2015 is right around the corner, and you know what that means. ‘Tis the season for resolutions and a chance to hit the refresh button. Regardless of whether or not you’ve been thinking of implementing any major changes (like a redesign to your homepage or website), the motivation brought by a new year offers you a great opportunity to kick your monetization efforts up a notch.
And here at the Long Tail Alliance, we have an idea for just the thing to help you breathe new life into your site in the new year! Heatmap technology.
What is a heatmap?
A heatmap helps businesses understand website usability by reporting on particular sections that attract a lot of scrolls, clicks, or other website interactions. The parts of your website that receive the most engagement (from a lingering mouse, frequent clicks, or visits) will show up as “hot” on your map, and the least visited areas on your site will, naturally, show up cooler.
Heatmaps can offer insight into the areas of your website that might make for better placement of your best content, your ads, and even give you an idea of why some aspect of your site had been underperforming in 2014. Ultimately, by analyzing heatmaps, you can increase your conversions and your revenue.
Adding Heatmap Technology to Your Site
I’ve touched on heatmaps in the past when we wrote about eye-tracking studies and how they affect the design of your site. And while those studies are definitely helpful, wouldn’t it be cool if you could get that kind of data specifically for your own site? You’re probably thinking, well, duh, Becca, but I don’t have a budget for eye-tracking research! Not in 2015… or ever.
Luckily, there are some heatmap apps and plug-ins available to you for little or no cost. While they aren’t sophisticated enough to track the eye movements of your visitors (and good thing because that would involve watching your visitors in the privacy of their homes… not cool), they can track a variety of data types, such as mouse flow interactions, clicks, searches, and more. Spin Sucks offers a great list of some of the most popular and affordable heatmap tools here.
So, what are you waiting for? New year, new you website! Give heatmap technology a shot and discover how you can improve the usability of your website in 2015.
F Reading Patterns image via Nielsen Norman Group
