What Is a Heatmap and What Does It Show About My StoreUpdated 7 days ago

A heatmap is a visual overlay placed on a store page that aggregates the behavior of every visitor who viewed it — showing in a single image where visitors clicked, how far they scrolled and where their mouse moved while reading.

High-activity areas appear red or orange, lower activity appears yellow or green and minimal activity appears blue or grey.

What each type of heatmap reveals:

Click heatmaps — show every element visitors clicked and how many clicks each received. This reveals what visitors think is clickable (whether it is or not), which calls to action are being used and which important elements are entirely ignored.

Scroll heatmaps — show what percentage of visitors reached each vertical position on the page:

• If only 30 percent scroll far enough to see the add to cart button, the button needs to move higher
• If the social proof section is below where most visitors stop scrolling, most visitors never see it

Move heatmaps — show where visitors moved their cursor while reading. On desktop, cursor movement closely correlates with where the eye is focused — revealing which sections are being read and which are being skipped entirely.

I review heatmap data for every key page in the store as part of the audit.