Hey everyone!

After attending the fantastic SEOmoz Conference this past week I stopped into their headquarters for a tour and while perusing their amazing facilities, I stopped and started talking to Joanna, their "Analytics Goddess", about using heat map analytics. If you are unfamiliar with Heat Map analytics, please check out CrazyEgg, I'll be talking about them in this post. 

What exactly is Heat Map analytics?

Basically, Heat Map analytics is where you place a special snippet of Javascript that not only tracks clicks on links but actually tracks mouse movement and mouse clicks that are NOT links and then displays the data in a "Heat Map" that looks like something Navy Seals use on covert operations (idk, sounded better in my head?).

For an example of what Heat Map analytics are like, please see this example: 

Obviously the brighter the color, the more clicks that area is getting. The beautiful thing about this is that it not only allows you to see in-depth how people are interacting with your website, but actually how you can improve your design and site layout/structure by seeing where people are NOT clicking and where they ARE clicking. 

I had a client at one point that finally agreed to let me install CrazyEgg on his website to do some usability testing and see where people were clicking and not clicking. After making changes based on that, his conversion rate went up 87% in one month. He was shocked that over 3,000 clicks a month were on an image on his site that was not a link! He was even more amazed that there were over 2,000 clicks a month on places where there was nothing - we used that data and then made targeted changes that helped contribute to the 87% conversion increase in the first 30 days.

The other beautiful thing about CrazyEgg is that you can sort the data in intelligent ways just like Google Analytics. You can see where people from various countries are clicking vs another country, language, browser, OS, etc... it's extremely beneficial to use this data in conjunction with Google Analytics to increase conversions, usability, and ultimately your business or brand.

Why You Need a Good Designer!

I hate to say it, but most websites I visit suck. They are hard to navigate, are ugly, and lack any sort of primitive usability testing. As Rand "The Man" Fishkin pointed out on the latest Whiteboard Friday, there is a direct correlation between good design and your chances of people linking to you. It does not stop there, there is also a direct correlation between conversion rates and sexy design that incorporates basic usability and layout testing. As Tim Ash said at the SEOmoz conference, do not make it hard for me to spend money! 

What you need to do is start using not only Google Analytics but try out Crazy Egg, see where people are clicking and not clicking, hire a good graphic designer to optimize the buttons that are not getting traffic and the ones that do and see where that goes. To take it a step further, hire someone to do some usability testing and redesign your website with SEXY design and a layout that passes basic usability testing. 

I guarantee that you'll receive more links, more conversions, and ultimately more visitors and revenue.

If you have questions or want a more advanced post on this topic, I would be happy to even setup a demo site and run through some good testing with the community as a community project. I'll even foot the bill for CrazyEgg =-)

Enjoy and please comment, I like to talk.