What is a heat map?
A heat map, also spelled ‘heatmap’, is a means of graphically depicting complex data using colours that increase or decrease in warmth based on the values they are representing. Cooler hues depict lower values while warmer hues depict higher ones.
If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What can I use a heat map for?
You can use a heat map to track user behaviour on your website or app. It will help you find out things such as:
- Which parts of your web pages or app screens your users spend the most time on
- How your users navigate your web pages or app screens
- Where most of your users tend to drop off
- Where most of your users come from
Question #2: What are the different types of heat maps?
When it comes to tracking user behaviour on your website or app, there are three different types of heat maps you can use:
- Click
- Movement
- Attention
Let us go over each one in more detail:
Click heat maps, as the name suggests, track where your users click (or tap) the most on your website or app.
Movement heat maps, on the other hand, track the movement of their mouse pointer.
Finally, attention heat maps track which parts of your website or app your users find the most engaging and which parts they tend to ignore or avoid.
Question #3: What are the benefits of using a heat map?
The biggest benefit of using a heat map is that it would provide you with valuable insights about your users that you can use to significantly improve the performance of your website or app. It will allow you to do things such as:
- Move your calls to action or most important content to the areas of your website or app that your users spend the most time on
- Tweak your content to improve engagement
- Tweak your layout to improve the overall user experience
- Tweak the user journey so users can get to the content they want faster
Let us go over each one in more detail:
First, since heat maps tell you exactly where your users spend the most time on on your website or app, you know exactly where to move your calls to action and most important content to significantly increase their visibility, which, in turn, may help boost your engagement and conversion rates.
Second, since heat maps tell you which sections of your website or app gets the least engagement from your users, you know exactly what parts of your content you need to work on improving—or consider removing if they turn out to be irrelevant to your users.
Third, since heat maps tell you where most of your users start to drop off on your website or app—which is typically depicted by an abrupt colour change from warm to cool—you get an idea of how to better structure your content so you can keep your users engaged throughout.
Finally, since heat maps also tell you where your users click (or tap) the most, you can find out exactly what content and features they engage with the most and make them more accessible.
Question #4: Is a heat map all I need to boost my website’s or app’s performance?
No, a heat map is just one of the tools you need to boost your website’s or app’s performance. At the end of the day, it only covers a single aspect of your users: how they behave. If you want to truly improve your website or app, you will need to get to know your users on a deeper, more comprehensive level, which is what tools such as Google Analytics are for.