What Is Heatmapping for Property Management Websites?

In marketing, there are so many metrics to keep track of:

• You look at your customer acquisition cost
• You investigate your monthly organic traffic
• You analyze your conversion ratio.

All of these things help you check the pulse of your marketing. When they raise flags, you can course-correct and make data-based changes to your strategy. 

Of course, there are so many more metrics you can track! Looking at your analytics—even in a system as user-friendly as HubSpot—can be overwhelming when your day job doesn't center around data analysis. Plus, some of us just aren't the best with numbers. HubSpot provides comprehensible graphs as well that you can track in your marketing dashboard to give users handy visual data to work with, but some users feel they need more.

We'll get to heatmapping in a little bit—but first, let's cover some of the metrics that heatmapping can help you with when combined with insights from HubSpot.

Pageviews

Pageviews are a very basic—but important—metric. Views let you know if:

• People are finding your pages
• If they are entering your website from the pages (which means your SEO is working)
• What topics your audience prefers.

If you have very high page views on your pricing page, you might consider adding a call to action or form to increase conversions on that high-value page.

Clicks

Clicks let you know:

• If your CTAs are working
• Which links your visitors are following
• What emails are successful.

If people aren't clicking, you know your content isn't effective; when they are clicking, you know what is working. Clicking to open an email is great! Clicking to open an email, then following the CTA before converting is the ideal pathway. In the end, all marketing is working for the clicks that get your prospective clients teed up for sales.

What Is Heatmapping?

Heatmapping software is a visual learner's dream come true.

1. This software starts by placing a tracking code on the pages you want to track.

2. From there, user traffic and behavior are measured by the heatmapping software.

This is what differentiates it from other tracking methods.

Heatmapping doesn't only show hard data such as views and clicks; it also displays the soft data, such as mouse movement and scrolling. Understanding how users navigate your site will allow you to place conversion opportunities in the users' path—making it easier for the user to convert by meeting them where they are.

What Can Heatmapping Track?

Clicks

Click heatmaps or click maps give you a visual representation of where people are clicking on your website. Why would you need this? Generally, one can track clicks on hyperlinks, CTA's, or navigation in programs such as HubSpot. That is tracking clicks that have something happen as a result. Click maps take you a step further and show you where your users are trying to click—even if there isn't a link or button there.

Logically, we can see why this is useful: it shows us where users are looking for more information. When you have evidence that your users are looking for more information on a section of your site, oblige them!

• Create relevant content
• Link it to those places your users are looking for it
• Include a way for them to convert.

When you combine all three, you've just increased your optimization for conversions.

Scrolling

Scroll maps can be very, very enlightening. A scroll map shows you what percentage of users make it to a point on a web page.

• Interested in how many people make it to the bottom of your home page? A scroll map will tell you.
• Want to know if your users made it down to a video you added or if they navigate away without ever seeing it? A scroll map is your tool.

Mouse Movement

Not everything works on clicks and scrolls: some content is made available by hovering a mouse over it, which is where movement maps become valuable.

• Are your users finding those scroll-over popups?
• Are they keeping their cursor on a certain part of the page a lot, indicating interest in that part of the page?

Using this data will help you optimize your content to be where the focus is.

Form Abandonment

Do you have a lot of conversion opportunities on your site—but few leads? It might be something about your forms turning users off. By measuring how many of your forms your visitors fill out before opting to leave, you can gauge which questions users are deeming not worth it to answer. Removing these questions—or working them in further down the funnel—can help you increase conversions.

Don't Get Left Out In the Cold!

Does heatmapping sound like something that you could benefit from? Geekly Media offers a range of search engine optimization options to help your property management website move up the results page—so you can grow your doors and your business.

That interest in your growth is what prompted us to launch our "Property Manager's Guide to SEO in 2020." If you wait until the new year to get ahead of your property management marketing, you're already behind. Download your copy today, and beat the competition tomorrow!