
– No activity on the site for 30 minutes after turning it on.

Where to check the page bounce rate?

The bounce rate is calculated using the formula. Self-calculation is not the best of ideas, however. To get to know him, it’s best to enter Google Analytics. It will show the bounce rate in different shots, e.g. traffic sources, paid campaigns, country or Internet device type. In Google Analytics, you can check the bounce rate for the entire site, as well as the most popular landing pages.

What should the bounce rate be?

The amount of bounce rate spends sleep on both website owners and SEO specialists. One of the most common questions is when the rate is too high, how much should it be, and is the bounce rate a situation that requires intervention?

Certainly the high bounce rate is not interesting for the site. It shows that the website or subpage is not interesting, encouraging for Internet users, and most importantly, it does not find the content they were looking for. A high bounce rate is a signal that you need to look at the website and make changes to it. What bounce rate should alarm and encourage corrective action? You definitely need to work on a page if your bounce rate is 80-90% for all sites or key subpages.

So what should be the correct bounce rate? There is no universal answer here. A different result will be a success for each site. Help in determining whether it falls in the “range”: may be the results published by Google, and telling about the average value of bounce rate for individual industries.

However, it is worth remembering that the bounce rate cannot be minimized to zero (if the bounce rate is actually around 0%, it is worth checking if the Google Analytics installation is not incorrect). Even in the case of the best websites, it has a level of 30-40%. It should also be borne in mind that a worthless visit to the website is not always included in the bounce rate. When measuring bounce rate, you always need to consider when you left the site. If, for example, an Internet user left the page after reading the blog article, then, as a rule, it should not be included in the bounce rate, even if then he did not make any other move. It is a desirable and expected action. Therefore, bloggers, news and current affairs websites may have a high bounce rate, despite the content they are interested in.

Therefore, measuring the ratio should be approached with great care. The recommended solution is to set the time in Google Analytics after which BR will turn on after e.g. 30 seconds.

In summary, bounce rate is an important parameter, but it is not the only determinant of page value. Analyzing it, it is also worth looking at other parameters, e.g. dwell time and on the basis of complete data giving possible corrective actions.

How do you reduce the bounce rate?

To reduce your bounce rate, you can do a number of things. Before you start, however, you must do an analysis of your site. At the beginning it is worth to select subpages that actually have a high bounce rate and analyze why a low bounce rate is recorded. This can be due to various reasons for specific subpages, e.g. home page – too low frequency of adding new content; product card – non-intuitive purchase process, contact subpage – no further way forward.

Knowing what causes a high bounce rate, you can plan and implement specific actions to counteract it. There are many possibilities here and you must always adapt them to the individual situation of the site.

The 3 most important things that reduce bounce rates

If you want to fight a high bounce rate, first of all you have to bet on 3 things. They significantly affect whether the site is friendly and attractive to the recipient.

– The first is good content, i.e. content placed on your website or blog.
– Another is to respond to users needs.
– The last is navigation intuitiveness.

If the first two points pose a problem with high bounce rates, then you need to correct the content and ensure better content. If the third point is a problem, then your site’s technical facilities will need to “fix”.

11 ways to reduce bounce factor

A. Simple and intuitive navigation
An Internet friendly website is the one on which it will be able to navigate simply and easily. It is worth remembering that what seems to be creative navigation for the creator, for the user can be an impulse to quickly leave the site and without getting acquainted with its content. The main menu, site map (larger websites), search engine, navigation buttons, call to action and other navigation elements should be designed so that the user does not think about the next step, but performs it automatically and moves to the next subpages.

B. Service readability
Even the best content or good quality product cannot be defended if it is presented carelessly. Lack of readability means that most Internet users leave the site faster than they appeared on it. So if you want to reduce the bounce rate, you should make sure that the content on the page is readable (large blocks of text are thrown away) – divided by headers, bulleted, bolded, written in clear font. Multimedia (movies and photos) should support the message. Readability is not only content, but also visual hierarchy, so-called whitespace (free space), consistent colors, adequate contrast, the right amount of information and CTA, consistent message delivery, detailing the most important information, e.g. purchase conditions.

