What is a heat map?

The term heat map refers to the visualization of data using different colors that are assigned to temperatures, similar to a thermal imaging camera. The aim is to display large amounts of data clearly and concisely by color-coding numerical values according to their size.

Classically, a heat map consists of the colors red (very hot), orange (medium hot), yellow (warm), green (cool) and blue (cold). Red dots, for example, indicate a large number of clicks on a button, whereas blue dots would reflect hardly any clicks.

By using heat maps in online marketing and web analysis, user behaviour and the structure of websites can be analyzed, which opens up opportunities for the on-page optimization of a website.

For example, user clicks and mouse movements can be detected, allowing important areas of a website to be localized in order to place appropriate content or content elements there.

Eye movements can also be analyzed and evaluated, whereby this type of analysis is usually the result of eye tracking studies.