Hotjar could be just the tool you are looking for. In this Hotjar review, you will learn the main attributes of this program.
Name: Hotjar
Website: https://hotjar.com
Price: Basic — free (editing package for personal use)
Pro: $29.00 per month
Prices higher for websites with many users
Owner: Dr. David Darmanin
Overall Rank: 4.75 out of 5.0
What is Hotjar? It’s a powerful tool that you can use in revealing the online behavior and voice of your users. Hotjar combines both analyzer and feedback tools. It gives you the knowledge on how to improve your site’s user experience. It also helps you to improve performance and conversion rates.
The Hotjar program is built to optimize everything. Hotjar’s script will have a marginal, almost negligible effect on your site’s speed and performance.
Hotjar employs “Heatmaps” to get their results. A website’s Heatmap is a
graphical representation of data using a color-coded system to represent different values. Heatmaps can be used to show where readers have clicked on a page, as well as how far they have scrolled down a page. Heatmaps can also be used to show the results of eye-tracking tests.
The Hotjar company is located on the island of Malta. A successful start-up business (it started in 2014), Hotjar operates on a fully-remote basis and with a key emphasis on personal development.
The Heatmap is a visualization feature that presents multiple rows of data in a way that makes sense. It is one of the most useful and powerful data analyzing tools available today in business intelligence.
A comment from https://seerinteractive.com says that Hotjar has incredible functionality, with tons of ways to get to know your users better.
Hotjar has multiple features. Here is a list of them:
Heatmaps:
This crucial feature makes the behavior of your users visible. It shows what they care about and do on your site. It shows their clicks, taps and scrolling behavior, which are the strongest indicators of visitor motivation and desire.
Visitor Recordings
These eliminate guesswork, as you will have a recording of real visitor behavior on your site. By seeing the visitor’s clicks,taps and mouse movements you can identify visible issues on the fly and issues they may encounter. You can view user actions and take notes, share recordings with anyone, easily filter recordings, suppress keystrokes and text.
Hotjar was the first analytics tool to offer these recordings.
Conversion Funnels
Where are your visitors dropping off? Find the biggest opportunities for improving and testing by identifying on which page and at which step visitors are leaving your site.
Form Analysis
How are your forms used? Improve online form completion rates by discovering which fields take the longest to fill, which are left blank, and why your visitors abandon your form and page.
Feedback Polls
You can improve performance once you understand what your visitors want and what is preventing them from achieving it.
Incoming Feedback
Give visitors an easy way to leave instant visual feedback on your website or application. See what they love and hate, identification issues, and find opportunities for growth.
Surveys
Build your own responsive surveys to get to know your audience better. Distribute them through web links, emails or invite your visitor before they leave to uncover their objections and concerns.
Recruit Test Users
Recruit the best participants for user research and testing right from your site. Collect profiling information and contact details. Offer a gift in exchange for their help.
Hotjar lists some of their positive strengths:
- There are no user limits on any Hotjar plan
- Offers powerful targeting
- It is available in over 40 languates
- There is multi-device support
- You get unlimited responses
- You can export and share with colleagues and clients
- Easy installation
- Behavior logic
- Block IPs
Hotjar has grown rapidly in its short history. It is now trusted by over 350,000 organizations across 184 countries. Some of the big names who use Hotjar are Intuit, Columbia, AVG, Fiat, Panasonic, Chrysler, Nintendo.
Hotjar has three available plans, outlined below:
PERSONAL
Basic:
Free forever
Collect data from 2,000 pageviews per day
Limited reports
Unlimited users
Data storage for 365 days
Plus:
$29.00/month
Collect data from 10,000 pageviews/day
30-day money-back guarantee
Unlimited reports
Unlimited users
Data storage for 365 days
15-day free trial
BUSINESS
20,000 pageviews/ day: $89.00/month
50,000 pageviews/day: $189.00/month
120,000 pageviews/day: $289.00/month
400,000 pageviews/day: $589.00/month
All business plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee, unlimited users, unlimited reports, data storage for 365 days, removal of Hotjar branding and access to advanced filters. You get a 15-day free trial.
AGENCY
You can upgrade or downgrade at any time. You get an extended 30-day trial of this program. Included with “Agency” is unlimited client sites in one central account, and a discount for volume pricing. You can invite clients to see and manage their data. You can also rebrand the Hotjar interface with your own brand.
