Recherche avancée

Sur d’autres sites (3239)

• Six Best Amplitude Alternatives

  10 décembre 2024, par Daniel Crough

  Product analytics is big business. Gone are the days when we could only guess what customers were doing with our products or services. Now, we can track, visualise, and analyse how they interact with them and, with that, constantly improve and optimise. 

  The problem is that many product analytics tools are expensive and complicated — especially for smaller businesses. They’re also packed with functionality more attuned to the needs of massive companies. 

  Amplitude is such a tool. It’s brilliant and it has all the bells and whistles that you’ll probably never need. Fortunately, there are alternatives. In this guide, we’ll explore the best of those alternatives and, along the way, provide the insight you’ll need to select the best analytics tool for your organisation. 

  Amplitude : a brief overview

  To set the stage, it makes sense to understand exactly what Amplitude offers. It’s a real-time data analytics tool for tracking user actions and gaining insight into engagement, retention, and revenue drivers. It helps you analyse that data and find answers to questions about what happened, why it happened, and what to do next.

  However, as good as Amplitude is, it has some significant disadvantages. While it does offer data export functionality, that seems deliberately restricted. It allows data exports for specific events, but it’s not possible to export complete data sets to manipulate or format in another tool. Even pulling it into a CSV file has a 10,000-row limit. There is an API, but not many third-party integration options.

  Getting data in can also be a problem. Amplitude requires manual tags on events that must be tracked for analysis, which can leave holes in the data if every possible subsequent action isn’t tagged. That’s a time-consuming exercise, and it’s made worse because those tags will have to be updated every time the website or app is updated. 

  As good as it is, it can also be overwhelming because it’s stacked with features that can create confusion for novice or inexperienced analysts. It’s also expensive. There is a freemium plan that limits functionality and events. Still, when an organisation wants to upgrade for additional functionality or to analyse more events, the step up to the paid plan is massive.

  Lastly, Amplitude has made some strides towards being a web analytics option, but it lacks some basic functionality that may frustrate people who are trying to see the full picture from web to app.

  Snapshot of Amplitude alternatives

  So, in place of Amplitude, what product analytics tools are available that won’t break the bank and still provide the functionality needed to improve your product ? The good news is that there are literally hundreds of alternatives, and we’ve picked out six of the best.

  1. Matomo – Best privacy-focused web and mobile analytics
  2. Mixpanel – Best for product analytics
  3. Google Analytics – Best free option
  4. Adobe Analytics – Best for predictive analytics
  5. Umami – Best lightweight tool for product analytics
  6. Heap – Best for automatic user data capture

  A more detailed analysis of the Amplitude alternatives

  Now, let’s dive deeper into each of the six Amplitude alternatives. We’ll cover standout features, integrations, pricing, use cases and community critiques. By the end, you’ll know which analytics tool can help optimise website and app performance to grow your business.

  1. Matomo – Best privacy-friendly web and app analytics

  Privacy is a big concern these days, especially for organisations with a presence in the European Union (EU). Unlike other analytics tools, Matomo ensures you comply with privacy laws and regulations, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

  Matomo helps businesses get the insights they need without compromising user privacy. It’s also one of the few self-hosted tools, ensuring data never has to leave your site.

  Matomo is open-source, which is also rare in this class of tools. That means it’s available for anyone to adapt and customise as they wish. Everything you need to build custom APIs is there.

  

  Its most useful capabilities include visitor logs and session recordings to trace the entire customer journey, spot drop-off points, and fine-tune sales funnels. The platform also comes with heatmaps and A/B testing tools. Heatmaps provide a useful visual representation of your data, while A/B testing allows for more informed, data-driven decisions.

  Despite its range of features, many reviewers laud Matomo’s user interface for its simplicity and user-friendliness. 

  Why Matomo : Matomo is an excellent alternative because it fills in the gaps where Amplitude comes up short, like with cookieless tracking. Also, while Amplitude focuses mainly on behavioural analytics, Matomo offers both behavioural and traditional analytics, which allows more profound insight into your data. Furthermore, Matomo fully complies with the strictest privacy regulations worldwide, including GDPR, LGPD, and HIPAA.

