I’ve been doing optimization for a LONG time and sometimes I forget that things that are apparent to me aren’t as clear to other people who are just getting started (okay that is a total back door brag, but bear with me).
Today I want to talk about heatmaps…
…and how the heck to use them to improve conversion rates on your site.
In general, we’re drowning in data. I’ve been a critic of ‘big data’ because it isn’t that we need more (or bigger) data we need THE RIGHT DATA.
So when I started using heatmaps and other customer behavior analytics tools to supplement my web analytics data, I was certainly adding more to my list of data points to dig through.
However…
This data became so useful that heatmaps and other customer behavior analytics tools have become a foundation of my optimization efforts.
Whenever you’re looking at customer behavior data you’re getting a new perspective: your customer’s perspective.
We generally build products, websites, landing pages, email campaigns, and HECK most of our company in a vacuum.
As an entrepreneur and trailblazer, this isn’t a bad thing. You had an idea and you’re running with it. However, you shouldn’t be doing you analysis in a vacuum too!
Get an outside perspective…but not your friend’s or your mom’s. Get your customer’s opinion through their actions.
At this point you might be wondering (as many of you do) how to turn those pretty colors on your page into actionable insights! Well, I wanted to show you how I take the information shown in a heatmap and turn it into an optimization point or testable hypothesis.
Check out this 8-minute video to watch me review the customer behavior on one of DigitalMarketer’s event pages using heatmaps, scrollmaps, and a time to click report.
In this video I’ll cover:
- How to read the different types of heatmaps.
- The importance of contextualizing your visitor to make sense of their behavior.
- Whether something is an optimization change or testable optimization point
- The importance of the ‘what success looks like’ metrics.
If you have a page you want me to critique just like this one be sure to tell me in the comments!