In terms of page readability, it’s best to follow the KISS principle and remember that if the readability of the page is bad, all the rest doesn’t matter. It is also worth remembering that readability is closely related to design. And it’s not just about making the site look nice. Designing on a website should focus mainly on emphasizing the most important content, data, information, graphics and products.

C. Fast website loading
Today, nobody likes to wait – Internet users open their websites even more. You can check the page loading speed using Page Speed Insights. You should strive to make the tag as fast as possible, especially for mobile devices. If the tool shows that the speed of the site is unsatisfactory, then you will need, among others image compression, reducing the number of scripts or using the browser cache.

D. Compliance of website content with promises
Do you promise the client that he will go to the site, where he will find his dream vacation in France, and when he enters the site, he gets a vacation in Bali? Most likely, this means that it will leave the website quickly and thus be included in the bounce rate. To avoid this, you should work on matching your landing pages to search engine and keyword search queries. It is also worth suggesting immediately alternative articles / products on similar subjects and give the user a chance to make the next move, not to leave the site immediately.

It is worth mentioning here that in the title and meta description of a subpage, content should not use phrases that are readily searched, but have little in common with the content on the subpage. Even if a customer enticed by finding out something that interests him, enters such a subpage, it is almost a 100% guarantee that he will leave it quickly.

E. A large amount of practical information
Very often the reason for leaving the website quickly, if it lacks the most important information for the user. To help him find them, it’s worth including
– create a FAQ subpage,
– make sure the product card contains current and most important product information; the use of generalities is not recommended;
– is the website lacking information on how to order a service / product, price list, directions.

F. CTA leading to subsequent events
The CTA buttons are intended to persuade the Internet user to perform further actions on the website and move to its next parts. They should be designed and arranged so as to create a clear and legible path, e.g. for product purchase, contact form, quote. Call to action on the site can appear in the form of buttons, banners or external links. It’s best to mark them with a different font color that will stand out from the rest of the texts. On a site without CTA, the user will have to look for subpages to which he must go in a given order. This lack of help may result in you leaving the site quickly.

G. Social evidence
One of the conditions for staying on the website by the Internet user is its credibility. If he finds that the site does not inspire trust, he will deny the content on it in advance and leave it quickly. To avoid a high bounce rate, it’s a good idea to social evidence. Thanks to this, users will be shown from a good side. References, opinions, reviews, customer photos are considered social evidence.

H. Lack of intrusive advertising and pop-ups
Pop-ups, video gadgets and consent messages can effectively discourage you from staying on the site for a long time. If at the very beginning the user is attacked by various messages and cannot reach the information he is looking for, he will quickly leave the page.

I. Responsive website
It would seem that today you do not need to talk or remind anyone about responsiveness. However, it turns out that still many sites are not adapted for mobile devices. Meanwhile, much of the traffic comes from them – on average 70%. The user who browses the pages on the phone will almost certainly leave those that display incorrectly.

J. Accompanying events
There are subpages that naturally don’t generate any further activity. These include, for example, a subpage with a blog article or contact tabs. The user, finishing reading the article or checking the phone number, closes the subpage and leaves the website. However, there are ways to extend his presence on the site and encourage these activities. How to do it? It is enough to attach accompanying events to a given subpage. Behind this concept is, e.g. subscribing to the newsletter, completing the form / survey, clicking on the phone number or reading the product cards.

K. Regularity of content
If you run a blog, regular delivery of new content will affect your bounce rate. Most readers follow social media entries and reach their destination from there. Permanently sharing and redirecting to one and the same article means that the reader will quickly leave the text he has already read. Providing up-to-date content is not just important on a blog. If, for example, the data from the 2000 landing page is given, the customer may be discouraged and look for fresh information.

Summary

Many bounce rates are awake at night. Taming him is often not as difficult as it seems. The ground is a good analysis of the reasons for high bounce rate. In some cases it may turn out that it is not a bad thing. However, when the bounce rate is high, it’s worth starting to act. And then verify if the actions bring results. This is best done using A / B testing. They consist of saving the bounce rate for a given page, then implementing change (one) and verifying whether the bounce rate has decreased.