In this case study, it is outlined how RealEye's eye-tracking technology enabled Ida, a freelance therapist, to optimize her website and increase client interactions.
Ida is a professional in the field of psychology, based in Turkey. After completing her education, she embarked on a career as a freelance online therapist. Her mission is to help people using a tough love approach, integrating various therapeutic techniques. Currently, Ida is focusing on developing her digital presence, aiming to attract a younger audience that is more inclined to seek therapy online. Additionally, having attended a UK-based university, Ida hopes her digital presence will also appeal to English-speaking clients. To achieve this, she is concentrating her efforts on Instagram and her website.
Ida found that her website was not yielding the desired results. Although her website attracted some traffic, visitors were not engaging with the contact form via the call-to-action (CTA) button. This was a critical issue, as the contact form is essential for Ida to determine whether potential clients are a good fit for her services through targeted questions. Bump rates were also high, indicating a need for optimising the website to increase leads.
Recognizing the need for expert assistance, Ida enlisted the help of her friend, Irene Centenaro, a freelance neuromarketer. Irene utilized RealEye.io to diagnose the reasons behind the website’s poor lead generation. RealEye.io’s technology was particularly suited for this task, as it enabled to identify issues with critical areas of the website, as well as assessing its overall usability.
RealEye.io’s technology was used to test the content, identifying issues that could lead to potential bounce rates from prospects. In particular, eye-tracking was used to pinpoint problems with key AOIs, elements such as the language change option, the contact button, and the readability of important information like therapy approaches and unique selling points (USPs). These areas are crucial as they determine the website's success. The eye-tracking results uncovered the scanning patterns of the page, providing valuable insights into optimization opportunities.
Viewers first noted the image, then moved their attention to the name and title, and finally to the CTA. However, this did not happen in a linear fashion. The average revisit time showed that people returned to view the image more than twice, suggesting it was too distracting and diverted attention from other elements that could potentially prompt decisions to engage Ida’s services. The image also had a high dwell time of almost two seconds while other key elements went unnoticed such as the unique selling points’s area, which was not seen at all (0% ratio). The heatmap indicated these were given very little attention, likely due to poor color contrast and small font size, making them effectively invisible. The proximity to a distracting element such as the image, further decreased visibility. This poses a significant risk, as these should be one of the most immediate cues into Ida’s services, encouraging readers to read more, yet they were completely overlooked.
Critically, the language change button was ignored (0 views). This could create a language barrier and deter potential clients, likely because the button’s contrast was too low. Another visibility issue involved the button CTA, which was seen by only 36% of visitors, with a time-to-first-fixation (TTFF) of 1.8 seconds and a fixation time of just 0.45 seconds. A low fixation time, combined with a long TTFF and low ratio, indicates that the CTA was not engaging and visible enough, and other elements were distracting attention from it.
In contrast, other areas and pages, particularly after the top section of the page page, showed better usability and reveal normal reading patterns. For example, viewers were appropriately engaged by the "About Me" section, and therapy approaches, which is crucial for a service as personal as Ida’s.
These insights suggest that while the lower sections of the landing page are effectively positioned and engaging, the top part of the page fails to guide visitors towards the desired behavior—the CTA click. Crucial strategic elements that could persuade visitors to engage are not optimally placed. Thanks to RealEye.io and its eye-tracking technology, Irene was able to pinpoint the issues leading to potential clients abandoning the website, thereby missing business opportunities.
With these findings, Ida can now make informed adjustments to enhance her website's effectiveness and achieve her goal of generating leads.
