So you have a website and traffic is up. Great, right?

This is great if you are only interested in numbers but if you want to really get down and dirty you need more information. We do live in the information age, right? When you run a website one of the most important pieces of information you can have is knowing how your readers use your site. This includes many different variables:

• What readers click.
• How long readers stay.
• What areas of your site are popular.
• What readers aren’t clicking on.
• What readers are clicking that they shouldn’t be. (ie. text that looks like a link but isn’t)

How can you get this information? I supposed you could ask the all of your readers, but honestly, how feasible is that?

You need the power of software. Specifically, software that provides the following: Heatmaps, Clickmaps, and Hovermaps.

Are you now wondering, “What the hell are these various maps you are talking about jemmille?” Here is an explanation:

Heatmaps - A visual representation of mouse activity on your page. Have you ever seen and infrared photograph? Areas with more activity show up in increasing darker shades of red while less popular areas show up in shades of blue. Click here to see the heatmap of my header from yesterday.

Clickmaps - Much like a Heatmap, without the color designations. It shows where readers clicked.

Hovermaps - A Hovermap highlights/outlines all of the active links on your page. The color of the outline gets darker the more popular it is.

I have been testing two different web-based applications that do everything listed above and much more. The data I have collected is invaluable. I have been able to adjust my sites content to best serve you, the reader. Another huge benefit is the ability to see which advertisements are performing. If a particular ad is not performing I can switch it out. If a particular ad is getting lots of attention, I can move it up the page to make it more visible.

By now you probably want to know where you can get access to software that does everything described above.

I’ll start by letting you know that this information is not free, though it is very affordable. The cost of the software will pay for itself in a short amount of time, that is, if you have advertising or some other source of revenue on your site.

The first company is ClickDensity. The image of the Heatmap linked above is from their software. Once you sign up, you put some code on your page, and your set. They do offer a 30-day trial of the software. It is limited to only one domain and 5,000 clicks. It’s plenty of information to let you get the feel of what the software can do for you.

The second company is ClickTale. ClickTale’s software is currently in a closed beta. The software offers some cool features like the ability to record each users session visually. You can watch the mouse move around and see exactly, click-for-click and move-for-move, what a user is doing.

For more information on either software, visit their home pages. If you have any questions about my experience with the software, feel free to leave a question on the Ask-Me page.

Filed under: Cool Sites, Internet, Tech