Analytics Expert Blog

We’ve had an incredible amount of heatmaps sent to us over the last two weeks, and the quality of the entries this year has been exceptional. With such a wide range to choose from, it was really hard to pick the winners, but after much deliberation we were able to choose our favourites.

We’ve asked a few of our conversion analysts, who usually work with our enterprise clients, to give us their opinions. You can see their comments below, showing how the layout and design of these sites can be further improved to boost conversion rates.

Click on the images below to see the full heatmaps:

First Prize – Michael Kjeldsen, Bartendermagasinet.dk

“I’ve managed to raise conversions on my site by nearly 300%. Which is gooooood ”

Our experts say: The actionable information we can glean from this heatmap is amazing! We can clearly see the hottest area is the list of ingredients, which is very important to the readers. Placing an ad or Call to Action button in the empty space to the right of this area could greatly increase its click-through rate.

The right hand sidebar gets little or no attention, especially the adverts on the far right. Instead of having two right sidebars we would recommend splitting these into a left and right sidebar to bring the content closer to the action. Also, we can see that most people skip to the end of the embedded video, which tells us it needs to be shorter in order to be effective.

Second prize – Phillip Lakin, Edulocator.com

“We were able to increase our conversion rates, and lowered our bounce rate by over 20%!”

Our experts say: We can see that people pay attention to the bottom half of the page with the big red Call to Action buttons, and ignore the information at the top. As this page appears after the conversion takes place, the “Here’s your info” button, which gets a lot of hovers, could be used to cross promote another product or site instead, bringing in some additional revenue from converted customers.

Also, the phone number in the top right corner gets almost no hovers, while the smaller one in the lower middle gets a lot of hovers. This tells us that people only focus on the lower halfof this page, and we would recommend moving any important content further down to increase its noticeability.

Third prize – Nadia Kerr, DigiGifts.com.au

“ClickTale has provided us with valuable information on how visitors interact with our website design, layout and functionality”

Our experts say: The first thing we can clearly see here is that no-one goes below the fold. This is because there is no content or images that cross over the fold-line, so customers have no reason to think there is content below.

Additionally, the left hand navigation is much more important to people than the large graphic on the top. Based on this information, we believe that the page layout should be changed to increase the menu size and decrease the image size, in order to improve site usability and conversion rates.

Runner up – Andrew Lahser, LasherPatents.com

“Being able to almost-look-over-the-shoulder of my visitors is invaluable. I have tripled or quadrupled the time that new visitors spend at my site.”

Our experts say: We can clearly see here what content is most carefully read, which tells us what content draws visitors’ attention and what to focus on in future copywriting.

Runner up – NoirVogue.com

“It’s been an invaluable tool for me, and has given me a much clearer indication what my clients want and expect from me”

Our experts say: From the hotspot in the top right corner, we can see that more people actually want to see information and contact details about the photographer than want to see the pictures! That’s why they’re moving their mouse to the top right corner instead of over the images, where they expect to find actionable information. This site desperately needs clearer Call to Action buttons to increase its conversion rates.

Runner up – David Ricupero, ParamountCareGroup.com

“The results? Leads and happy customers increased. A complete success!”

Our experts say: It is obvious that people care about the information delivered in this page, as most of the attention is focused within the text. Here we can clearly see examples of visitors using their mouse as a pointer while they read through the content!

The Call to Action buttons on the right sidebar also get some healthy exposure, but no one pays attention to the left sidebar image. Shrinking this sidebar or adding some relevant content would greatly improve site usability.

Runner up – Robbin Steif, Lunametrics.com

“The hot red spots you can see are the new page elements that we added, and which will feature much more prominently in our new design. We strongly encourage many of our customers to use your product”

Our experts say: This heatmap is fairly evenly distributed, implying a healthy page layout. From the link analytics we can see that over 12% of visitors are interested in the “Google Analytics Authorized consultants” button (6.2%) and text link (6.2%), which may mean customers first want to be assured of credibility, and then want to know about the service.

Runner up – Tyson stokes, FamilySearch.org

“The results far exceed what you could hope for from a customer experience analytics tool.”

Our experts say: Although the clicks within the fields themselves imply that this form is easy to use, the lower click count seen in the “Year Range” box can be improved by using a dropdown or calendar box.

That’s it for 2009!

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to send us their heatmaps, and want to say a massive thank you to everyone who took part. We’d love to hear what you think about this year’s competition winners, feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Happy holidays, see you in 2010,
The ClickTale Team