9 Best Heatmap Tools and Plugins for Your WordPress Site

By Naveed Ahmed | Last Updated: March 15, 2024

As a seasoned WordPress expert with over 15 years of experience, I’ve witnessed firsthand how heatmap tools can revolutionize website optimization. It’s not enough to simply track website traffic – you need to understand how your visitors are actually interacting with your content. Heatmap tools provide valuable insights into user behavior, allowing you to make data-driven decisions that boost conversions and improve the overall user experience.

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll delve into the 9 best heatmap tools and plugins for your WordPress site, covering their features, pros, cons, pricing, and reasons why they’re worth considering. I’ll also guide you through the essential factors to consider when choosing the right heatmap tool for your specific needs. Let’s dive in!

What is a Heatmap Tool?

Heatmap tools provide a visual representation of how users interact with your website. They overlay your pages with a color gradient, highlighting areas of high user activity as “hot” and areas of low activity as “cold.” This visual representation allows you to easily identify:

• Where users are clicking
• What content they’re viewing
• How far they scroll

Heatmap tools are essential for understanding user behavior and identifying areas for improvement. By analyzing heatmap data, you can optimize your website for better conversions, improve user experience, and ultimately drive more business success.

Types of Heatmaps

Not all website heatmaps work the same way. There are three primary types of heatmaps that track different aspects of user engagement:

Click Heatmaps

Click heatmaps show you where users are clicking and how frequently they interact with various elements. This data is particularly useful for identifying:

• Which buttons, links, and images are most popular
• Whether users are clicking on elements that are intended to be interactive
• Areas where users are encountering usability issues

Scroll Heatmaps

Scroll heatmaps indicate the percentage of users who reach each part of a page. This data helps you understand:

• How far users are scrolling on your pages
• Whether important content is being overlooked due to its placement
• If your calls to action are placed in a visible position

For example, if your call to action is at the bottom of the page and users aren’t reaching that point, consider moving it higher up the page to increase conversions.

Mouse Movement Heatmaps

Mouse movement heatmaps track where users move their cursor, revealing where their attention is directed. This can provide valuable insights into:

• Areas of interest on your pages
• Elements that are attracting user attention
• Whether users are finding it difficult to navigate your site

If certain features of a page are frequently hovered over, it might indicate that those product features are particularly appealing to your customers.

9 Best Heatmap Tools and Plugins for WordPress

Now, let’s dive into the top heatmap tools and plugins for your WordPress site.

1. Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a free analytics tool that lets you analyze how visitors use your site using heatmaps, scroll tracking, and click tracking. Once installed, it automatically starts tracking every user session, and you can view the stats directly on your dashboard. While it’s free, you’ll also get detailed stats. Beyond the core metrics you’d expect, you’ll also get some special stats, such as:

• Quickbacks are buttons that users click on by mistake. This usually happens because the buttons are too small or there’s not enough space between elements.
• Excessive scrolling helps determine which pages are performing poorly.
• Scroll depth percentage shows which pages are viewed completely to the bottom.

Plus, if you’re looking for a tool to pair with Google Analytics, Clarity is a great choice. You can connect Google Analytics to Clarity, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between the platforms. To learn more about Microsoft Clarity and how to use it, check out our tutorial on installing Microsoft Clarity Analytics in WordPress.

Pros

• Covers all the essential features to help you understand which elements are performing the best and which are underutilized.
• The tool is completely free.
• You get helpful UX metrics like dead clicks, rage clicks, etc.

Cons

• Doesn’t offer A/B testing or eCommerce tracking.
• Can be slightly more difficult to use than paid platforms.

Why We Recommend Microsoft Clarity:

Microsoft Clarity is the best free option on the market, which is definitely worth mentioning in our list. While it’s free, you still get heatmap features, scroll tracking, and click tracking. Plus, all the stats are housed within your WordPress dashboard for easy access.

