A heat map is a graphical representation of data where the values taken by a variable in a two-dimensional map are represented as colors. A heatmap can be used to analyze reader interaction in your blog or website. It can be used to find out which areas your readers are looking at and which areas they are ignoring.

There are several heatmap tools available, among which, Crazyegg ^[1] is a really popular service. But if you want to just know how visitors would react in your blog for free, try Feng GUI ^[2]. It is a free service that can create a visual heatmap of your website or blog.

How to use Feng-GUI

To create the heatmap using Feng-GUI, all you need is a full screen image of your website. The image should be less than 1 mb and can be either in jpg or png formats.

Browse to the homepage ^[2] and upload your website’s image. After that, click heatmap and you will see the heatmap of your website. Following is the heatmap of Techie-Buzz blog

That’s looks cool but what do all those colors, circles and lines actually mean ? How can you get benefited from this heatmap ? Let’s find out.

How does it work?

According to the Fen-GUI website, the heatmap is a result of several algorithms from neuro-science studies of Natural Vision Processing, Computational Attention, eye-tracking sessions, perception and cognition of humans.

The number shows how the visitor’s eye moves while he is reading a page in your blog. The color is a measure of the person’s interest and focus. The interest intensity increases from Blue to Green and finally ends in Red. If the color is Blue then the visitor is not really looking at the particular area and if the color is Red then the visitor is attracted. The size of the circles show the area of the focus.

How is the Heatmap useful?

In short, the visual heatmap can be really useful in a number of ways. It let’s you:

• instantly generate a heatmap of your site for free.
• create a heatmap without any registrations or sign-ups.
• quickly find which areas of your site reader’s are looking at.
• save the heatmap in your computer.

You can watch for trends and how your reader’s are changing by comparing two heatmaps of your blog taken at different time periods. If you want more features, then you need to sign up for a premium account. You can read the faq here ^[3].

Techie-Buzz verdict

The tool is fair enough, since it’s free, but the reliability and accuracy may be a question. However, if you want a quick grasp of your website’s heatmap without needing any sign-ups, Feng-GUI is okay. The only downside is that you can upload only one image in a time span of 5 hours.

Techie Buzz Rating: 2/5 (Average)