Read Rate / Heatmap
Measure how far readers get, heading by heading, and pinpoint where they drop off
Isolating body-copy problems, not ranking problems
Under the "Read Rate / Heatmap" tab in "Sorabun > Measure / Analyze," Sorabun records how far into an article readers get (Pro).
Is the ranking the problem, or is the body copy the problem? The fix for each is completely different. If you're ranking well but not being read, what needs fixing isn't the title or heading structure. It's the body text. This feature exists to separate the two with numbers.
Viewing by heading
The reach rate for each H2 and H3 is listed in the order they appear in the article. Wherever the rate drops sharply from the previous heading is where readers left.
- Headings where the rate drops by 20 points or more are shown in red
- The "percentage that reached the last heading" is shown first
- Scroll reach rate is shown in 10% increments
Total time on page alone won't tell you what's wrong. Looking heading by heading lets you pinpoint the one spot to fix.
Click overlay
Areas with a lot of clicks are shown overlaid directly on the live article. You don't need to take a screenshot.
Mobile and desktop are tallied separately, since mixing layouts that differ would make positions that don't actually exist appear to be hot spots.
Before you start measuring
Measurement is off by default. Turn it on only for the articles you want to investigate.
- Measurement stops automatically once it reaches a set number of samples (500 by default)
- For high-traffic sites, you can choose the sampling rate (every visit / 1 in 2 / 1 in 10)
If you rewrite a heading after measurement has started, the numbering shifts. Sorabun detects the change and lets you know, so clear the recorded data and start over.
Only headings inside the body text are counted. Article titles output by your theme and headings in the comment section are never included.
Impact on page speed
Slowing down the article for the sake of measurement would defeat the purpose, so Sorabun does the following.
- Loads no external files
- Makes no network requests while the page is loading. Data is sent exactly once, when the reader leaves the page
- On click, it only records the coordinates and defers the position calculation for later
- Scroll and heading tracking is left to the browser's own mechanisms
What gets saved
Only the position and device type are saved. No information that could identify the visitor, such as an IP address, is saved.
Views by users with editing permissions and visits from search-engine bots are not counted (so your own views don't mix into the data).