  Standout features include multi-touch attribution, visits log, content engagement, ecommerce, customer segments, event tracking, goal tracking, custom dimensions, custom reports, automated email reports, tag manager, sessions recordings, roll-up reporting that can pull data from multiple websites or mobile apps, Google Analytics importer, Matomo tag manager, comprehensive visitor tracking, heatmaps, and more.

  Integrations with 100+ technologies, including Cloudflare, WordPress, Magento, Google Ads, Drupal, WooCommerce, Vue, SharePoint and Wix.

  Pricing is free for Matomo On-Premise and $23 per month for Matomo Cloud, which comes with a 21-day free trial (no credit card required).

  Strengths

  • Privacy focused
  • Cookieless consent banners
  • 100% accurate, unsampled data
  • Open-source code 
  • Complete data ownership (no sharing with third parties)
  • Self-hosting and cloud-based options
  • Built-in GDPR Manager
  • Custom alerts, white labelling, dashboards and reports

  Community critiques 

  • Premium features are expensive and proprietary
  • Learning curve for non-technical users

  2. Mixpanel – Best for product analytics

  Mixpanel is a dedicated product analytics tool. It tracks and analyses customer interactions with a product across different platforms and helps optimise digital products to improve the user experience. It works with real-time data and can provide answers from customer and revenue data in seconds.

  It also presents data visualisations to show how customers interact with products.

  

  Mixpanel allows you to play around filters and views to reveal and chart some useful customer trends. (Image source)

  Why Mixpanel : One of the strengths of this platform is the ability to test hypotheses. Need to test an ambitious idea ? Mixpanel data can do it with real user analytics. That allows you to make data-driven decisions to find the best path forward.

  Standout features include automatic funnel segment analysis, behavioural segmentation, cohort segmentation, collaboration support, customisable dashboards, data pipelines, filtered data views, SQL queries, warehouse connectors and a wide range of pre-built integrations.

  Integrations available include Appcues, AppsFlyer, AWS, Databox, Figma, Google Cloud, Hotjar, HubSpot, Intercom, Integromat, MailChimp, Microsoft Azure, Segment, Slack, Statsig, VWO, Userpilot, WebEngage, Zapier, ZOH) and dozens of others.

  Pricing starts with a freemium plan valid for up to 20 million events per month. The growth plan is affordable at $25 per month and adds features like no-code data transformations and data pipeline add-ons. The enterprise version runs at a monthly cost of $833 and provides the full suite of features and services and premium support.

  There’s a caveat. Those prices only allow up to 1,000 Monthly Tracked Users (MTUs), calculated based on the number of visitors that perform a qualifying event each month. Beyond that, MTU plans start at $20,000 per year.

  Strengths

  • User behaviour and interaction tracking
  • Unlimited cohort segmentation capabilities
  • Drop-off analysis showing where users get stuck
  • A/B testing capabilities

  Community critiques 

  • Expensive enterprise features
  • Extensive setup and configuration requirements

  3. Google Analytics 4 – Best free web analytics tool

  The first thing to know about Google Analytics 4 is that it’s a web analytics tool. In other words, it tracks sessions, not user behaviours in app environments. It can provide details on how people found your website and how they go there, but it doesn’t offer much detail on how people use your product. 

  There is also an enterprise version, Google Analytics 360, which is not free. We’ve broken down the differences between the two versions elsewhere.

  

  GA4’s audience overview shows visitors, sessions, session lengths, bounce rates, and user engagement data. (Image source)

   

  Why Google Analytics : It’s great for gauging the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, tracking goal completions (purchases, cart additions, etc.) and spotting trends and patterns in user engagement.

  Standout features include built-in automation, customisable conversion goals, data drill-down functionality, detailed web acquisition metrics, media spend ROI calculations and out-of-the-box web analytics reporting.

  Integrations include all major CRM platforms, CallRail, DoubleClick DCM, Facebook, Hootsuite, Marketo, Shopify, VWO, WordPress, Zapier and Zendesk, among many others.

