Heat maps (Crazy Egg)

Showing you concentrated mouse activity on your webpage, this is extremely helpful in giving you a visual overview of where users are clicking. Every time you redesign your site you should run a one-month heat map to see the results. This is particularly helpful when selling advertising space or trying to find problem areas with your website. Plans start @ $9 monthly and I only suggest taking a 30 day picture each time you change a design.

 

Confetti maps (Crazy Egg)

Similar to the heat map, the confetti view offers a deeper picture into click patterns. The main difference here is that each piece of confetti is colored to match a referring URL in the accompanying legend. What’s cool about this is that you can see different patterns coming from different URLs. Plans start @ $9 monthly including the above heat map and I only suggest taking a 30 day picture each time you change a design.

 

Google analytics (Google)

Most people already know about Google analytics and probably already use it. Needless to say it’s free and it gives you an amazing overview of your traffic patterns. Some of my favorite stats include the time spent on your site, bounce rate (the percentage of people who leave your site quickly), unique visitors and of course referring URLs.

 

Google Webmaster tools (Google)

Many people I speak to do not use this free tool. I like it because it gives me a picture of my ranking and my links as Google sees it. More importantly it allows me to see any broken links or issues that Google has finding my website. Following the simple instructions on this website will definitely help you to reduce the friction between your site and Google. The statistics it provides will also give you some very good insight into how your site fares within Google.

  • Do the heat maps give any overhead to the site for my users? That's the only thing I'm worried about. Anyone know?
  • kaconk96
    Thank's for your sharing, it's very helpful for me
  • Brad:

    Thanks for the tools from Crazy Egg. The price is not bad to do testing to see what people are clicking on when they come to your site.

    Question for you about the heat map and confetti map. How long have you been using these tools and have you found they pretty much stay the same or have you done some testing and the maps change?

    - Rick
  • Rick

    I have found that unless you change the design patterns remain pretty much the same. I usually only sign up one month at a time and then cancel.

    At the end of the day the heat map gives you the same stats as Google analytics but they are much prettier :-)
  • Brad,

    Looking at the heat maps you might want to consider placing an "opt in" form on your "about me" post or at least make an offer. I'm going to consider doing the same thing. Thanks for sharing.
  • Bill

    I thought about that myself but at the same time the question has to be asked. Just because all my users go to that page does it mean I need to place an offer there?

    I have no shortage of links on my website and in my sidebar that go to various opt ins to my mailing list. I never want to overdo my blog with sales pitches and opt ins.

    Having said that I do need to update my about me page because some of the information is no longer current.
  • angelawills
    Ohh I love crazy egg. I haven't run any campaigns on there to test out my site in a long time now. Going to have to start one up again. I've used google webmaster tools but again not for a long time. Thanks for the reminders!
  • I am starting to implement the heat map tests on all new site launches in the first 30 days. It allows me to get an overview while I am testing traffic sources.
  • leighsherman
    Awesome Brad. Thanks so much for these ideas, I knew about Google tools, but the confetti and heat maps where tools I had no idea about. Thank you!
  • Glad I could help. Something new I'm investigating is eye tracking. It's fairly expensive that I'm thinking of having a test done just for a good blog post.
  • When I first saw all of these tools it changed the way I thought about the internet and making money online. The more information you have on your own site the more you can tailor it for your audience!

    Nice resource!
blog comments powered by Disqus