How far do your visitors scroll?
With etracker Analytics, this question can be answered easily. Scroll tracking is automatically activated in all etracker editions and can be analysed as a scroll map in the context of your web pages.
Usually, the proportion of visitors who have seen a section of the website decreases with page depth. However, it is not unusual if not 100% of the visitors are assigned to the top section or if the proportion is even comparatively higher in the section below. For one thing, this is because some visitors scroll down very quickly, i.e. before the tracking code has been fully loaded. For another, visitors can also reach lower sections of the page directly by means of jump marks. Both can certainly be a good sign, because it means that the first impression directly invites further interaction.
The scrolling behaviour does not generally indicate how successful a page is, but depends very much on the type of page or the goal of the page. If, for example, all relevant information and the order button are directly visible on product detail pages, a low scroll rate is nothing negative. If many visitors scroll all the way to the bottom, this can even be an indication that they are not finding the information they are looking for. With blog posts, on the other hand, a low scroll rate indicates that the content is not interesting enough or is too long.
Various design elements can help to promote scrolling:
- In the case of long articles, provide a table of contents with jump marks to the individual sections.
- Arrows pointing to further content.
- Avoid bars or white areas at the bottom of the visible area that suggest the end of the page.
If only a small percentage of visitors even look at the content below a certain mark, one should not put too much effort into updating the content in this section and, if necessary, even remove it from the page. If, on the other hand, important content and calls-to-action such as trust-building seals or newsletter sign-up options are unintentionally hidden there, these elements should better be moved further up into the much-viewed areas.
One thing is certain, however: regular analysis of scroll data is worthwhile in order to draw appropriate conclusions for page and content design and thus increase engagement and conversions.