At Pubcon 2014 in Las Vegas my colleagues John Rampton (Editor-at-large) and Loren Baker (SEJ Founder) had the opportunity to interview two experts about how to optimize pages for usability and conversions.
Paul Ryazanov of Promodo is doing some cutting edge things with heat mapping and eye tracking, which he discusses in detail. Stoney deGeyter literally wrote the book on “The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!”
Introduction
Lauren:
Hi, this is Lauren Baker with Search Engine Journal here at Pubcon with Paul Rezanov from Promodo. Nice to meet you.
Paul:
Nice meeting you.
Lauren:
I hear that you’re doing a lot with heat mapping and eye tracking. Could you explain how that works?
Paul:
Yes, absolutely. In general, I’m very passionate about conversion rate optimization and A/B testing. I focus on creating landing pages that convert better.
Eye tracking and heat mapping are major parts of my research process. We use them to analyze whether a landing page will perform well even before we launch it.
Tools for Heat Mapping and Eye Tracking
Lauren:
What tools are you using to do that analysis?
Paul:
We use multiple tools. One of them is Yandex Metrica.
What’s really useful about it is that it shows click behavior and how users interact with the page. It also records a video of every single visit, which allows us to watch exactly how people navigate through a website.
Another tool we use for eye tracking is iON. With that, we can make assumptions about distractions on a page and understand why users might not notice a specific call-to-action or link.
Understanding User Behavior on Landing Pages
Lauren:
So you’re basically able to track user behavior as they scroll down the page, see where they look, what they hover over, and whether they click where they should be clicking?
Paul:
Yes, exactly.
By analyzing how users interact with the page — where their attention goes and what elements they ignore — we can identify issues in the design and improve the layout for better conversions.
Design Trends That Improve Conversions
Lauren:
What trends are you seeing right now when it comes to distractions or obstacles that prevent conversions?
Paul:
One of the biggest trends we’ve seen over the past six months is that users prefer a minimalistic design.
Landing pages that perform well tend to have:
When we compare long forms with short forms, short forms usually convert better.
One of the main reasons is the growth of mobile traffic. Because more users browse on mobile devices, landing pages and forms must be responsive and easy to complete on smaller screens.
The Impact of Mobile Traffic
Lauren:
That makes sense, especially if you’re seeing mobile traffic at 30%, 50%, or even 60%. It’s hard to ignore mobile optimization.
Paul:
Exactly. That’s why landing pages and forms need to be mobile-friendly and responsive. If they’re not, users will simply leave before completing the conversion.
Moving Away from Email Marketing
Lauren:
Do you track conversions for things like email newsletter signups or similar actions on the page?
Paul:
To be honest, in the past six months, we’ve actually been moving away from email marketing.
Open rates have been dropping steadily, so we’re encouraging our clients to focus more on social engagement and content sharing.
Instead of sending large volumes of emails to inboxes, we’re focusing more on creating natural engagement through social content and community interaction.
Because of that shift, email signup conversions aren’t something we track heavily anymore.
Working With Ecommerce vs. B2B Clients
Lauren:
Are most of your clients in ecommerce, lead generation, or other industries?
Paul:
We really enjoy working with retail and ecommerce clients.
They’re often the most successful projects because we can offer multiple services — optimization, CRO, analytics — and clearly measure the increase in revenue when our strategies work.
For B2B companies, we usually focus on designing landing pages for Google Ads campaigns. In those cases, we track improvements in lead generation.
Why Yandex Metrica Is an Underrated Analytics Tool
Lauren:
Interestingly, you mentioned Yandex. Most people talk about tools like Crazy Egg, ClickTale, or Google Analytics. Is Yandex Metrica really that powerful?
Paul:
Yes, it’s actually a very robust tool.
Crazy Egg is good, but I find it a bit limited when you don’t have a lot of traffic or when you need to track very specific behavior patterns.
With Yandex Metrica, businesses can use it for free, and it also allows you to segment audiences by demographics like gender.
This means you can analyze how different audiences navigate your website and interact with specific elements.
Why Session Recordings Help Identify Conversion Problems
Lauren:
That’s really interesting. Looking at heat maps based on demographics or personas sounds like a powerful way to analyze user behavior.
Paul:
Yes, exactly. That’s one of the most useful aspects of the tool.
The session recording feature allows you to watch how users interact with a page in real time. You can see where they struggle, where they abandon the process, and why they fail to complete a conversion.
When clients watch these recordings themselves, it often convinces them to invest more in analytics and conversion optimization.