  Pricing is free for the basic version (Google Analytics 4) and scales based on features and data volume. The advanced features (in Google Analytics 360) are pitched at enterprises, and pricing is custom.

  Strengths

  • Free to start
  • Multiple website management
  • Traffic source details
  • Up-to-date traffic data

  Community critiques 

  • Steep learning curve 
  • Data sampling

  4. Adobe Analytics – Best for predictive analytics

  A fully configured Adobe Analytics implementation is the Swiss army knife of analytics tools. It begins with web analytics, adds product analytics, and then wraps it up nicely with predictive analytics.

  Unlike all the Amplitude alternatives here, there’s no free version. Adobe Analytics has a complicated pricing matrix with options like website analytics, marketing analytics, attribution, and predictive analytics. It also has a wide range of customisation options that will appeal to large businesses. But for smaller organisations, it may all be a bit too much.

  Mixpanel allows you to play around filters and views to reveal and chart some useful customer trends. (Image source)

  

  Adobe Analytics’ cross-channel attribution ties actions from different channels into a single customer journey. (Image source)

   

  Why Adobe Analytics : For current Adobe customers, this is a logical next step. Either way, Adobe Analytics can combine, evaluate, and analyse data from any part of the customer journey. It analyses that data with predictive intelligence to provide insights to enhance customer experiences.

   

  Standout features include AI-powered prediction analysis, attribution analysis, multi-channel data collection, segmentation and detailed customer journey analytics, product analytics and web analytics.

   

  Integrations are available through the Adobe Experience Cloud Exchange. Adobe Analytics also supports data exchange with brands such as BrightEdge, Branch.io, Google Ads, Hootsuite, Invoca, Salesforce and over 200 other integrations.

   

  Pricing starts at $500 monthly, but prospective customers are encouraged to contact the company for a needs-based quotation.

   

  Strengths

  • Drag-and-drop interface
  • Flexible segmentation 
  • Easy-to-create conversion funnels
  • Threshold-based alerts and notifications

  Community critiques 

  • No free version
  • Lack of technical support
  • Steep learning curve

  5. Umami – Best lightweight tool for web analytics

  The second of our open-source analytics solutions is Umami, a favourite in the software development community. Like Matomo, it’s a powerful and privacy-focused alternative that offers complete data control and respects user privacy. It’s also available as a cloud-based freemium plan or as a self-hosted solution.

   

  

  Umami’s dashboard reveals the busiest times of day and which pages are visited when.(Image source)

   

  Why Umami : Unami has a clear and simple user interface (UI) that lets you measure important metrics such as page visits, referrers, and user agents. It also features event tracking, although some reviewers complain that it’s quite limited.

  Standout features can be summed up in five words : privacy, simplicity, lightweight, real-time, and open-source. Unami’s UI is clean, intuitive and modern, and it doesn’t slow down your website. 

  Integrations include plugins for VuePress, Gatsby, Craft CMS, Docusaurus, WordPress and Publii, and a module for Nuxt. Unami’s API communicates with Javascript, PHP Laravel and Python.

  Pricing is free for up to 100k monthly events and three websites, but with limited support and data retention restrictions. The Pro plan costs $20 a month and gives you unlimited websites and team members, a million events (plus $0.00002 for each event over that), five years of data and email support. Their Enterprise plan is priced custom.

  Strengths

  • Freemium plan
  • Open-source
  • Lightweight 

  Community critiques 

  • Limited support options
  • Data retention restrictions
  • No funnel functionality

  6. Heap – Best for automatic data capture

  Product analytics with a twist is a good description of Heap. It features event auto-capture to track user interactions across all touchpoints in the user journey. This lets you fully understand how and why customers engage with your product and website. 

  Using a single Javascript snippet, Heap automatically collects data on everything users do, including how they got to your website. It also helps identify how different cohorts engage with your product, providing the critical insights teams need to boost conversion rates.

  

  Heap’s journeys feature combines funnel and path analysis. (Image source)

   

  Why Heap : The auto-capture functionality solves a major shortcoming of many product analytics tools — manual tracking. Instead of having to set up manual tags on events, Heap automatically captures all data on user activity from the start. 

