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How to Review Website Performance Using Hotjar (for Free!)

Monday 9 March 2020

6 minute read

By Sarah Burns

HotJar is a great tool that allows businesses of all sizes to gather data about their website visitors’ activity and behaviour.   

If you haven’t seen the results that can be discovered in HotJar, it can be a bit spooky, as you replay a user’s motions on your site, watching as their cursor hovers over certain CTAs before deciding it’s not good enough to click and scrolling further down your page.

Spooky, but insightful, that is. 

Hotjar aims to provide real-life feedback about how people are using your website, what they like, what they don’t like, what works, what doesn’t work, what makes people lose interest, what people are most interested to know more about…

And all of that data is perfect for so many people behind the scenes at an organisation (of any size, in any industry), not least company directors, marketers, designers, developers, customer service advisors, support techs… the list goes on, we’re sure!

What is HotJar?

It is a behaviour analytics and user feedback service that empowers you with enough data to understand the behaviour of your website users, and also get their feedback, if you wish, through tools including heatmaps, session recordings and surveys. 

Hotjar works great alongside the insights provided within HubSpot, as well as Google Analytics. It’s an easy-to-use service that includes a free option (with limitations) so it means any business can make use of its data and insights!

Why use HotJar?

As if we haven’t already sold you on it already, there are three obvious benefits to utilising HotJar, especially if you’re looking for data and analytics to improve your messaging, website and overall online presence… 

  1. Clear, visually-displayed insights about what is happening when visitors land on - and navigate around- your site
  2. Can offer some context about better and worse performing pages and content on your site
  3. Easy to get buy-in and quick insights, without having to pay or go on a real learning curve (like you can with Google Analytics!)

How do I use the HotJar most effectively?

HotJar is only as powerful as how you choose to use - and utilise - its findings (or not).

When it comes to testing HotJar on your site, there are so many quick wins and long-term gains to be had, but this can only be done by properly reviewing and acting upon the feedback and insights you get. 

  • Some examples of utilising HotJar’s insights include: 
  • Improve, repurpose or expand upon content that is popular
  • Remove or amend content that is ignored
  • Restyle and/or reword low-performing CTAs and on-page links
  • Use survey feedback to create FAQs - or simply act upon the feedback!
  • Offers validation for your ideas if you need sign-off from higher-ups
  • Redesign your site navigation if people seem to be unsure how to navigate as you’d expect
  • Amend the flow of particular pages if people aren’t making it all the way down, or are clicking off your site mid-way
  • Run a series of A/B tests for various site elements (forms, pages, images, CTAs, content, links, etc.)
  • Improve user experience different screen resolutions 
  • Review the ‘above-the-fold’ experience

...that’s just a sample of the things you can do using HotJar’s insights - so what are you waiting for? Start now.

If you're looking to embark on a website build project, whether it's completely from scratch or a site refresh, our ebook will give you the knowledge to make your project as stress-free as possible.

The Website Design Handbook for Businesses

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