Heat Map Definition
A Web page heat map is a graphical representation of visitor click and mouse movement data that shows the most frequently clicked -- or hottest -- parts of the page. A heat map can help Web publishers to visualize visitor clicks without the need to sift through tables of data. Webmasters use heat maps to help them tweak the design of pages so that key content or ads display in the hottest part of each page.
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Function
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After a publisher or webmaster has signed up for a visitor tracking and analytics service, such as Google Analytics, StatCounter or Click Density, he adds a small snippet of tracking code to each Web page that he wants to monitor. The analytics service monitors the activities of Web page visitors and records each click on navigational links and ads. Over time, the service builds up a picture of the most popular links on the page. Some analytics services display this data in chart or graph form or, in some cases, as a visual heat map.
Features
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The analytics service overlays an image of the monitored Web page with a graphical heat map so that the webmaster can easily identify the most frequently clicked items on the page. The heat map usually deploys a color key to show the hottest and most popular parts of the page. Most heat maps use a color scale from bright red to pale yellow, with red denoting the hottest areas of the page. Heat maps usually show unclicked parts of the page as white. However, some services overlay the page with labels containing the number or percentage of clicks on each part of the page.
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Benefits
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The visual heat map helps publishers and webmaster to improve content and make navigational links more relevant. The heat map also clearly shows which ad units on the page perform well and which elements perform less well. Moving an ad unit nearer to a hotter part of the page might improve the click-through rate, and so generate more advertising revenue. If a link to an important page is unpopular, the webmaster might decide to change the link text to encourage more visitors to click.
Considerations
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Although heat maps provide a useful at-a-glance view of the hottest parts of a Web page, most webmasters will need to dig a little deeper into visitor statistics to get a more detailed view of how visitors use and navigate the website. For example, a heat map clearly shows popular links on a page, but it doesn’t tell the webmaster if the content of the linked page is popular. For that information, the webmaster would need to go beyond the heat map and view the “bounce rate” and “length of visit” data for the linked page.
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