  Standout features include event auto-capture, session replay, heatmaps, segments (or cohorts) and journeys, the last of which combines the functions of funnel and path analysis tools into a single feature.

  Integrations include AWS, Google, Microsoft Azure, major CRM platforms, Snowflake and many other data manipulation platforms.

  Pricing is quote-based across all payment tiers. There is also a free plan and a 14-day free trial.

  Strengths

  • Session replay
  • Heatmaps 
  • User segmentation
  • Simple setup 
  • Event auto-capture 

  Community critiques 

  • No A/B testing functionality
  • No GDPR compliance support

  Choosing the best solution for your team

  When selecting a tool, it’s crucial to understand how product analytics and web analytics solutions differ. 

  Product analytics tools track users or accounts and record the features they use, the funnels they move through, and the cohorts they’re part of. Web analytics tools focus more on sessions than users because they’re interested in data that can help improve website usage. 

  Some tools combine product and web analytics to do both of these jobs.

  Area of focus

  Product analytics tools track user behaviour within SaaS- or app-based products. They’re helpful for analysing features, user journeys, engagement metrics, product development and iteration. 

  Web analytics tools analyse web traffic, user demographics, and traffic sources. They’re most often used for marketing and SEO insights.

  Level of detail

  Product analytics tools provide in-depth tracking and analysis of user interactions, feature usage, and cohort analysis.

  Web analytics tools provide broader data on page views, bounce rates, and conversion tracking to analyse overall site performance.

  Whatever tools you try, your first step should be to search for reviews online to see what people who’ve used them think about them. There are some great review sites you can try. See what people are saying on Capterra, G2, Gartner Peer Insights, or TrustRadius. 

  Use Matomo to power your web and app analytics

  Web and product analytics is a competitive field, and there are many other tools worth considering. This list is a small cross-section of what’s available.

  That said, if you have concerns about privacy and costs, consider choosing Matomo. Start your 21-day free trial today.

  Start improving your websites and apps

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

  Your email address
  

  Your website address
  

  Your Analytics subdomain will be .matomo.cloud (change)

  Choose your analytics subdomain
  

  .matomo.cloud

  I accept the terms and conditions and data processing agreement (DPA)

  
  Your information will be used to create an account on our cloud service. For more information please consult our privacy policy.
  
  
  

  Start improving your websites now

  

  &lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;<br />
           if ('object' === typeof navigator.languages &amp;&amp; navigator.languages.length &amp;&amp; navigator.languages.indexOf) {<br />
               var lang = navigator.languages;<br />
               if (lang.indexOf('de') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('de-DE') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('hu') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('el') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('fr') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('tr') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('uk') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('en-gb') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('no') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('nb') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('nn') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('sv') !== -1<br />
                   || lang.indexOf('it') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('nl') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('pl') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('da') !== -1 || lang.indexOf('es') !== -1) {<br />
                   document.getElementById('matomoDataCenterEU').style.display = 'block';<br />
                   document.getElementById('matomoSignUpFormContainer').className = 'prefix-10 grid-60 tablet-grid-100 mobile-grid-100';<br />
               }<br />
           }<br />
       &lt;/script&gt;

• Homepage Design : Best Practices & Examples

  5 octobre 2022, par Erin

  Did you know users spend about 50 milliseconds deciding if they like your website’s homepage design or not ?

  With billions of websites and scrolling often done on the go, you have to make a strong first impression because the chances for a once-over are slim. 

  Learn how to design magnetically-appealing website homepages from this guide. 

  What is a homepage in web design ?

  Homepage is the front page of your website — a destination where users land when typing your website URL address. It’s located at the root of the website’s domain (e.g., matomo.org) or a subdomain (e.g., university.webflow.com).

  Design-wise a homepage has two goals :

  • Explain the purpose of the website and present overview information 
  • Provide top-level navigation to lower-level web pages (e.g., blog, sales pages, etc.) 

