How To Find Hot Spots On Your Blog
July 1, 2007
With Crazy Egg you can learn where your users are actually looking on your page. You can do this in one of two ways: heatmaps or confetti.
The image to the left is an example of a heatmap. Those light-colored spots are where people have clicked on my blog. Brighter spots translate to more user activity.
What is this good for?
Glad you asked. It can tell you:
- The best place for your ads (and better placement means more money for you)
- How your content encourages your readers to click deeper
- Find out which layout simply works better
And even more informative is their confetti layout. This shows you the same activity on a page, but in the form of dots. When you click on each dot you get a high-level overview of the person who clicked on that spot. For example, you can learn what search term they used (if any), their operating system, their browser, window size, do they prefer boxers or briefs…(okay, just kidding about that one). 
Additionally, you can find out the top 15 referrers to your blog, all conveniently color coded to show who came from where and what they clicked on when they arrived at your blog.
Did I mention this was free?
Comments
38 Responses to “How To Find Hot Spots On Your Blog”
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I’ve been thinking of crazyegg for a while now. I think that the reason I haven’t signed up is that I already use Google Analytics and Reinvigorate along with the other tracking codes of various widgets. I’m wondering if it will have an effect on my loading times.
Of course, I admit that I’m a stat junkie
Me too. Haven’t heard of Reinvigorate. I agree that using these things sometimes comes at a cost of download speed. I’m not sure how Google Analytics compares to a heatmap though, but then again, I still need to get my head around GA, too.
I used to use Crazy Egg before I started using Google Analytics. Now I don’t use Crazy Egg anymore, but I suppose it would be useful, because I really did like their heat maps. Maybe I’ll start using them again, especially now that my site has actually grown a lot and moved to its own domain!
Hi Tay, I think there’s something to be said for actually seeing on the page where users click. Very valuable information. I still think Google Analytics gives one a wealth of information, but as far as I can tell, they don’t have anything that compares to a heatmap. But true, that’s only one part of the equation.
There was the “F” heat map theory on my blog. (Where people usually read in an “F” shape.) I guess this is more useful.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh yes, I’ve heard of the “F” heatmap. I believe that’s typical user behavior when reading a web page or even a printed page. Glad you found this to be useful.
*shrugs* I just thought that the picture of your blog with the heatmap looked cool. ha ha.
Personally, I haven’t tried any of these services for my site yet, but on that note, I don’t have any ads on it either.
Cool, yes, but my goal is to have even more spots and brighter ones at that.
I’ve been meaning to try out crazy egg for a while just for the heck of it. Thanks for the reminder
That sounds really cool! Thanks for the tip, as I had never heard about this and am really excited to try it out. I am a fanatic for new ways of fretting over my blog!
Hehe…”fretting”, that’s a good way of putting it.
I do that, too. So tell me, do you blog even when you’re not at a computer like I do? I’m always thinking, “what can I blog about next?”
I installed their javascript earlier today. I guess I’ll find out in a few days if my blog even has any hot spots
I am “blogging” no matter where I am now. Post-Its are one of my most important “tools” as I write little notes to myself at work and bring my little notes home.
I see lots of bright spots in your blog’s future.
I’ve been thinking about getting one of these for myself. It’s called the Picopad.
I second that notion.
Well shucks
Maybe once I hit PR5. Then I can go all A-lister and start charging everyone and their grandmother 10 bucks a month to remove no-follow
I love it! It is so sleek - I could plot my next move in miniature. But you know I will end up at the bar with my friends and I will be writing in my Picopad trying to figure out how to get more bright spots on my blog.
Exactly. But I guess there are exeptions if your ads are more catchy than your content.
I don’t use Crazy Egg a ton, but I’ve been using it off and on for about 8 months now. I use it the most when trying to figure out where exactly to place stuff on my site.
I don’t see any point in using any service like this. If you have some links like categories on the right hand side, then people will definitely click there.
And then you can claim that Gummy made you do it
Hi ReviewSaurus, well, with a thing like Crazy Egg it could confirm what you are trying to achieve. So if you are seeing the spots (and bright ones at that), then you know you’ve got something in the right area of you blog. But if you don’t, then that’s also informative.
Thanks for dropping by, and I hope to see you return.
Hi Kyle, good to see you here.
I’m hoping to learn where the best places are for my advertisements from this thing. I surmise that it is most useful when you make a change to discover the impact, otherwise, it’s business as usual. Thanks for stopping by!
@ Mark : I really think that its more in a design that can drive things pretty neatly. Hot spots work according to the design..that’s what I believe
thats a great thing you mentioned here..never heard of crazyegg before
Hi shashank! I’m glad you like it. It’s definitely something that I’ll be keeping an eye on. Hope to see you here again. Thanks for dropping by!
So far the heat map is showing that the majority of people click on the feed subscribe button, yet my reader count dropped last night…lol.
I don’t think I’ll ever get RSS feeds. Such a mystery
Hey! You have the comment editing thingy! Where’d ya get it?
hi Mark
why don’t you add a top commentator list in your sidebar….just a suggestion
it will help you built a community around your blog …i can’t do that becoz i am at blogger and i miss that thing very much.
Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool myself when I saw it on another blog. You can find it here.
I think RSS stands for “Really Simple See-saw”.
Mine goes up and down, too, but I don’t think it’s people subscribing and unsubscribing on a frequent basis (at least that’s what I tell myself before I go to bed at night). It’s just that the numbers can’t always be obtained in a reliable basis.
Maybe Brown can share his secrets on the issue (between you and me, I think he’s got that many feed readers setup to bump that number up
)
Hey there, I tried one or two plugins in the past and wasn’t totally thrilled with the way it worked. I’ll revisit that. Any suggestions on what works well?
Oh THAT blog. I’ll find it elsewhere…hehe
LOL
[…] How To Find Hotspots On Your Blog: Mark at Me And My DrumMark talks about a free web service that helps you track hotspots on your blog. I’m currently trying CrazyEgg on here but the number visits reported by FireStats and CrazyEgg doesn’t seem to add up. It’s still pretty cool visualization though. […]
I tested out Crazyegg many months ago but found it was giving me some issues with other java and flash widgets I had on my blog, such as Entrecard. It was slowing the blog load time as well… So unfortunately, crazy egg had to go..In theory it’s a great idea though and if it isn’t conflicting with other stuff on your blog, it’s well worth a try..
The Monetizers last blog post..17 Bookmarking Sites that Dofollow You
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I haven’t used it in a while due to other reasons, but I see where you’re coming from. It’s easy to get the code a little cluttered at times leaving you with the decision of what to cut and what stays.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!