Note: We use Microsoft Clarity for many of our websites here at Awesome Motive. We can recommend it as the best tool for our users based on our extensive practical experience with the tool.

2. Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg is the best WordPress heatmap plugin on the market today. It offers click, mouse cursor, and scroll heatmaps. It also provides another useful feature called confetti heatmap. Crazy Egg’s confetti heatmap allows you to break down heatmap data by traffic source. This means you can see how users from social media, search, or other sources are interacting with your site.

The software also lets you record all user activity, which allows you to see how they are using your site or product and to identify patterns. With Crazy Egg, you can also track errors. These include page bounces, rage clicks (users who click multiple times because the element is not responding), and dead clicks (users who click on non-interactive elements). This way, you can quickly fix issues that are disrupting the user experience.

Crazy Egg is extremely easy to add to a WordPress site. They even have a plugin that makes installation a breeze. Once installed, it will place the tracking script on all your pages for you.

Pricing

Crazy Egg starts at $29 per month for 30,000 pageviews per month, 25 snapshots, and 100 recordings. All plans come with a free month trial and unlimited sites at no additional cost, which is helpful for multisite owners.

Pros

• You get numerous stats to keep you informed, such as the total number of errors and bounces, as well as where and how users are interacting with your site.
• The overlay report gives you a percentage breakdown of which web pages are getting the most and least clicks.
• Crazy Egg is known for its simple/user-friendly features and easy-to-use interface.
• You can create variations of your web pages and run A/B tests on different elements.

Cons

• Crazy Egg doesn’t offer a free plan.

Why We Recommend Crazy Egg:

Crazy Egg is one of the most advanced heatmapping tools out there. You’ll receive reports on heatmaps, scrollmaps, and confetti maps so you know how people interact with any given web page at a granular level. On top of that, they have A/B testing built-in and numerous integrations to connect to your favorite tools.

3. Mouseflow

Mouseflow is another easy-to-use heatmap tool for WordPress users. Mouseflow offers click, scroll, movement, and attention heatmaps. It also allows you to record visitor activity on the site. This means you can review a visitor’s interaction with your site. Another useful feature offered by Mouseflow is form analysis, which allows you to see why users are abandoning your forms.

Mouseflow also allows you to track funnels. You can also set up custom funnels so you can see how users from different traffic sources behave differently on your site. Plus, there’s a WordPress plugin for Mouseflow, which lets you easily connect the tool to your site.

Pricing

Mouseflow also offers a free plan limited to 100 recorded sessions for a single site. Mouseflow’s paid plans start at $31 per month for 5,000 recorded sessions limited to one site. Prices increase based on the number of recorded sessions and sites you add to your plan.

Pros

• Mouseflow offers geo heatmaps to determine where your visitors are coming from so you can adjust your marketing campaigns.
• You can use the session replay tool to see exactly where your frustrated users are encountering difficulties on your site.
• The software tracks clicks, scrolling, and movements, so you know how users are interacting with your site.

Cons

• All user session replays are stored in the same folder, which can be difficult to organize.

Why We Recommend Mouseflow:

We like Mouseflow because it can discover the geographic locations of your most active users. This way you can optimize your PPC campaigns and improve your funnel analysis. They even offer a tool where you can add an on-page user feedback survey to your site, allowing you to capture real-time insights into how they feel about your pages.

4. Lucky Orange

Lucky Orange is another popular choice for heatmap analysis. They offer heatmap tracking for clicks, movements, and scroll depth. Plus, they also offer session recordings and traffic segmentation.

It also comes with form stats, conversion funnels, visitor polls, and live chat software that you can add to your site. The feature list covers nearly everything you’d want in a heatmap tool. You even get a sales chat feature to help you connect with prospects better.

The installation process is very easy. The Lucky Orange WordPress plugin automatically inserts the tracking code, so you can start generating heatmaps immediately.

