Making use of heatmaps for your website

Heatmaps and your own site analytics can be valuable tools in helping you optimize your site for conversions and retention. Sometimes when you see a heatmap for the first time it only might tell you where users will concentrate on the site. All of these tools can and should highlight what you are doing right and the things that need to be improved. These things might not always seem obvious for example what if your heatmap on one page shows the whole page as having some mouse over compared with another page that is ‘hot’ on a specific link or button. Having definite calls to action can help lead your user to where they want to be lead.

Let’s have a look at a heatmap supplied by onlineflashcasinos.com that highlights some information about conversions and improving click through rates.

Online casino affiliate heatmap

Before looking at the heatmap and seeing this site I suggested that banners tend to distract rather than attract and will hurt conversions and click through rates. Banners can be a good means for increasing your bounce rate and this is really going to hurt all of your SEO efforts. Regardless of the SEO game for the traffic you are receiving you want to make sure you make the most out of each user and assist them to find what they are looking for.

Banner Blindness

The term banner blindness is getting tossed around the affiliate marketing world but banners still seem to dominate many affiliate sites and even mainstream marketing sites. Banner blindness is simply users blocking out banners. If you look at the heatmap there only set of banners exist at the top 468×60 and on the right hand side scrolling down the page are five 125×125 banners.

You can see most of the Rushmore banner has no mouse over and it’s one of the least clicked items on this page. Ironically enough the banner has a click here button that has received a few clicks and is the only reason this banner has got any attention at all. The five 125×125 banners are at least out of the way and on the right hand side of the main set of reviews. If they were placed in a more prominent position they would probably increase the site’s bounce rate and overall number of clicks. This heatmap does at least highlight which banners perform better and from the image Cherry Red was ‘hot’ while Bodog was ‘cold. Further below which isn’t dispalyed in the image but can be found on the website, the next best performing banner is the Club World Casino banner followed by the Online Vegas. Slots Oasis was hardly looked at.

Does this means that users don’t look at banners at all? Not completely but their conversion rates in the last 10 years has dropped to all time lows and were seeing an increase in conversions of links and buttons. For the banners that were used on this page some of them performed better than others and that is a whole other topic on how to produce a banner that converts better. Just try to think of banners as a TV commercial, some people change the channel when commercials go on, others go to the bathroom. Some even have things like TiVo to fast forward through commericals. You can even get add-ons to your browser to block banners!

Converting with Links and Logos

The hottest spot on the site was the center area just after the main paragraph starting with the Cherry Red logo and the red links in the short reviews. Logos I find are easier on the eyes for any user to look at. If it starts flashing and moving then it might distract. If you have 5 of these flashing moving objects then they will all just hurt each other and the user will probably scan another part of the website. Some of the highest number of clicks on this page come from the first three static logos and the red text links to the right. Users will gravitate towards these links and logos and will trust you to click on your suggestions. Your banner suggestions or TV commercials might get ignored.

Suggestions for improving conversions

A/B testing should be done to find out what will convert best for this site. There are many factors that will determine how well a site will convert such as the methods they found the website including the keywords searched for in a search engine. Suggestions for improving conversions, click through rates and reducing bounce rates are:

• Remove 468×60 banner at the top. If it is not removed replace with another until you find one that converts better. Also try putting some text below the banner like a casino review or a link to visit the website
• Add some links in the main paragraph area. Currently there are only some bold text but it doesn’t hurt to add in a few text links which might get some clicks
• Take all 5 banners and remove them to replace them with text and links. This could make a better spot for latest blog posts, casino news or simply a bigger list of casinos.

The suggestions can’t guarantee any results until they are tried and tested. It does help to have analytics data and heat maps to highlight what your users want to do or like doing. The heatmaps were helpful in identifying that more clicks came from logos and links over banners. The heatmaps also provided an insight into which banners had better conversions