  Separately, a homepage is also the place where users will return each time they’ll feel stuck and want to start anew. Thus, your homepage website design should provide obvious navigation paths to other website areas.

  6 Must-Know Website Homepage Design Best Practices

  Behind every winning homepage design stands a detailed customer journey map. 

  A customer journey is a schematic representation of how site visitors will move around your website to accomplish various goals. 

  A good customer journey map lists different actions a user will take after landing on your website (e.g., browse product pages, save items to a wishlist, register an account, etc.) — and it does so for different audience segments. 

  

  Your homepage design should help users move from the first step on their journey (e.g., learning about your website) to the final one (e.g., converting to a paid customer). At the same time, your homepage should serve the needs of both new and returning visitors — prospects who may be at a different stage of their journey (e.g., consideration). 

  With the above in mind, let’s take a look at several website homepage design ideas and the reasons why they work. 

  1. Use Familiar Design Elements

  Whether you’re designing a new website or refreshing an old one, it’s always tempting to go “out of the box” — use horizontal scrolling, skip header navigation or include arty animations. 

  Bold design choices work for some brands, mainly those who aren’t using their website as a primary sales channel (e.g., luxury brands). 

  But unfamiliar design patterns can also intimidate a lot of shoppers. In one observational study, people were asked to guess where specific content (e.g., information on international calls) would be placed on a telecom website. 75% of users picked the same location. This means two things :

  • People already have expectations of where specific website information is typically placed 
  • Yet, one in four users struggles to identify the right areas even within standard website layouts

  So why make the job harder for them ? As UX consultant Peter Ramsey rightfully notes : 

  The truth is : designing the best experience isn’t about being unique, it’s about being easy. And guess what feels really easy to use ? Things that feel familiar.

  Therefore, analyse other homepage layout designs in your industry. Pay attention to the number and type of homepage screens and approaches to designing header/footer navigation. 

  Take some of those ideas as your “base”. Then make your homepage design on-brand with unique typography, icons, visuals and other graphic design elements.

  Take a cue from ICAM — a steel manufacturing company. Their niche isn’t typically exciting. Yet, their homepage design stops you in your tracks and tinkers your curiosity to discover more (even if you aren’t shopping for metalware). 

  

  The interesting part is that ICAM uses a rather standard homepage layout. You have a hero image in the first screen, followed by a multi-column layout of their industry expertise and an overview of manufacturers. 

  But this homepage design feels fresh because the company uses plenty of white space, bold typography and vibrant visuals. Also, they delay the creative twist (horizontal scrolling area) to the bottom of the homepage, meaning that it’s less likely to intimidate less confident web users. 

  2. Decide On The Optimal Homepage Layout 

  In web design, a homepage layout is your approach to visually organising different information on the screen. 

  Observant folks will notice that good homepage designs often have the same layout. For example, include a split-view “hero” screen with a call to action on the left and visuals (photo or video) on the left. 

  

  The reason for using similar layouts for website homepage design isn’t a lack of creativity. On the contrary, some layouts have become the “best practice” because they :

  • Offer a great user experience (UX) and don’t confuse first-time visitors 
  • Feel familiar and create a pleasurable sense of deja-vu among users 
  • Have proven to drive higher conversion rates through benchmarks and tests 

  Popular types of website homepage layouts : 

  • Single column – a classic option of presenting main content in a single, vertical column. Good choice for blogs, personal websites and simple corporate sites. 
  • Split screen layout divides the page in two equal areas with different information present. Works best for Ecommerce homepages (e.g., to separate different types of garments) or SaaS websites, offering two product types (e.g., a free personal product version and a business edition). 
  • Asymmetrical layout assumes dividing your homepage into areas of different size and styles. Asymmetry helps create specific focal points for users to draw their attention to the most prominent information. 
  • Grid of cards layout helps present a lot of information in a more digestible manner by breaking down bigger bulks of text into smaller cards — a graphic element, featuring an image and some texts. By tapping a card, users can then access extra content. 
  • Boxes are visually similar to cards, but can be of varying shape. For example, you can have a bigger header-width box area, followed by four smaller boxes within it. Both of these website layouts work well for Ecommerce. 
  • Featured image layout gives visuals (photos and videos) the most prominent placement on the homepage, with texts and other graphic design elements serving a secondary purpose. 
  • F-pattern layout is based on the standard eye movement most people have when reading content on the website. Eye tracking studies found that we usually pay the most attention to information atop of the page (header area), then scan horizontally before dripping down to the next vertical line until we find content that captures our attention. 

