How to Create a Heatmap Online in 6 Easy Steps

Imagine being able to get in the mind of your website users.

You get to see and understand their paths of thinking, their moves and points of interest.

Impossible? Well, not if you have heat maps.

Heat maps are a powerful tool, but only if you know how to create them.

So join us for today’s read as we tell you the secret behind this great technology.

What’s a heat map?

A heat map is a graphical representation of data points where values are depicted using a color scale or color scheme to show intensity. It visualizes patterns, correlations, or concentrations in a data set, with warmer colors indicating higher values and cooler colors representing lower values.

Examples of heat maps:

• Click heat map
• Scroll heat map
• Attention heat map
• Confetti heat map
• Move heat map
• Form analytics heat map
• Link Click heat map
• Conversion funnel heat map
• Geographic heat map
• Device-specific heat map

What can heat maps tell you?

In the context of website and user analytics, a heat map can tell you several valuable insights about user behavior and interactions with your website.

Some of the key information that a versatile tool with a heat map creator feature can tell you includes:

Click patterns

Heat maps can show the most frequently clicked areas on your website. It can indicate which elements, links, or buttons are getting the most attention from your users.

Example:

The heat map shows that users frequently click on the product images but ignore the “Read More” links. To improve engagement, you can make the product descriptions more accessible without requiring an additional click.

Scroll behavior

Thanks to displaying where users scroll and how far down the page they go, heat maps can reveal which parts of your content are most engaging and which may be overlooked.

Example:

Users tend to scroll only halfway down the homepage, missing important information below. Using a sticky navigation menu can keep critical details accessible as users scroll, improving content discoverability.

User interest

Heat maps can help you identify trends when it comes to specific content or products that are attracting the most interest from users. This lets you optimize your website’s layout and content accordingly.

Example:

Product A consistently attracts more clicks and hovers than Product B. With this data, you can focus on promoting Product A more prominently or assess potential reasons for lower interest in Product B.

Conversion points

Heat maps often are able to highlight areas where users are more likely to take action, such as filling out forms, signing up, or making purchases, providing amazing potential sales data for improving conversion rates.

Example:

The “Buy Now” button in the checkout page stands out in the heat map, indicating it effectively leads to conversions. You can experiment with its placement, color, or text to further encourage users to make purchases.

User frustrations

Heat maps can identify elements that receive many clicks or hover actions, indicating confusion or frustration, which can be used to enhance user experience and reduce bounce rates.

Example:

Many users hover over a navigation menu item expecting it to be clickable, but it’s not. To address this frustration, consider adding submenus or transforming relevant menu items into links.

Mobile responsiveness

Heat maps can display how users interact with your website on different devices, highlighting any potential issues related to mobile responsiveness.

Example:

Users frequently tap on an image that doesn’t enlarge or provide additional information on mobile devices. Implement a responsive design that enables users to view enlarged images or product details with a simple tap.

How to create heatmap online in 6 steps?

To access all these data types, and more, you need to start creating heat maps.

Here’s how to tackle this mission:

Choose a heat map solution

Select a reliable heat map solution, e.g. LiveSession. Such tools provide user-friendly interfaces and powerful analytics to help you understand user interactions on your website. Say goodbye to an excel spreadsheet and hello to a tool that will do the work for you.

Practical tips:

• Research and compare different heat map tools to find the one that best suits your needs and budget.
• Consider factors like ease of use, data visualization capabilities, and customer support.
• Take advantage of free trials or demos to test the heat map solutions before making a final decision.

Sign up and install the tracking code

Sign up for the chosen heat map solution and follow their instructions to install the tracking code on your website. This code will collect data about user interactions and generate heat maps based on their behavior.

Practical tips:

• Register for an account with the chosen heat map solution provider.
• Follow the step-by-step instructions or guides provided by the solution to install the tracking code on your website.
• Verify that the code is correctly implemented to ensure accurate data collection.

Configure heat map settings

Customize the heat map settings to match your specific requirements. You can choose to track clicks, mouse movements, scroll depth, and more. Adjust the heat map’s time range and resolution to focus on specific periods or pages.

Practical tips:

• Define your heat map objectives and decide which user interactions you want to track (e.g., clicks, scrolls, form submissions).
• Customize the heat map time range and resolution to focus on specific time periods or pages.
• Filter out internal traffic or specific user segments that you don’t want to include in the heat map analysis.

Generate and analyze heat maps

After the tracking code has been running on your website for some time, generate heat maps to visualize user behavior. Explore different types of heat maps, such as click heat maps or scroll heat maps. These visual representations will help you identify popular elements, areas of interest, and user engagement patterns.

Practical tips:

• Allow the tracking code to collect data for a sufficient period (e.g., a week or a month) to gather meaningful insights.
• Generate different types of heat maps based on your configured settings (e.g., click heat maps, scroll heat maps, attention heat maps).
• Analyze the heat maps to identify trends, patterns, and areas of interest or concern.

Analyze and optimize website

With the insights gained from the heat maps, analyze user behavior trends and identify areas that require improvement. Optimize your website based on these findings to enhance user experience, increase conversions, and achieve your business goals.

Practical tips:

• Review the heat map data and combine it with other analytics to gain a comprehensive understanding of user behavior.
• Identify elements that receive the most interactions and determine if they align with your website’s objectives.
• Pinpoint areas with low engagement or high drop-off rates and investigate potential reasons for these behaviors.

Using a heat map solution like LiveSession in these steps will provide you with a comprehensive and user-friendly platform to create, analyze, and optimize heat maps effectively.

Implement improvements

The very last step of the process is to actually implement your improvements and enhancements. For that, you’ll need a solid plan so that everything is well thought-out in advance.

Practical tips:

• Based on heat map insights, create an optimization plan to enhance user experience and achieve your website’s goals.
• Make data-driven changes to design, layout, content, and calls-to-action to better align with user preferences.
• Continuously monitor the impact of these changes by generating new heat maps and analyzing their performance.

Best heat map generator for data visualization - LiveSession

LiveSession is a powerful tool that provides product teams with powerful tools to analyze user behavior, improve user experience, identify bugs, and increase conversion rates.

Its key features include:

• Click and heat maps: we have a dynamic heat map generator with click maps, scroll maps, and confetti heat map reports that visually represent user interactions with different colors, making it easy to identify the most engaged areas of a webpage and areas that require improvement.
• Combined analytics: our solution lets users combine data from various tools, providing a holistic view of user behavior. This integration ensures that conclusions are based on facts, not assumptions or guesses.
• Session replays: we offer advanced filtering options that help users focus on crucial recordings, all so that they can watch how visitors interact with their website in real-time. This feature provides invaluable insights into user behavior.

Our heatmap software is ideal for:

• sales teams,
• marketing departments,
• product managers,
• UI & UX designers,
• website developers,

and more.

Try it out today for a comprehensive solution that will save your time and money, as well as equip you with the best insights to build unforgettable websites and user experiences.

Wrap up

Equipped with great bits of information, you’re ready to enter the world of heat maps.

Remember that, for the biggest part, the software you end up choosing for creating these maps is the most crucial aspect of the whole process.

Without it, your heat maps could be buggy, incomplete, or give you completely inaccurate data.

This is why we suggest that you give LiveSession a try for the best heat map experience ever.

Try it out for free - you won’t be disappointed.

Other than that, good luck with your heat maps!