Pricing

Lucky Orange is free to start, with access to 100 sessions per month. After that, they offer the Startup plan starting at $32 per month for 5,000 sessions per month. All plans come with a 7-day free trial, and the only difference between the plans is the number of sessions per month you get.

Pros

• Lucky Orange is one of the few tools that provides dynamic heatmaps to capture visitor interactions with popups and dropdowns.
• There are many ways to filter data and reports to find what you’re looking for, such as events, dates, sources, pages visited, and more.
• Lucky Orange offers four types of on-page polls, namely rate, choose, like/dislike, and open.
• They offer live chat with visitors as they move around your site.

Cons

• Lucky Orange offers only a maximum of 60 days of storage.
• You can’t customize your dashboard or create multiple ones at a time.

Why We Recommend Lucky Orange:

What makes Lucky Orange unique is that it offers dynamic heatmaps that display real-time data for popups, dropdowns, and carousels. Most other heatmap tools only track static content, which is a huge missed opportunity, especially if you need to track the performance of certain popups and lazy-loaded images.

5. Inspectlet

Inspectlet is a very powerful session recording and heatmap service. It covers the three types of heatmap tracking: clicks, cursor movements, and scrolling. They also offer conversion funnel stats with a very powerful filtering feature. There’s a robust identification filter, which you can use to identify individual users. This way, you can see how they interact during their subsequent visits. Inspectlet also provides form analysis to understand and optimize your lead generation.

Pricing

They offer a free plan limited to 100 recorded sessions for a single site. Paid subscriptions for Inspectlet start at $39 per month, with 2,500 recorded sessions and 25,000 pageviews.

Pros

• Inspectlet tracks mouse movements, clicks, and scrolls so you know how users are moving through your site.
• You have powerful filtering permissions. For example, you can display session replays of new visitors and returning visitors.
• Inspectlet lets you identify your users and sessions, which makes reporting easier and helps with replay finding.

Cons

• It has an awkward user interface, which isn’t the easiest to use.

Why We Recommend Inspectlet:

We like Inspectlet because it excels at customer journey analysis, with its comprehensive funnel tracking capabilities and detailed user segmentation filters.

6. Zoho PageSense

Zoho PageSense is a conversation optimization platform that rivals many competitors like Crazy Egg and Hotjar. Often, there’s no way to know which layouts or content elements are the best unless you test them separately. Do you want to know, for example, which headline encourages visitors to continue scrolling? Or which lead form generates the most emails?

Of course, you can also use WPBeginner’s headline analyzer. It’s 100% free and tells you if your headline is SEO-friendly. The good news is that Zoho PageSense allows you to duplicate a page on your site and run an A/B test. You can then modify the page structure and all its elements. You can then tinker with the page structure and all its elements. One of the best things about Zoho PageSense is its content personalization feature. Let’s say you’ve identified that your traffic comes primarily from Instagram and LinkedIn. However, these target audiences have different needs. With the content personalization feature, you can modify the images, texts, and other elements of the page based on where your visitor came from.

But that’s not all. You can choose how to personalize your site, based on what you know about your users. The platform allows you to modify elements based on Location, Behavior, Device used, Ad campaign, Visit frequency, and more.

Pricing

Zoho PageSense offers an affordable rate of $12 per month, billed annually. The basic plan gets you web analytics, heatmaps, session recordings, form analysis, and more. With the highest plan, you gain access to polls, A/B testing, and content personalization.

Pros

• Zoho PageSense can track dynamic web elements, giving you more data points to work with.
• They offer push notifications so you can re-engage your visitors.
• You can analyze where your visitors came from (organic search, referral, social media).

Cons

• Its learning curve is steeper than other platforms.

Why We Recommend Zoho PageSense:

Zoho PageSense offers all the features you’d expect from a heatmapping tool. You’ll get heatmaps, scrollmaps, and attention maps. What makes this tool unique is that it allows you to personalize the content of a web page based on where the traffic comes from.