  User behaviour analytics (UBA) tools are the best way to determine what type of layout will work for your homepage. 

  For example, you can use Matomo Heatmaps and Session Recording to observe how users navigate your homepage, which areas or links they click and what blockers they face during navigation.

  

  Matomo can capture accurate behavioural insights because we track relative positions to elements within your websites. This approach allows us to provide accurate data for users with different browsers, operating systems, zoom-in levels and fonts. 

  The best part ? You can collect behavioural data from up to 100 different user segments to understand how different audience cohorts engage with your product.

  3. Include a One-Sentence Tagline

  A tagline is a one-line summary of what your company does and what its unique sales proposition (USP) is. It should be short, catchy and distinguish you from competitors.

  A modern homepage design practice is to include a call to action in the first screen. Why ? Because you then instantly communicate or remind of your value proposition to every user — and provide them with an easy way to convert whenever they are ready to do business with you. 

  Here’s how three companies with a similar product, a project management app, differentiate themselves through homepage taglines. 

  Monday.com positions itself as an operating system (OS) for work. 

  

  Basecamp emphasises its product simplicity and openly says that they are different from other overly-complex software. 

  

  Asana, in turn, addresses a familiar user pain point (siloed communication) that it attempts to fix with its product. 

  

  Coming up with the perfect homepage tagline is a big task. You may have plenty of ideas, but little confidence in what version will stick. 

  The best approach ? Let a series of A/B tests decide. You can test a roaster of homepage slogans on a rotating bi-weekly/monthly schedule and track how copy changes affect conversion rates. 

  With Matomo A/B test feature, you can create, track and manage all experiments straight from your web analytics app — and get consolidated reports on total page visitors and conversion rates per each tested variation. 

  

  Beyond slogans, you can also run A/B tests to validate submission form placements, button texts or the entire page layout. 

  For instance, you can benchmark how your new homepage design performs compared to the old version with a subset of users before making it publicly available. 

  4. Highlight The Main Tasks For The User

  Though casual browsing is a thing, most of us head to specific websites with a clear agenda — find information, compare prices, obtain services, etc. 

  Thus, your homepage should provide clear starting points for users’ main tasks (those you’ve also identified as conversion goals on your customer journey maps !).

  These tasks can include : 

  • Account registration 
  • Product demo request 
  • Newsletter sign-up 

  The best website homepage designs organically guide users through a set number of common tasks, one screen at a time. 

  Let’s analyse Sable homepage design. The company offers a no-fee bank account and a credit card product for soon-to-be US transplants. The main task a user has : Decide if they want to try Sable and hopefully open an account with them. 

  

  This mono-purpose page focuses on persuading a prospect that Sable is right for them. 

  The first screen hosts the main CTA with an animated drop-down arrow to keep scrolling. This is likely aimed at first-time visitors that just landed on the page from an online ad or social media post. 

  The second screen serves the main pitch — no-fee, no-hassle access to a US banking account that also helps you build your credit score. 

  The third screen encourages users to learn more about Sable Credit — the flagship product. For the sceptics, the fourth screen offers several more reasons to sign up for the credit product. 

  Then Sable moves on to pitching its second offering — a no-fee debit card with a cashback. Once again, the follow-up screen sweetens the deal by bringing up other perks (higher cashback for popular services like Amazon) and overcoming objections (no SSN required and multi-language support available). 

  The sequence ends with side-by-side product comparison and some extra social proof. 

  In Sable’s case, each homepage screen has a clear purpose and is designed to facilitate one specific user action — account opening. 

  For multi-product companies, the above strategy works great for designing individual landing pages. 

