What a heatmap shows that standard reports do not
Standard analytics tells you how many people arrived and how many left a request. The gap between those two numbers is where money disappears. A visitor may never have noticed your button, never reached the form, or kept tapping a photo that does not open. A heatmap fills the gap with colour: the hotter the area, the more interaction it received.
This matters most when you pay for traffic from Instagram, Telegram or Google. The ad click has already been bought, and the map shows where on the page that visit gets wasted.
Types of maps in Yandex Metrica
Metrica offers several reports, each answering a different question. They work only when Webvisor and its related options are enabled in the counter settings, and data is collected from the moment of activation, so you cannot build a map for a past period.
- Click map: every click on the page, including clicks on elements that are not links.
- Link map: which links and menu items people follow most often.
- Scroll map: what share of visitors reaches each part of the page and where they linger.
- Form analytics: the field where people abandon a form.
Reading the click map
Start with clicks on non-clickable elements. If visitors tap a product photo, a heading or an icon, they expect a link or a zoom. Turn the element into a link, or remove the misleading design cue.
Next, look for a key button that gets no attention. If “Request a quote” or “Order” is barely touched, the cause may be colour, size, wording or position. Then check the menu: it reveals which sections people look for. A popular item buried in a sub-menu deserves a visible place.
Also confirm that people actually tap your phone number, Telegram button and any Click or Payme payment link. For many local businesses, those taps are the conversion.
Reading the scroll map
The scroll map shows how quickly a page “cools down” as people move down it. If prices, delivery terms or the form sit where only a minority arrives, most visitors never see them.
Typical fixes: move the important block higher, add a button in the first screen that jumps to the form, and shorten the text that comes before the key block. If visitors stay a long time on one section, that means either interest or confusion, and Webvisor recordings help you tell which.
Check mobile and desktop separately
In Uzbekistan a large share of visits comes from phones. On mobile, blocks stack vertically and the path to the form is much longer. A problem that does not exist on desktop often appears only on the mobile map. If you can, segment by traffic source too, since people from ads and from search behave differently.
Which pages to analyse and what to watch out for
Begin with the home page, main service or category pages, ad landing pages, the cart and checkout. The best candidate is a page with high traffic and low conversion.
Do not draw conclusions from pages with few visits, because random clicks give a false picture. Remember the limits as well: sliders, pop-ups and tabs do not always render accurately, and after a redesign old data sits wrongly on the new layout, so analyse the periods before and after separately. Also check privacy settings so that password, card and personal data fields stay out of recordings.
From observation to change
A simple cycle works. Write a finding, for example “on mobile only a small share of visitors reaches the form”. Propose one change, such as a short form and a call button in the first screen. Ship it and note the date. After a few weeks, compare maps and conversion before and after.
If the map shows odd behaviour, such as many clicks on one spot, open several Webvisor recordings of that page to see what the person was trying to do. Change one element at a time, otherwise you will not know what worked.
If you want to connect on-site behaviour with leads, sales and ad budgets, markdev sets up end-to-end analytics and reporting for businesses in Uzbekistan. You are welcome to discuss your task and decide which pages to examine first.
FAQ
What do I need to enable for heatmaps to work?
Webvisor and its related options must be switched on in the counter settings. Data is collected only from the moment you enable them, so past periods will not have maps.
How many visits do I need for a reliable map?
There is no exact threshold, but on low-traffic pages random clicks distort the picture. Wait until a meaningful volume builds up and avoid decisions based on a handful of clicks.
How is a heatmap different from Webvisor?
A heatmap aggregates the behaviour of many visitors, while Webvisor records individual visits. The map tells you where the problem is, and a recording helps you understand its cause.
What should I do after redesigning a page?
Analyse the periods before and after the redesign separately, because old data lays incorrectly over a new layout. Judge the new map only by data collected after the change.
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