andrew
I "stumbled upon" a neat little tool that every person who owns a web site or blog needs to use.
I really should not say everyone needs to use it — you only need to use it if you are curious to know what your visitors are doing, in a visual mode.
For example — in my overnight initial evaluation of ClickHeat, I discovered my little 125 x 125 banners — those down just a bit, over on the right, received very few clicks (didn’t receive any last night).
I know they do in fact get clicked on — my tracking software supports this fact, but for the few hours that I tested ClickHeat last night – nada — not a single click.
I could have just as easily checked my stats software, but using ClickHeat is faster and easier.
My text links?
Well, they did receive a couple clicks in this overnight test of ClickHeat.
Having a visual aid like this will really help — it is a great tool for giving you a quick glance on what your visitors are attracted to and find interesting — and what they don’t.
With me knowing this little bit of information — I can now focus in on and write articles — and provide resources and display ads that’s proven to be of interest to my visitors, by utilizing the data from ClickHeat.
If those little 125 x 125 banners do not begin to carry their weight – BAM!!, they are gone.
While I suspected they did not receive very much interest — ClickHeat confirmed it, with a quick glance.
Real estate on your site or blog is far to valuable to have something "non performing" on it. Ads are like employees — you do not perform, you get fired. Now I can blame ClickHeat for giving them the boot — and hire some more text link ads.
I did a quick little video below.
It looks a bit foggy — that is due to the fact that QuickHeat uses an overlay to show you where people have clicked.
Keep this in mind when watching — a bit blurry.
Here is a link to ClickHeat – oh yea, it is Free.
Hard to believe labsmedia released this at no charge – but I’m glad they did.
ClickHeat Heatmap Overview – The best video clips are here
|———–***———– Post Sponsor —————***—————————–|
In the spirit of this post (and data)… this Sponsor is doing a text link.
Set Your Traffic On Fire With Social Power Linking!
and use ClickHeat to see what they are doing when they get there!
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| 3.7 |
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Andrew,
Interesting tool. I’m gonna play around with this too.
Here’s a great resource that talks about ads and “junking up” your blog. Skellie at skellie.org and anywired.com has a PDF called “The Simple Web” I like her clean, simple site designs. It focuses the attention on the content.
Also, good point about Google. Adsense are text links, not banner ads. No doubt those MIT/Stanford propeller heads tested that one!
Walt
Walt Goshert’s last blog post..Best-Kept Marketing Secrets
This is a great one, Andrew. Thanks for the heads up especially about the free part.
Right now I’m using crazyegg.com which has a free version, but costs more pretty quickly. Has some really nice features though and is super easy to setup. Definitely worth a look.
Zack’s last blog post..What Makes a Video Viral?
Andrew
This is the first time I have seen that sort of software and thank you for putting the video there.
I would like to put it on my website too so would appreciate any help, if I get stuck.
Can you give us any updates on your thoughts, since you wrote the article?
AnneMarie last blogpost http://ez4u2gowebbusiness.com/Blog/how-to-use-internet-marketing-to-eliminate-your-debts-challenge/
AnneMarie’s last blog post..How To Use Internet Marketing To Eliminate Your Debts Challenge
This is a cool tool. Checking it out now. These used to be fairly costly, so it’s nice to see them coming out for free now!
Hey AnnMarie, A couple things I have noticed — having used it for a week now.
My "Featured Article" at the top — with the delay in it displaying throws off where people have actually clicked.
So it messes up my visual when checking to see where people have truly clicked.
Also… I would say heatmaps work better with "fixed" static pages.
For example — my blog layout changes every few days.
For example, the current "Featured" post may come down lets say 20 lines (before the "read more" link) — where the one before it came down 17 lines. This would skew my visual as it would appear for example if someone clicked on line 20, and I do a new post with 16 "intro" lines — they may have actually clicked 4 lines higher on the next post (just an example) — could be vice versa.
If I check the visual before posting a new article — I will get a better representation of where people clicked. But, I cannot do a weekly or monthly check because my visual is all skewed — which ironically gives me a better overview. Only a daily view.
The "featured article" delay also causes additional issues as some people will scroll down while it is loading — click on an article or link before it loads — again throwing off the map.
This would explain why there are clicks where there should be no clicks.
I still think it is a great tool — I just have a few things to work out on my blog. I may also look into CrazyEgg – http://crazyegg.com/ to see if it works better.
They have a free version where you can track 4 pages I believe.
Wow, thanks Andrew, a tool like this will be really useful on a website like mine. Right now i have a transparent gif that visitors must click on to receive my offer. And i always wondered if they were clicking the “click here” part or not.