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Use a Heat Map for Optimal Website Ad Exposure!
What's a Heat Map?
Through years of research in web marketing, patterns have been seen in the ways that people not only navigate the web, but web sites and even web pages. All of this data was compiled by marketing firms and used to create a heat map.Heat maps are charts that show us where most people look when they open a web site or page, by human instinct. The map displays regions colored yellow, orange and red - the darker the color, the more high-profile the spot is.
What it all means to you: simply look at a heap map before you design your next web site, plan to remodel your existing one, or are planning on remodeling your online advertising campaign, and make sure the ads are placed in the "hot spots!"
Example heat map
Above: The classic heat map, showing where you should (and shouldn't) place your banner and text ads. This heat map has been endorsed by the likes of Google, AdBrite.com, and other heavy hitters - so, you know it has a lot of merit behind it.
This is plain and simple: place your ads in the dark areas that are signified on a heat map! In doing so, your ads will be sitting in the most high-profile locations where human eyes gravitate.
This is precisely why most sites have placed banner ads at the top-center area through the years - it's still the most effective area.
The "Golden Triangle"
The Golden Triangle is an SEO industry term referring to the sweet spot on a search engine results page. If you'll notice, the upper left corner of the page gets the most visibility, as seen in a collaboration of heat map testing of a sample of internet users.
This map is not only helpful for natural search, but it also displays the visibility of paid ads. According to the heat map, the top/center region gets the most visibility, with the top right-column paid ad getting second string. Another valid AdWords strategy is to pay less per click by aiming for spots 3 and 4, which also are valid points on this heat map. This chart shows how eyes tend to pay little to no attention to ads below the 4th position (results may vary slightly, depending on the ads themselves).
Heat Maps as a Marketing Analysis Tool
- With a heat map, you can see which part of a link is being clicked more. For instance, if you have a link such as "cars for sale," you might notice that most people are clicking on the word "cars" within that hyperlink, instead of the "for sale" part of it. Look for these kinds of behaviors as a whole, and you can more effectively fine tune your site's navigation and enhance your linking strategy.
- You can reveal poorly performing areas of your site with a heat map. For instance, if many visitors are clicking an non-hyperlinked image, they're probably expecting something to happen. The action of "expecting something to happen" is much easier to see with a website heat map. Locate these spots, and hyperlink them accordingly to where visitors are most likely expecting them to point to!
- As previously mentioned on this page, look for "high click traffic" spots on your page, and consider putting an ad there for maximum results. Also, pay attention to highly trafficked areas on your menu. Is there anything you can do to make it better or less cluttered?
Heat Map Videos
Computer Vision based Eyetracking and Heatmap Generation of Websites - Google, Flickr, Photo Sharing
Runtime: 148
4157 views
2 Comments:
Where to get Heat Map tracking for your site!
- ClickHeat
- The free (but very basic) solution to getting a fully-functional heatmap up on your site.
- Crazy Egg
- This full Analytics package includes a heat map feature. Its monthly fee might not be for everyone, beginning at $9.
- Click Density
- Another web analytics package offering heat map technology to show where your visitors are looking and clicking to. Its pricing plans start at $5/month.
- Codynamix Cannoli
- This new entrant in the realm of heatmaps is built with Ruby on Rails and is open source. It's still in beta, but worth a look.
Heat Map: Reader Feedback
Thanks for visiting my heat map resource! Leave a comment below, if you'd like.
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- paulolyslager paulolyslager Aug 29, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
- I've always been a big fan of heatmaps as actual eye-tracking is too expensive :). I'm using a free wordpress plugin for now, big turndown is that it doesn't give you the ability to create summeries. I made a little list of free alternatives for Crazy Egg (which is really worth the 9$).
http://www.paulolyslager.com/about-paul-olyslager
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- Wholesaler1 Wholesaler1 Jun 13, 2009 @ 6:28 pm
- heat mapping is awesome and it works well
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- InchirieriMasini InchirieriMasini May 17, 2009 @ 3:34 am
- azur that website looks good indeed i also have one on /www.rent-cars.org>rent a car
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- azuredrake azuredrake Feb 2, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
- Hi,
I found you lens awesome... Full of good content... In fact, I liked it so much that I'm going to rate it 5 stars...
Btw, I'm kinda new here, do you mind looking at my first lens and telling me what do you think? Thanks
John
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- cwiddop cwiddop Dec 4, 2008 @ 12:03 am
- My mouse traveled right to your blurb area. What does that tell you? LOL
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