SEOMURAI Documentation · PRO
Link Heatmap: Visualize Link Prominence Based on Fitts’s Law.
A color-coded overlay visualization of your links by size, position and perceived click probability. At a glance you see which links your users actually notice and which get lost in the layout. See the PRO overview or the documentation overview.
PRO feature. 5 USD per month or 50 USD per year via ExtensionPay.
What the Link Heatmap in SEOMURAI does
Classic link reports treat every link the same: two links to the same URL count as two, regardless of where they sit on the page or how large they are. From the perspective of actual usage, that is not accurate. A 24 pixel footer link is rarely clicked, a large call-to-action in the main content area is clicked often. The Link Heatmap translates this perception into a color-coded visualization.
The foundation is Fitts’s Law, which describes the time needed to reach a target as a function of size and distance. Larger link areas close to the natural focus (top left to the center of the screen) are clicked significantly more often than small link areas at the edge. SEOMURAI calculates a prominence score for each link and colors the link accordingly, from green (very prominent) through yellow to red (barely visible).
When the heatmap is particularly useful
- When evaluating the impact of call-to-action buttons against competing inline links.
- When checking whether your most important internal links are actually placed prominently.
- When preparing A/B tests, to derive hypotheses for meaningful variations.
- When analyzing competitors, to see which link areas the competition prioritizes.
- When auditing footers and sidebars, to identify which links hidden there receive practically no attention.
Step by step
1. Open the Link Heatmap in the Links tab
Switch to Links → Link Heatmap in the SEOMURAI menu. As long as PRO is active, you will see the heatmap controls with a large action button. Without PRO, the lock view appears instead, with a note on how to unlock PRO.
2. Activate the heatmap overlay
Click “Show Heatmap”. SEOMURAI places a semi-transparent color layer over all links on the page. The color scheme is intuitive: green marks very prominent links, yellow moderate visibility, red links with a low expected click probability. The page content itself remains readable, the colors only overlay the link areas.
3. Read the findings in the control panel
Alongside the visualization, the SEOMURAI control panel shows an evaluation with the most notable findings: which important links received an unexpectedly low score, which unimportant links attract a disproportionate amount of attention, plus a distribution statistic across all prominence levels. If you want, click a finding to jump directly to the corresponding link on the page.
4. Derive layout hypotheses
The visualization leads to concrete layout hypotheses. If an important call-to-action should turn greener, position and size are the most direct levers. If several prominent links compete with each other, prioritizing them pays off. Implement your assumptions in the CMS and compare the heatmap after a reload.
5. Hide the heatmap again
Use the “Hide Heatmap” button or close the extension, and the overlay disappears completely. No traces are left on the page, the DOM remains untouched.
Frequently asked questions
Tips and frequently asked questions
Does the heatmap measure real click data?
No. The heatmap is based on Fitts’s Law, which derives the expected click probability from size and position. Real click data requires a tracking tool such as Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity. The strength of the SEOMURAI heatmap is that it works without tracking, without waiting time and on any page you like, including third-party pages.
Does the heatmap also work on long, scrolling pages?
Yes. The score is calculated for all links on the page, not only for the visible area. As you scroll, the colors follow the respective link areas. On very long pages the initial calculation can take a moment, after that it runs without delay.
Can I use the heatmap on competitor pages as well?
Yes. Since the analysis runs locally in your browser, it works on any page you can load. No sign-in and no domain registration is required. Competitive analysis with the heatmap is one of the most common use cases.
Is the analysis suitable for mobile layouts?
The heatmap works with the current viewport. If you resize the browser window to a mobile width or activate the mobile mode of the developer tools, SEOMURAI calculates the prominence for exactly that rendering. This lets you directly compare how your layout performs in desktop and mobile view.
Does the heatmap change my page permanently?
No. The overlay sits in an isolated layer above the page, the actual page code remains unchanged. When you close or hide it, the overlay disappears without residue, and refreshing the page immediately restores the original state.
More PRO modules and documentation
- PRO overview: all modules, pricing, activation
- Sitemap Explorer: crawl XML sitemaps and extract URL lists
- SEOMURAI Chatbot: chat interface with page context
- LLM SEO Team: specialized AI assistants
- Webhook Workflows: n8n, Zapier and Make
- AI Presets: pre-configured setups for four AI providers
- Markdown Export: entire pages as AI-optimized Markdown
- Back to the documentation overview (Free)
Unlock the Link Heatmap with PRO?
Install SEOMURAI and activate PRO directly in the settings. The heatmap is available to you immediately on every page.