How to Integrate a React SPA with Hotjar Heatmap Tracking
In today’s constantly evolving online landscape, understanding user behaviour on your website is crucial for improving user experience, driving engagement, and ultimately boosting conversion rates. One popular method for gaining insights into user behaviour is employing heatmap tracking tools, such as Hotjar. In this article, we’ll explore how to seamlessly integrate Hotjar heatmap tracking into your React single-page application (SPA).
Understanding Hotjar and React SPA
Before diving into the integration process, let’s quickly shed some light on Hotjar and React SPAs.
Hotjar is a powerful web analytics and user feedback tool that tracks user interactions on websites, displaying them as heatmaps. This visual representation helps website owners and developers identify popular areas, navigation bottlenecks, and UX/UI issues that need attention. Hotjar also provides additional user experience analysis tools, such as session recordings, conversion funnels, and surveys.
React SPA stands for a React-driven single-page application. SPAs dynamically load content without requiring a full page refresh, providing a seamless user experience. React is a popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces, making it an excellent choice for developing SPAs.
Why Integrate Hotjar with React SPA?
Integrating Hotjar with your React SPA offers several benefits, including:
- Enhanced Insights – Gain a deeper understanding of how users interact with your dynamic React components and identify areas for improvement.
- Optimization Opportunities – Discover real-time optimization opportunities and adjust your SPA to better accommodate user needs.
- Improved Usability – Identify and fix usability issues, such as poor navigation or broken links, leading to increased user satisfaction and conversion rates.
- Data-driven Decisions – Leverage data from Heatmap tracking to make informed decisions about UI/UX enhancements and updated content strategies.
Now that we’re familiar with the advantages, let’s dive into the step-by-step integration process.
Step 1: Sign Up for Hotjar and Create a New Site
The first step in integrating Hotjar heatmap tracking into your React SPA is signing up for a Hotjar account. Navigate to Hotjar’s website and sign up for a free or paid plan based on your needs.
Once you’ve signed up, log in to your account and create a new site by entering your website’s URL. Hotjar will then generate a unique tracking code for your site.
Step 2: Install the Hotjar React Package
To simplify the integration process, we’ll use the react-hotjar
package. Open your terminal and navigate to your React SPA project directory. Install the package using the following command:
npm install react-hotjar
Or, if you prefer using Yarn:
yarn add react-hotjar
Step 3: Configure the Hotjar Tracking Code in Your App
In your React SPA project, locate the main entry point (usually index.js
or index.jsx
). Import the hotjar
object from the react-hotjar
package and initialize it with the Hotjar tracking code provided in step 1.
Replace the placeholder with the Site ID provided by Hotjar, and
6
with the actual code version (usually found within the tracking code). Your implementation should look similar to the example below:
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { hotjar } from 'react-hotjar';
import App from './App';
// Initialize Hotjar tracking
hotjar.initialize(, 6);
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
Now, Hotjar will start tracking user interactions with your React SPA.
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Step 4: Manually Trigger Virtual Pageviews for Accurate Heatmaps
SPAs don’t trigger default pageviews as traditional websites do since content is loaded dynamically. To ensure Hotjar heatmap tracking works correctly, we need to manually send virtual pageview events when users navigate within the SPA.
To do this, first, install the history
package, which enables listening to navigation events:
npm install history
or
yarn add history
Next, create a history
instance and import it into your app’s router:
// history.js
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';
const history = createBrowserHistory();
export default history;
Now, update your router configuration (App.js
or similar) to use the custom history
instance:
import React from 'react';
import { Router, Route, Switch } from 'react-router-dom';
import history from './history';
import HomePage from './HomePage';
import AboutPage from './AboutPage';
const App = () => (
<Router history={history}>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" component={HomePage} />
<Route path="/about" component={AboutPage} />
</Switch>
</Router>
);
export default App;
Finally, listen to navigation events in your main entry point (index.js
or index.jsx
), and trigger virtual pageviews using the hotjar.virtualPageView()
method:
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { hotjar } from 'react-hotjar';
import App from './App';
import history from './history';
// Initialize Hotjar tracking
hotjar.initialize(, 6);
// Listen to navigation events and trigger virtual pageviews
history.listen((location) => {
hotjar.virtualPageView(location.pathname);
});
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));
This will ensure accurate heatmap tracking and representation within your React SPA.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you’ve successfully integrated Hotjar heatmap tracking into your React SPA! With these insights, you’ll be better equipped to make data-driven decisions and optimize your application for enhanced user experience and conversion rates.
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