  5. Design Proper Navigation Paths

  All websites have two areas reserved for navigation : 

  • Header menu 
  • Footer menu 

  Designing an effective header menu is more important since it’s the primary tool visitors will use to discover other pages. 

  Your header menu can be :

  • Sticky — always visible as the person keeps scrolling. 
  • Static — e.g., a hidden drop-down menu. 

  If you go for a static header and have a longer homepage layout (e.g., 5+ screens), you also need to add extra navigation elements somewhere mid-page. Or else users might not figure out where to go next and merely bounce off. 

  You can do this by : 

  • Promoting other areas of your website (e.g., sub-category pages) by linking out to them 
  • Adding a carousel of “recent posts”, “recommended reads” and “latest products” 
  • Using buttons and CTAs to direct users towards specific actions (e.g., account registration) or assets (free eBook)

  For instance, cosmetics brand Typology doesn’t have a sticky header on the homepage. Instead, they prompt discovery by promoting different product categories (best sellers, bundles, latest arrivals) and their free skin diagnostic quiz — a great engagement mechanism to retain first time users.

  

  Once the user scrolls down to the bottom of the page, they should have an extra set of navigational options — aka footer links. 

  Again, these help steer the visitor towards discovering more content without scrolling back up to the top of your homepage. 

  Nielsen Norman Group says that people mostly use footers as :

  • A second chance to be convinced — after reading the entire homepage, the user is ready to give your product a go.
    
  • The last resort for hard-to-find content that’s not displayed in global header navigation (e.g., Terms and Conditions or shipping information pages).

  As a rule of thumb, you should designate the following information to the footer : 

  • Utility links (Contact page, Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, etc.) 
  • Secondary-task links (e.g., Career page, Investor Details, Media contacts, etc.) 
  • Brands within the organisation (if you operate several) 
  • Customer engagement link (email newsletters and social media buttons)

  The key is to keep the area compact — not more than one standard user screen resolution of 1280×720. 

  6. Show Users What’s Clickable (Or Not) 

  A homepage invites your site visitors on a journey. But if they don’t know which elements to click, they aren’t going to get anywhere.

  Good homepage design makes it obvious which page elements are clickable, i.e., can take the user to a new page or another segment of the homepage. 

  Here are several must-know homepage design tips for better on-page navigation : 

  • Use colour and underline or bold to highlight clickable words. Alternatively, you can change the browser cursor from a standard arrow into another element (e.g., a larger dot or a pointy finger) to indicate when the cursor hovers over a clickable website area. 
  • Make descriptive button texts that imply what will happen when a user clicks the page. Instead of using abstract and generic button texts like “see more” or “learn more”, try a more vibrant language like “dive in” for clicking through to a spa page. 
  • Use a unified hover area to show how different homepage design elements represent a single path or multiple navigation paths. When multiple items are encapsulated in one visual element (e.g., a box), users may be reluctant to click the image because they aren’t sure if it’s one large hit area leading to a single page or if there are multiple hit areas, leading to different pages. 

  Homepage of BEAUSiTE — a whimsical hotel in the Swiss Alps – embodies all of the above design principles. They change the cursor style whenever you scroll into a hit area, use emotive and creative micro-copy for all button texts and clearly distinguish between different homepage elements.

  

  How to Make Your Homepage Design Even More Impactful ? 

  Website homepage design is roughly 20% of pure design work and 80% of behind-the-scenes research. 

  To design a high-performing homepage you need to have data-backed answers to the following questions : 

  • Who are your primary and secondary target audiences ? 
  • Which tasks (1 to 4) you’d want to help them solve through your homepage ?

  You can get the answers to both questions from your web analytics data by using audience segmentation and page transition (behaviour flow) reports in Matomo. 

  Based on these, you can determine common user journeys and tasks people look to accomplish when visiting your website. Next, you can collect even more data with UBA tools  like heatmaps and user session recordings. Then translated the observed patterns into working homepage design ideas. 

  Improve your homepage design and conversion rates with Matomo. Start your free 21-day trial now ! 

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  Your email address
  

  Your website address
  

  Your Analytics subdomain will be .matomo.cloud (