7. Heatmap.com

Heatmap.com bills itself as one of the easiest-to-use heatmap analysis tools on the market. It’s easy to install and comes with a very small JavaScript code that loads asynchronously without slowing down your site. What’s interesting about Heatmap.com is that it’s the only heatmap tool that shows the revenue of every click on every element on your site. For example, let’s say you want to analyze the effectiveness of a call-to-action banner. You’ll be able to track the Revenue Amount, average conversion rate, and average order value related to that single button. You can even create custom filters to track the metrics that matter most to you.

Plus, Heatmap.com offers real-time heatmaps, which most other tools don’t. You can see how users interact with your site live. It also respects your users’ privacy by not connecting unnecessary data.

Pricing

Heatmap.com offers a free plan limited to 5 pages on 1 site. Their paid plans start at $89 per month, where you get access to revenue-based heatmaps, scrollmaps, and screen recordings.

Pros

• Heatmap.com offers data-driven analysis add-ons, such as understanding which elements or pages are prospecting your revenue and conversion rates.
• It doesn’t slow down your site.
• They offer a 7-day free trial.

Cons

• It’s more expensive than some other tools.

Why We Recommend Heatmap.com:

Heatmap.com is unique from other heatmap tools because it doesn’t just analyze the number of clicks. The tool ties your heatmap reports to real sales metrics and other custom filter data for each trackable element on each page. This way, you’ll be able to see the conversion rates of any element on your heatmap overlay.

8. Smartlook

Smartlook brings pretty much everything you need to help you understand how users are navigating your site. The tools are ready-to-use and have four main features:

• Heatmaps
• Session Recordings
• Events
• Funnels

Each heatmap will automatically provide click, mouse, and scroll maps so you can optimize your site for better conversions and more sales. One of the best features of Smartlook is funnel analysis. Funnels are a series of steps that users take to complete a goal, such as signing up for a newsletter or buying a product. Funnel analysis shows you the number of people moving from one step to the next, as well as the conversion and abandonment rates between each step. Combined with session replays, you can view recordings of all users who abandoned at each step.

Here’s how this could be useful in practice. Let’s say you want to recover abandoned cart sales in your online store. After using funnel analysis, you might realize that people from different countries are leaving once they see that the price is higher than expected due to high shipping costs or currency conversions.

Overall, Smartlook gives you key insights at every step of the customer journey to help you reduce abandonment and get users to take the desired action.

Pricing

Smartlook is free for Starter, allowing for 3,000 monthly sessions and basic product analytics. But the paid plan starts at $55 per month and gives you advanced stats, such as event and funnel tracking.

Pros

• Smartlook offers numerous filtering options, such as segmenting users by country, browser, UTM tags, referral URLs, etc.
• The on-demand session recording library has many categories and even a search bar to find the videos you’re looking for.
• They also offer heatmaps for mobile apps.

Cons

• There is no A/B testing.

Why We Recommend Smartlook:

Smartlook is the best heatmap tool for mobile apps. If you have a mobile app and a website, then this is a great software to see how users interact in both places.

9. Hotjar

Hotjar is a powerful suite of applications bundled into one conversion analysis and optimization tool. It combines heatmaps, session recordings, funnels, form analysis, polls, and surveys, as well as a recruitment tool to get testers.

They offer click, tap, scroll, and mouse movement heatmaps. With session recordings and conversion funnels, you can discover and fix usability issues on your site. Hotjar’s reporting dashboard is also intuitive and easy to use.

Pricing

Hotjar offers a limited free version, which you can use to try it out. Their paid plans start at $32 per month for 100 daily sessions and event tracking. The highest plan gives you access to funnel tracking and trends, as well as a dedicated account manager.

Pros

• Hotjar offers a free plan for life.
• It has a unique funnel tool to visualize abandonments, conversions, and recordings tied to the insights.
• Hotjar automatically ranks session recordings by engagement, relevance, and frustration levels, so you’re actually watching the replays that matter.

