About 88% of online shoppers won’t return to a website after a bad user experience (UX). In fact, 70% of online businesses fail because of bad usability.
People form 75% of their judgment about your credibility based on your site’s aesthetics, too.
What if you could gather to improve your website’s UX and keep people on your pages? With heatmaps, you can. Learning how to use a heatmap can help you make informed changes to your website.
How can using a heatmap help, exactly? Keep reading to find out!
In this guide, we’ll review the top seven ways you can learn how to use a heatmap. Then, you can improve your website and start generating more conversions. Read on to learn more!
1. Page Structure and Elements
About 74% of website users are likely to come back if you have good mobile UX. If your load times reach over a second, your bounce rate could increase by 123%, though. You need to consider every component of your pages.
Otherwise, the elements on your pages could cause load times to lag. A slow load time could impact the UX. People might leave, causing a higher bounce rate.
As your bounce rate increases, your search engine ranking could drop. A lower search engine ranking could make it more difficult for you to reach customers.
How are people interacting with your website? What pieces of content do they linger on? Are they skimming all the way down the page or stopping halfway through?
Are they clicking through your navigation? Are they using your forms?
Using a heatmap can help you learn more about consumer behaviors on your website. You can determine what page elements they’re ignoring and which they use.
You can also use a heatmap to determine where to place your content. Structuring your pages properly can improve readability. For example, most people browse text in an F-shaped pattern.
Since people favor the left side, it helps to put your call-to-action (CTA) on the left side of the page. Then, you could boost clicks and conversions.
If you’re not using heatmaps, you could struggle to understand visitor behaviors. You won’t know which elements they interact with and click on.
You might struggle to make informed changes to your website as a result.
2. Content Length and Structure
What is the ideal length for a blog post or web page? If it’s too long, people might not read the entire post. If it’s too short, their dwell time will drop.
Google considers your clickthrough rate and dwell time when determining your page rankings.
Optimizing your content for the right length could improve your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Longer pages could benefit your ranking. In fact, longer landing pages receive more conversions, too.
Longer isn’t always better, though. Instead, you need to consider the right content length for your audience.
With heatmaps, you can determine how long is too long. You can visualize the data to determine where on the page a visitor leaves. Then, you can pinpoint where you need to start trimming down your content.
Your customers are unique. Their behaviors likely differ from someone else’s ideal customer. It’s important to use a heatmap to avoid making assumptions about your audience.
3. Image Choices and Placement
Which images are helping you spark intrigue? What visuals are keeping people on your pages? Using a heatmap could help you make more informed image choices.
It can help you determine where to place your images, too.
Using heatmaps, you can validate the effectiveness of your visuals. For example, you can determine where people linger on a page. You might find they prefer videos and animations over images.
Maybe consumers prefer photos of people using your products over plain product photos.
You can use eye-tracking heatmaps to learn more about the visitor’s preferences.
4. Validate Color Schemes
Color psychology can help you trigger certain emotions with your website visitors. You can also use color contrasting to guide visitors down the page.
For example, you can use a unique, eye-catching color for your CTA button. Then, you can draw more people to complete conversions.
Your heatmap will tell you where people are clicking and lingering on your pages. You can make adjustments to draw more attention to your forms and buttons instead.
5. Link Placement and Engagement
Encouraging people to click on your links can boost your clickthrough rate. Remember, a higher clickthrough rate can benefit your search engine ranking.
When adding links to your website, you need to consider your page hierarchy. You can add links to your navigation bar, footer, or sidebars. These links can help people explore your page content.
It also helps Google understand your internal linking structure.
Where you add your links matter.
You can start using a heatmap to determine where people linger on the page. Then, you can better understand user flow to properly arrange your links.
Using links, you can guide consumers through the awareness and consideration stages of the buyer journey. Once they have enough information, you can lead them straight to taking action!
You can boost leads and conversions with proper link placement.
6. Cart Abandonment
How do people navigate between different areas on your website? Are they finding the products they want and need?
You can examine the user’s click patterns to determine why they’re abandoning their carts. Then, you can reduce cart abandonment and boost sales.
For example, you might notice the Checkout button is in a strange location. You can use A/B testing and your heatmaps to determine where to move it instead.
7. Conversion Optimization
Using a heatmap can help you determine where to place your forms and CTA buttons. Then, you can encourage more clicks and conversions.
Your ROI could improve as a result!
Get on the Map: 7 Ways to Use Heatmaps to Improve Your Website
Don’t lose a chance to boost conversions or your search engine ranking! Instead, discover these seven ways to use heatmaps. With these tips, you can optimize your website and create a stronger user experience.
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