Finding what to improve on a website means pairing two kinds of data: quantitative analytics that show where a page leaks, and qualitative behavior, heatmaps, session recordings, that shows why visitors leave without converting. Closing that gap turns a guess into a testable hypothesis instead of a redesign based on opinion.
Most teams know roughly which pages matter, the ones with the most traffic, or the ones closest to a sale. The harder question is what to actually change on those pages, the core diagnostic work of conversion optimization. Knowing where people go tells you nothing about what they do once they get there, or why they leave without converting.
Key takeaways
- Quantitative data (analytics) shows which page is losing visitors; qualitative data (heatmaps, recordings) shows why.
- Watch for people not clicking the CTA, abandoning a form out of order, or scrolling past the section you care about.
- Pairing the where with the what turns a guess into a testable hypothesis.
- The why, why people convert or don’t, is the next layer once you have the where and the what.
- This isn’t your next step if you haven’t identified which pages to focus on yet, or if you already have a clear, tested hypothesis and just need to run the experiment.
Is pairing quantitative and qualitative data your actual next step?
This layer only helps once you already know which pages matter and need to know what’s happening on them. Check whether that’s genuinely where you are before diving into heatmaps.
This isn’t your priority yet when:
- You haven’t identified your highest-traffic, most important pages yet, in which case where to start your conversion optimization plan or where your funnel leaks comes first.
- You already have a specific, well-formed hypothesis backed by real behavior data, in which case the honest next step is running the test, not gathering more qualitative evidence to confirm what you already know.
- Your traffic on the page in question is so low that even a qualitative tool won’t collect enough sessions to show a repeatable pattern within a reasonable window, in which case a longer observation period, not a new tool, is the fix.
If none of those describe where you are, keep reading.
Where do you start looking?
Start with the pages that have the most to gain: your highest-traffic pages and the ones tied most directly to a conversion, a purchase, a signup, a lead form. Your analytics tool (Google Analytics or whatever you already run) is good at telling you this. It’s quantitative data: it answers where people are and how many of them drop off. That’s the map. It tells you which rooms are crowded, but not what people are tripping over once they’re inside.
How do you figure out what people are actually doing?
Quantitative data tells you a page is leaking; it won’t tell you why. For that you need qualitative data, a record of real behavior on the page itself. The everyday tools here are heatmaps (where people click and how far they scroll), session recordings (a replay of a real visitor’s path through the page), and form-interaction tracking (which fields people fill, skip, or abandon).
A heatmap shows you whether anyone is even reaching your call to action, or whether they all give up above it. A session recording lets you watch a visitor hesitate, scroll back up, hunt for something they can’t find, and leave. Form tracking shows you the exact field where people stall. Tools like Hotjar bundle these together, but the value is in the behavior they expose, not the brand of the tool, any capable heatmap-and-recording tool gives you the same signal.
What behaviors should you look for?
Watch for three patterns, because each points straight at a fixable problem: people not clicking the call to action, people abandoning a form out of order, and people scrolling past the section you care about.
- People aren’t clicking the call to action (or the links tied to your conversion goal). That’s a sign the action isn’t clear, isn’t compelling, or isn’t where their attention is. It’s a prompt to rethink the copy, the placement, or the offer.
- People aren’t completing a form in a sensible order, jumping around, backtracking, abandoning partway. That usually means the form is too long or asks for something people aren’t ready to give. The fix is often removing fields, not redesigning the page.
- People scroll right past the section you care about. If almost no one reaches it, the problem may be that it’s too far down, not that the content is wrong.
Each of these is an observation, not yet a conclusion. The point isn’t to react to one recording, it’s to spot a pattern across enough of them that you can trust it.
Alt text: Two boxes, quantitative analytics and qualitative heatmaps/recordings, converging into a single testable-hypothesis box.
How does this become a test?
Once you’ve paired the where (this page leaks) with the what (people stall at this specific element), you have the raw material for a hypothesis, the difference between guessing and testing. Write it in three parts so it stays specific enough to actually test:
- Name the element. The exact thing you’d change, a form field, a headline, a CTA button, not “the page” in general.
- Name the observed behavior. The specific pattern from your heatmap, recording, or form data that points at this element as the problem.
- State the expected result. “If I change [element], because [observed behavior], then conversions should improve because [reasoning].”
A hypothesis grounded in real behavior is something you can run an experiment against and actually learn from, whichever way the result lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What if I don’t have enough traffic for a heatmap tool to show a clear pattern?
Give it more time rather than more traffic. Qualitative tools need enough sessions to spot a repeated pattern, not a specific traffic threshold, so a lower-traffic page just needs a longer observation window before a pattern (or the absence of one) becomes trustworthy.
How many session recordings should I watch before I trust a pattern?
There’s no fixed number, watch until the same behavior (hesitation at the same field, scrolling past the same section) shows up repeatedly rather than in just one or two sessions. A pattern that only appears once could be one visitor’s quirk, not a real problem on the page.
Can I skip straight to testing without qualitative data?
You can, but you’re testing a guess instead of a grounded hypothesis. Analytics alone tells you a page leaks, not why; without the qualitative layer, a test is really a hunch about what might be wrong, which is exactly the guessing this two-data-source approach is meant to replace.
The next layer is the why, why people convert or don’t, but the where and the what are what get you to a testable idea in the first place.
Continue based on what you need next
- You haven’t identified which pages to focus on yet: Where to Start Your Conversion Optimization Plan covers page-level prioritization, the step before this one.
- You know which step in your funnel is losing people but not which page: How to Find Where Your Funnel Leaks narrows a funnel-wide problem down to a specific step first.
- You’ve got a hypothesis and want to know why conversion still isn’t moving overall: Why Your Conversion Rates Aren’t Higher covers the third question in this sequence.
- You want the full process this diagnostic sits inside: CRO for Businesses With Traffic: A Plain-Language Guide is the cornerstone guide this page’s method is drawn from.
Alex’s Perspective
The hypotheses that actually hold up under a test are never the ones built on a hunch about what “should” convert better. They’re the ones written after watching real visitors hesitate at the same field or scroll past the same section, over and over, until the pattern is undeniable.
Written by Alex Harris, who runs AlexDesigns’ conversion optimization work directly, pairing analytics with real behavior data before any test gets built, not designing from opinion. Last reviewed 2026-07-18.
If you’ve got the analytics and the recordings but aren’t sure how to turn them into a test worth running, that’s exactly what a conversion review is for. Book a consultation and we’ll take a look.