Cons

• Hotjar doesn’t have a built-in A/B testing tool. You’ll have to integrate them with platforms like Unbounce, Omniconvert, or Optimizely.

Why We Recommend Hotjar:

Hotjar is one of the most user-friendly options for beginners. It has an intuitive platform and a free version to get you started. It also includes on-page surveys and funnel analysis to help you get the insights you need to make important decisions.

BONUS: User Feedback from MonsterInsights

Heatmaps are a great way to get tacit feedback on your website. You can see what users are thinking based on how they interact with your site. User Feedback from MonsterInsights allows you to supplement this by asking specific questions about why they chose to interact the way they did.

Beyond the insights you can gain from analyzing heatmaps, you can ask questions about how a visitor found a certain page, what they like about the site, or even specific elements like your eCommerce checkout experience.

User feedback can supplement even the best heatmap plugins for WordPress by giving you the freedom to get personal insights from your users. These can enhance the visualizations and analyses that heatmaps give you, allowing you to make the best possible decisions for your users and your business. For more information, be sure to check out our full review of User Feedback from MonsterInsights.

How to Choose the Best Heatmap Tool

Several factors should be considered when evaluating a heatmap tool. When comparing different solutions, you’ll want to use these criteria to help you determine the best tool for your WordPress site:

Ease of Use

One of the most challenging aspects of using any new software is getting started, especially for those who are less tech-inclined. The heatmap script should offer a code-free script installation so that you don’t have to copy and paste code into the HTML of the page. Generating heatmaps, accessing valuable site data, and viewing reports should be seamless and easy to do for everyone, regardless of their technical skill level.

Support for Navigable Heatmaps

Navigable heatmaps allow you to access hidden connections and interact with the page while the heatmap is viewed. Let’s say you have a WordPress membership site, and you want to see how users are interacting behind the paywall. Are you wondering which content your paying members find most helpful or which features they enjoy using the most? Heatmaps can tell you which features members find most popular. For a WooCommerce site, the cart page might have a unique URL for each user. If you can’t track visitor behavior patterns on pages with dynamic URLs, it means a huge part of your heatmapping process is missing in action.

Element-Level Behavior Tracking

The best heatmapping tools don’t just record page-level behavior. Instead, they should be able to track element-level behavior, such as buttons, links, and images. Responsive designs adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions. By tracking element-level interactions, you can ensure that each element responds appropriately to different devices and screen sizes. On top of that, the heatmap tool should also be able to record hidden elements. These could include collapsible navigation bars, chatbots, and dropdowns.

Highly Customizable

As a business owner, chances are you’re constantly updating your site based on feedback and new changes to your offerings. For example, let’s say you only want to see heatmap data for Q4 to monitor account behavior, especially for all your seasonal promotions. You should be able to export heatmap data based on a certain time period. Additionally, the best heatmap plugins should give you separate tracking data for each device, including desktop, tablet, and mobile visitors. This way, you can see how users interact on each device. Ideally, you should have the freedom to modify settings so the heatmap aligns exactly with what you’re looking for, or it can filter the data and provide a report that displays what matters most to you.

Why Combine Heatmaps with MonsterInsights?

Heatmaps focus primarily on how users spend their time on your page by visually displaying where visitors click, scroll, and move their mouse. If you want to get a complete picture of how users land on your site and what they do once they discover your page, you’ll want to add MonsterInsights to your tech stack.

MonsterInsights is the best WordPress analytics plugin on the market, used by over 3 million professionals. It shows you your top traffic sources, average session duration, top-performing pages, and other valuable metrics. On top of that, you can track the performance of your online store, like viewing top-selling products, top conversion sources, and purchase sessions.

Essentially, it brings all the data from Google Analytics directly into your WordPress dashboard. One of the biggest drawbacks of heatmaps is the lack of concrete metrics. For example, heatmaps can display where users are clicking or even assess the number of clicks, but they don’t provide actual click-through rates.

