Here’s the truth in six words: your email opt-in still needs improvement. When visitors land on your page for the first time ever, they’re not signing up because there are too many distractions or your signup area isn’t where they’re looking. Even if you spend a ton of effort driving traffic to your site with ads, social media, guest posts, etc., none of that matters if your landing page fails to match your user’s behavior.
So you have to ask yourself: Is the email opt-in the hottest area of your page? No? Then what are the top three areas being clicked? Any surprises there?
Wait, how do I figure that out? Great question!
Use a heat map.
Why are heat maps so powerful?
Heat maps are a visual overlay on your website that shows you “hot” areas — where most of your clicks happen — and “cold” areas — where no one clicks. While a number of paid choices exist, free tools like SumoMe’s Heat Maps allow you to see how your visitors engage with your site.
Here’s what a heat map looks like:
