5 Ways Scroll Maps Work To Improve UX and Boost Conversions

Introduction

If you have an ecommerce website, you probably already use generalized heatmaps to understand where users visit and what pages they frequent the most. But some heatmaps, like scroll maps, are better for specific understanding or target analysis.

So what are scroll maps, how do they work, and how can they boost conversions on your website? Let’s break down the answers to these questions and more.

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What Are Scroll Maps?

A scroll map is a type of heatmap that takes data focusing on user behavior — specifically, how visitors scroll or navigate through a section of the website. The purpose of scroll maps is to help you identify what improvements you can make to the user experience to increase conversions.

With a given scroll map, you'll see a copy of a specific web page. At each section of the page, the scroll map will shift or change, with "red" sections indicating areas of a page that more users visit. As you go down the page, the color will gradually turn bluer or cooler, showing you that fewer visitors land on the content further down that page.

Many scroll maps come with additional features and analytics tools. For example, some may tell you the exact percentage of users who scrolled to a specific point on the page. Others may tell you whether a user clicked away to another section of your site at a specific page point or clicked away from your site entirely.

Scroll maps are included with most heatmap software, although only certain types may provide you with the exact functionality or tracking capabilities you are looking for.

How Are Scroll Maps and Heat Maps Different?

A scroll map is not that different from a standard heatmap; in fact, it’s a type of heatmap, just focused on one particular type of user data: scrolling behavior and mouse movements.

A more standardized heatmap shows you a bunch of user data, including:

• Where users click on a page
• Where users spend most of their time
• Where user cursors hover or move around

Scroll maps cut down on unnecessary data and focus on one thing completely: how far website visitors scroll down the page and where users go as they navigate through your content. That information can be especially vital for various reasons, which we’ll break down below.

Why Scroll Maps Are Used in CRO

Scroll maps are often used in conversion rate optimization because they tell you how far people navigate down a given website page. 

If you have a long page filled with educational, high-quality content, but your scroll map indicates that people don’t reach the bottom of the page, it tells you one of several things:

• The content at the top of the page may not be engaging enough to incentivize further scrolling
• Your page may load too slowly to incentivize people to scroll to the bottom
• There’s some other problem with the page content you need to improve

This is just one example in which a scroll map can help you optimize your conversion rate. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is often a matter of analyzing multiple factors and elements together to understand how users interact with and experience your website content.

Think of scroll maps as another measurement or analysis tool you can use to improve UX and create a better website for your target audience members. Indeed, you can use scroll maps on landing pages, product pages, blog posts, and anywhere else on your website, depending on your goals and CRO strategy.

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5 Ways To Use Heat Maps for Better UX and More Conversions

Fortunately, you can use scroll heatmaps for improved user experiences and a higher conversion rate. Let’s take a look at some specific examples.

1. Find the Drop-Offs on Your Site 

One of the most significant benefits of scroll maps for UX and conversion rate is that they help identify drop-off points on your website. 

For example, if you have a given web page and the scroll map indicates that almost no one views the second half of the page's content, you know that the middle point of the page is the biggest drop-off point. It's where people click away from your site and go somewhere else.

Once you know that, you can make improvements to that middle point. You might add more informative or engaging content, make it easier to scroll down, or make the page load more quickly.

2. Compare Your Cross-Device User Experience

Next, scroll maps enable you to determine and analyze the cross-device user experience. More than half of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices, so your site pages need to be optimized for mobile users.

With scroll maps, you can figure out where mobile users drop off or scroll down the page compared to desktop users and vice versa. Then you can ensure that your user experience is enjoyable and compelling for both types of users, not just those on desktop computers.

3. Find “False Bottoms” on Your Pages

“False bottoms” are areas where your visitors can become confused. They’re spots that might seem like the end or bottom of a web page, but there’s actually content further down. With a scroll map, you can see where users may be confused in this way, which can help you improve the web page for better scrolling and higher user engagement.

False bottoms are oftentimes things like line breaks, blocks, whitespace, etc. All of these elements can cause users to click away from your site or to another page without fully absorbing the first page’s content.

You can look at a scroll map to see the most common areas where people drop off or click away from your page, then identify what might be driving them elsewhere.

4. Find Out If Users Can See What They Need To See

Every page on your website will have a purpose, whether that’s demonstrating a product, entertaining or informing your audience, etc. A scroll map will allow you to determine if users can see what they need to see based on your conversion rate objectives.

Say that you have a landing page for users coming from a CPC ad on Google. The scroll map analysis of that page can tell you:

• If users see the CTA button and link to a product
• If users click away from your site to quickly
• If users go to the bottom of the page to see testimonials

That information can be invaluable as you improve your conversion rate and user experience.

5. Find Out If Users Can See “Above the Fold”

“Above-the-fold” content is the part of a web page that most people will see when they first arrive on it (without having to scroll at all). The “fold” is the cutoff point at the bottom of a user’s screen before they need to scroll to see more content.

With a scroll map analysis, you can determine if users can see above-the-fold content properly. Good scroll maps can automatically calculate the average fold for a given web page, enabling you to see the default or first content a desktop or mobile user might see when they land on a page.

Now that you have this information, you can put important elements, like call-to-action buttons or value propositions, above the fold and ensure that users get the best content sooner. This is a good way to ensure they continue to scroll down the page and absorb all the content it has to offer instead of getting bored or clicking away. 

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Get Started With Scroll Maps Today

Scroll maps have serious potential to improve the performance of your website across the board. Used properly, you can see where users scroll throughout your website and where they stop engaging with page content, enabling you to craft a better user experience for each visitor.

With Prismfly’s help, that work will be done faster than ever. Our knowledgeable conversion rate optimization experts can help you design a better website based on scroll map analysis and help you implement scroll maps throughout your site. Contact us today, and let’s get started.