MonsterInsights offers an enhanced link attribution feature, which gives you the click-through rates of various elements on your site. The color map of the report will help you determine the most effective buttons and links on each web page.

If you want to understand your customer journey and maximize conversions, you need to install both heatmap plugins and Monster Insights on your WordPress account.

Conclusion

By leveraging heatmap tools, you can gain invaluable insights into user behavior, identify website usability issues, and optimize your content for better conversions and user experience. With the right heatmap tool, you can transform your website from a passive source of traffic to a highly engaging and profitable asset.

FAQs

H3> What is the difference between heatmaps and Google Analytics?

Google Analytics provides data on website traffic, such as how visitors arrive at your site, the pages they view, and how they move from one page to another. Heatmap tools, on the other hand, show you how users are interacting with the design of your site. Heatmaps offer a more visual understanding of user behavior, revealing areas of interest, click patterns, and scrolling habits.

H3> What is the best free heatmap tool?

Microsoft Clarity is widely considered the best free heatmap tool. It offers a comprehensive set of features, including click, scroll, and movement heatmaps, as well as additional metrics like quickbacks and scroll depth percentage.

H3> Do I need both a heatmap tool and Google Analytics?

While both tools provide valuable data, they serve different purposes. Google Analytics provides a broader overview of website traffic, while heatmap tools focus on user interactions and behavior on specific pages. Using both tools together can create a more comprehensive understanding of your website’s performance and user experience.

H3> Which heatmap tool is best for beginners?

Hotjar is often recommended for beginners due to its user-friendly interface, intuitive platform, and free plan. It provides a good balance of features and ease of use, making it an ideal choice for those new to heatmap analysis.

H3> How can I use heatmaps to improve my website design?

Heatmaps can be used to identify areas of low user engagement, indicating potential usability issues. Analyze areas where users are clicking, scrolling, and hovering to determine if your design elements are guiding users toward your desired actions. Optimize your layout, button placement, and content organization based on heatmap data to create a more intuitive and user-friendly experience.

H3> What is the best heatmap tool for eCommerce websites?

Heatmap tools like Crazy Egg, Hotjar, and Lucky Orange are particularly well-suited for eCommerce websites, providing valuable insights into user behavior within online stores. They can help you understand product page engagement, checkout process optimization, and identify areas where customers are experiencing friction.

H3> How can I integrate a heatmap tool with my WordPress site?

Many heatmap tools offer WordPress plugins for seamless integration. Simply install the plugin, configure the settings, and the tool will automatically track user behavior on your site. Some tools may require adding a script to your theme’s header or footer, but the instructions are usually straightforward and well-documented.

H3> Are heatmaps GDPR compliant?

Yes, heatmap tools can be GDPR compliant. Make sure to review the tool’s privacy policy and ensure they have appropriate data handling procedures in place. You may also need to obtain user consent for tracking their behavior, depending on the specific tool and its functionalities.

H3> How often should I analyze heatmap data?

Regularly reviewing heatmap data is crucial for continuous website optimization. Start by analyzing data weekly or bi-weekly to identify trends and patterns in user behavior. As you gain experience, you can adjust the frequency based on the needs of your website and the pace of your optimization efforts.

H3> What are some of the best practices for using heatmaps?

Here are some best practices for using heatmaps effectively:

• Focus on user goals: Align your heatmap analysis with specific user actions you want to track, such as conversions, form submissions, or product purchases.
• Use segmentation: Filter heatmap data based on demographics, traffic sources, or other relevant criteria to gain deeper insights into specific user groups.
• Combine with other data: Integrate heatmap data with analytics tools like Google Analytics to create a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior and website performance.
• Test and iterate: Make changes to your website based on heatmap insights and track the results. Continuously iterate and refine your design based on ongoing data analysis.

If you’re interested in learning more about tech news, feel free to visit my website: www.naveedahmed.me.