Hotjar is a behavior analytics tool that records how visitors interact with your website: where they click, how far they scroll, where they move their mouse, and what they do on specific pages. Paired with WordPress, it gives you a visual layer of data on top of your quantitative traffic analytics — answering not just how many people visited a page, but what they actually did when they got there.
The most common use case for a WordPress site is diagnosing why a page that gets traffic does not convert. If visitors are not reaching the lead form, scrolling past the call to action, or clicking something that is not a link, Hotjar data reveals it. That diagnostic function makes Hotjar particularly useful for landing pages, service pages, and any page where conversion is the goal.
How to Install Hotjar on WordPress
There are two methods to add Hotjar to WordPress: the official Hotjar WordPress plugin, or installing the Hotjar tracking code manually through Google Tag Manager (GTM). Both work. GTM is generally preferable if you already use it to manage other tags, because it centralizes all tracking in one place and does not require a separate plugin to keep updated.
Method 1: Hotjar WordPress Plugin
- In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins, Add New, and search for “Hotjar.” Install and activate the official Hotjar plugin.
- In the plugin settings, enter your Hotjar Site ID. You find this in your Hotjar account under Settings, Sites and Organizations.
- Save the settings. The Hotjar tracking code is now added to every page on your site.
- Verify installation: go to Hotjar, click Verify Installation, and visit your site. Hotjar will confirm it’s receiving data.
Method 2: Google Tag Manager
- In GTM, create a new tag of type Custom HTML.
- Paste the Hotjar tracking code (available in your Hotjar account under Settings, Tracking Code). It is a JavaScript snippet that wraps in a
<script>tag. - Set the trigger to All Pages.
- Publish the GTM container. Hotjar will begin collecting data on your next site visit.
Hotjar Features Most Useful for WordPress Sites
Heatmaps
Heatmaps aggregate behavior across many sessions into a color-coded visualization of where visitors click (click maps), how far they scroll (scroll maps), and where they move their cursor (move maps). For WordPress sites built for lead generation:
- Scroll maps show what percentage of visitors reach each point on the page. If 60% of visitors drop off before reaching your contact form, the form needs to move up or the page needs to create more reason to scroll.
- Click maps show what visitors are clicking. Dead clicks (clicks on elements that are not links) indicate that visitors expect something to be clickable that is not. A visitor clicking on a service description expecting to learn more — and getting nothing — is a friction point. Click maps surface these.
- Element filtering in Hotjar lets you see the click rate on specific elements as a percentage of total page visitors. Useful for measuring how many visitors actually click the primary call-to-action button vs. how many see the page.
Session Recordings
Session recordings are anonymized video replays of individual visitor sessions: cursor movement, clicks, scrolling, form interactions. Where heatmaps aggregate behavior across all visitors, recordings let you watch what specific visitors did.
Hotjar automatically filters PII (email addresses, passwords, credit card numbers) from recordings by masking input fields. You can configure additional masking for any element containing sensitive data.
Most useful diagnostic use cases for WordPress lead generation sites:
- Recording visitors who reached the form but did not submit — watching what they did at the form (started and abandoned? rage-clicked a field that did not work? scrolled away?)
- Recording visitors on mobile devices to identify mobile UX issues not visible on desktop testing
- Recording visitors on specific pages where conversion is unexpectedly low
Feedback Polls
Hotjar can display on-page polls to a percentage of visitors. A simple single question — “What almost stopped you from reaching out?” on a post-conversion page, or “What are you looking for today?” on a homepage — generates qualitative data that behavioral heatmaps cannot provide. Direct visitor feedback often surfaces objections and confusion that no amount of quantitative data would reveal.
What Hotjar Does Not Tell You
Hotjar answers behavioral questions: what did visitors do on the page? It does not answer source questions: which marketing channel sent this visitor, and did this visitor eventually become a customer?
A visitor who bounced off your landing page without filling the form appears in Hotjar the same as a visitor from any other source. Hotjar does not segment behavior by traffic source by default, though you can use Hotjar’s filtering options to segment recordings by URL parameters (including UTM parameters in the URL) if you maintain consistent UTM tagging across your campaigns.
The complementary tool stack for a WordPress lead generation site: Google Analytics or Plausible for traffic volume and source data, Hotjar for behavioral data on specific pages, and a first-party attribution tool (like Sales Provenance) to capture lead source at form submission and pass it to your CRM. Together, these answer three distinct questions: how much traffic and from where (analytics), what did they do on the page (Hotjar), and which sources produced actual leads and customers (attribution).
Alternatives to Hotjar for WordPress
- Microsoft Clarity (free): Microsoft’s free heatmap and session recording tool. Similar feature set to Hotjar’s basic tier, with no session or data limits. Clarity has a WordPress plugin and GTM integration. The main limitation compared to paid Hotjar plans is fewer advanced filtering options and feedback polls.
- Lucky Orange: heatmaps and session recordings with built-in live chat and conversion funnels. Integrates with common WordPress form plugins. Pricing is similar to Hotjar.
- Crazy Egg: strong heatmap tools with built-in A/B testing for on-page experimentation. Higher price point for the A/B testing tier.
For most WordPress sites starting with behavior analytics, Microsoft Clarity is worth installing first (free, no limits) before deciding whether Hotjar’s additional features (feedback polls, more advanced filtering, user attribute tagging) justify the subscription cost.