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The truth is that there are many tools that will allow you to discover what a person wants or is looking for when they visit your website, but one of the most effective is undoubtedly the heatmap or heatmap.

 

What is a Heat Map or Heatmap?

It is a graph that shows data about an event through color variations that indicate more or less presence of something. In the case of the web, it provides information on which areas have had more or less interest from the user based on various behaviors.

The warm colors (reds, oranges and yellows) denote the interest of the users for what is located in that area. While cool ones (greens, blues, and turquoise), they communicate little to no desire for the element found in that area of ​​your website.

 

Types of Heat Maps for Websites

There are three types of heat maps that you can use on your site:

 

Click Maps

It is the most used of all, as it indicates the places where the user has clicked on the website. They are very useful for monetized online or web stores, since they allow you to observe the areas that are most likely to capture user action.

In this way, buttons and calls to action can be relocated in the most strategic places, to capture more leads or conversions.

 

Mouse Movement Maps

They describe the areas of the website where there is the greatest amount of mouse cursor activity. It is the one that can offer the least real information, since the movement of the cursor does not always indicate which areas the user paid the most attention to.

 

Scroll Maps

They detect the movement of ups and downs of the user, in such a way to identify if you have consumed all the information on the site or have reached a certain point. This way you could know if what needs to be improved is the content or how interesting it is to them.

Some providers of these services even allow the user's session to be recorded in order to know precisely what they did during the visit. However, the ideal is to have information that averages visits to make quick and accurate decisions.

 

Benefits of the Heat Map or Heatmap on a Website

By installing these types of tools on a website, it is possible to achieve multiple benefits, including:

 

Improve User Experience and Conversion

When a user behavior study is carried out and adjustments are made to a website, it is possible to get closer and closer to what the public or customer needs.

In this way, it is possible to significantly increase website leads as well as promote satisfaction.

 

Decrease Bounce Rate

It is better understood what the user needs or what the user likes, so the content and the web in general can be redesigned,based on this data, to gain more interaction and longer visits.

 

Disadvantages of Using Heat Maps or Heatmaps

These are tools that can provide a lot of information to fine-tune your website design. However, they also have important consequences that you should be aware of.

These types of tools require you to insert a script on your website, through which the data will be captured. However, its use can significantly slow down the website, therefore, the recommendation is that you make measurements to determine how much it can affect the speed and for a limited period of time.

But because it is an analytic that allows you to provide important data about the user, the benefits can be much more than the damages.

 

Heat Map Tools or Heatmaps for Websites

Yandex Metrica

 

 

It is not only a powerful option, but also free. Through its Link Map, the links are highlighted by color, in such a way that at a glance it is possible to determine the most and the least active.

In addition to the scroll and motion maps, it has other tools such as session recording and form analysis. It competes very well with premium options on the market.

 

Hotjar

 

 

This is the most popular option and used by well-known companies. With Hotjar it is possible not only to obtain heat maps, but to record user sessions and create surveys to poll the opinion of visitors.

It is very easy to use and the environment is very attractive, as well as friendly. However, it is a premium option that offers a free trial for only 15 days and whose plans are in the 99 and 389 dollars per month per website.

 

Crazzy Egg

 

 

It includes the very powerful heat maps, but adds a function called Confetti in which it shows the behavior of the users according to the various traffic sources. That is, it is possible to know how users who access the website act through social networks, through the search engine or directly.

It is the most popular alternative and has 5 plans ranging from $ 24 a month and up. It has a free 30-day trial and includes features such as capturing a moment to generate behavior reports, as well as the ability to create A / B tests.

 

How to Add the Heat Map to Your Web with Hotjar?

All the tools mentioned in this post have very similar steps, so it won't be difficult for you to run the other options if you follow these steps.

 

1.- Register

Enter the Hotjar website, www.hotjar.com, and register either with your email or you can use your Google account to apply fewer steps. If you choose to do it with your email, you need to add your username, email, password and accept the terms of use.

Then, it will ask you to enter your role in the organization or for the web, indicate if you will use the account to manage clients, company name and its size according to the number of employees.

Later, it will ask for the electronic address of the site you want to analyze, the type of website and indicate if you want additional information to reach you by email.

 

2.- Verify the Website

Once you enter the main panel of the platform, it shows the option to add the code manually or install it on your site in case you use Wordpress, Shopify or other types of platforms.

If you want to do it manually, you just have to copy the script found in the respective tab and add it in the Head section of your website.

To add it in the same way in Wordpress, you need to go to the Appearance - Theme Editor option, locate the header.php in the theme and paste the code in the same section.

But, if you choose to install, there is an official plugin for the platform, so it is only necessary to go to the Plugins option in the Wordpress menu and search for Hotjar. Once you locate it, click on the Install now option and then Activate.

Next, you must go to the Settings option in the Wordpress menu, choose Hotjar and it will ask you for an identifier or code. Now go back to the Hotjar platform and in the tab that says Install on your platform, you will get the code assigned to your website.

Insert that code in the Wordpress text box and save. Then, go back to Hotjar and click on Verify installation and the platform will indicate that the site has been verified.

In general, it is not complicated to implement. Now you have to wait a while for me to collect some data and provide you with special reports so that you can update your website and get the most out of it.

 

Conclusions

Heat maps are tools that allow user behavior to be analyzed when they visit your website, to generate new strategies that facilitate increasing conversions and satisfaction, as well as reducing the bounce rate.

The disadvantage of this tool is that it can slow down the website, however the opportunities to know more and better your client means improving the results of your business with the right decisions.

In the market there are many tools that make it easy to add heat maps or heatmaps to a website, the suggestion would be Yandex Metrica because it is free and powerful, as well as Hotjar and CrazyEgg because they are the most popular and robust.

To add these maps it is only necessary to register on the platform and perform the verification steps, in this way, in a short time you will begin to have important results on the behavior of visitors on your website.

Leave a comment if you have implemented any of these tools and if the results were what you expected. ;-)