Thalasar Ventures

One of the most important parts of running your website is making sure that its bringing in visitors and captivating them during their stay. But with uncountable websites on the internet, this can be a difficult task. To compete in the online market, web designers need to adopt new ways to study the habits of visitors. One of the most interesting ways to gather information about a website’s performance is through eye-tracking studies.

Eye-tracking studies are useful tools which will greatly benefit your approach to PA web design. In short, these studies document how a user views your website, telling you what aspects of the site attracts the most attention, and for how long the attention is being held. There are many different forms of eye-tracking studies, the best of which are Google’s In-Page Analytics, and Heat Map Analytics. Here’s a rundown on these eye-tracking approaches:

Google’s In-Page Analytics

If you take an interest in the productivity of your website, chances are you are already acquainted with Google Analytics. But there is a lot going on in Analytics, and not everyone knows how to make the most of the resource. The In-Page Analytics function, which is found in the “Content” section, offers a unique view of a visitor’s time on your website. In-Page Analytics employs the concept of eye tracking by telling you which links are clicked on a given page, and how often they are being clicked.

To start, the In-Page Analytics screen will show you your website’s homepage, highlighting which links have been clicked the most. It also tells you the percentage of clicks each link has received. The “Home” link, for example, will generally have a high percentage while other links may only have 0.2 percent of clicks. This insight allows you to compare the links which perform well to those which are largely overlooked.

Heat Map Insights

Heat Maps Insights are an equally valuable version of eye-tracking studies as they focus not only on where the mouse clicks but also on the very movement of the mouse. Heat Mapping is a unique (and kind of fun) way to view your website’s performance since it literally changes how you see your website. Aesthetically, it is as if you are viewing your webpage through night vision goggles: The parts of the page which most attract visitor attention are brightly colored (reds, yellows, oranges) while the parts of the page which are largely ignored by visitors are darkly colored (blacks, blues).

What Heat Mapping also demonstrates for you is something which has come to be known as the Golden Triangle. The Golden Triangle asserts that the average website visitor adopts a typical pattern when looking at and clicking on a webpage: they first look at the top left-hand corner of the page, then move their gaze to the right-hand corner. From there, the viewer looks down the page, eventually moving back to the top left-hand corner. All together, these movements form a triangle. This idea is supported by Heat Map studies as most heat maps show a pattern of movement similar to that of the golden triangle.

At this point you may be wondering: What is most valuable to my online marketing strategies, Google’s In-Page Analytics or Heat Map Insights? Why not both? Each form of insight offers a unique approach to the same question: What are the most popular parts of my website? Combine the information you’ve gathered from In-Page Insights and Heat Map studies to devise a graduated approach to your PA web design. Using both of these tools will help you decide what links perform well, what content is often clicked, and what areas of your webpage are viewed the most. Use these findings to enhance the performance of lesser clicked links and blog posts!

Introduction to Web Analytics 40 Minutes Synopsis: This class introduces you to the concepts behind web analytics. Web analytics are the reports that are generated about how visitors use…
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