Available Training:
There are several training guides available on the Hotjar website, with topics such as “Installing Hotjar,” “Analyzing User Behavior,” “Collecting Feedback from Users,” “Account Management,” “About Hotjar,” “Plans and blog.”
There are plenty of tools to help you get started. For example, you can access discussion on the following topics:
- Guide to setting up your first Heatmap
- Video tutorials about Heatmap features
- Three types of Heatmaps you can use
- How to use scroll maps to optimize
A blog is also available, and contains many informative articles. Testimonials include videos from owners of some the business owners who use Hotjar.
My Final Opinion of Hotjar
I am quite impressed with what I have seen of this company. In fact, I believe I will try the basic plan to see what it does for me. It is, of course, quite valuable for a large company with a very active website with lots of visitors. However, I want to try it to see if I can gain insights that will make my site grow faster.
For a young company, its rapid growth indicates to me that a lot of people have found it quite valuable. It certainly offers data that is very important to anyone building an online business.
PROS
This company looks to be an excellent way to discover what users are doing on your site.
Free or inexpensive for small businesses just getting started
Lots of training and support
Money-back guarantee for more expensive versions
Performs several valuable actions
Can be very helpful in identifying problems and helping with website growth
CONS
Could really use a live chat feature
As with anything new, a learning curve. However, lots of training to compensate
This is amazing. I can see this been very useful in an online business. Been able to understand the behavior of a visitor to your site can actually go a long way because you would know exactly what they do when they visit your site.
The features of hotjar are truly amazing and I cannot believe that I have not been using this in my online business. This is truly amazing.
Thanks for your comment. I was quite “taken” with the Hotjar information, and plan to use the app myself on my websites. It just sounds like a great way to get really useful insights into what people are doing on your site.
What a great review on Hotjar. I didn’t know what it is, but I’ll give it a go because, for me, it’s a bit challenging to comprehend Google Analytics and Hotjar seems like a user friendly version of Google Analytics.
I’m impressed they support 2000 pageviews/day, meaning start-ups don’t have to pay for it until they are big enough that they can afford it. Really kind gesture.
Thank you for this review!
Katya
Yes, they have considered us little guys. That is a really good thing. It means you can afford it when you are young and growing and don’t know much. You’re like me — I am at a loss when it comes to Analytics. I think this tool will help me figure it out, besides giving me more information than I get from Google.
Hi there. This actually opened my eyes as the package comes with a basic account option. That’s something a lot of affiliate tools won’t provide. Values cannot be proved without paying certain amounts for certain periods of time. I’m also delighted to learn they basically charge according to pageviews. Seems like an excellent tool for someone who only just started (like me)! Thanks for this article. Cheers.
I like that feature too, Laureen. When I first looked and saw the price for the “pro” sites, I went, “oh, well, guess I won’t be getting that one.” Then I read further and discovered that, as a new website, you don’t have to pay…until you get big enough to be able to afford it, hopefully.
I think that, for me, it will bridge a gap between what I already know and what I need to learn.
Hi Fran,
I have come across Hotjar before but never knew that it has the capability to perform deep analysis of the user’s behavior on a web page and provide feedback to improve performance and conversion.
The Heatmaps and Visitors Recording functionality has intrigued me to give Hotjar a try. By the way, is there any support from Hotjar in case there is a technical issue?
Thank you very much for sharing this review – Hotjar is a great analytical tool.
Cheers:)
Yes, Hotjar will provide support. I, too, am intrigued by this app and want to try it out. Analytics is my weak spot, and I think Hotjar might be very helpful.
Would like to know how you do with it.
I’m impressed and now thinking of integrating this to one of my niche sites. But before I proceed, I’d like to clarify with you if Hotjar is a plugin. Is it a plugin? I already have 9 plugins in that niche site so if I will add Hotjar, the total plugins will be 10. I’m afraid it will drag down the site’s speed so I’d like to know if this is a plugin.
No, Hotjar is an app, not a plugin. That’s why I want to try it, too. I don’t need any more plugins either.
Hey there Fran,
I was looking for a tool that provides heatmap and other similar information for my blog, and this post came to the rescue! Thanks for letting us know about this service. I will definitely sign up and give it a try. It is positive that there is a free version of the service and no trial period. This means I get all the time needed to learn to use it. And, If needed, I will upgrade to the paid version.
Thanks again!
Marios
Yes, it is perfect for a small website because you can start with the free version. Then, when your business grows sufficiently you can switch to the paid one.
Let us know your results from using it.