What is a Dead Click?

When your visitor clicks, it does not lead to any action, it does nothing, it does not interact back with you. Those clicks by your visitors are called "dead clicks."

Dead clicks are one of the user frustration signals.

Dead clicks are similar to error clicks and rage clicks.

The metrics on dead clicks will indicate whether you need to take a specific action towards maintaining your website.

Website design has the best chance of making your visitors buy the product. But broken elements, errors, and dead buttons will make leads lose trust in your product and your brand itself.

Dead click metrics are more important to get a good impression of your website from your visitor. This may help you build trust.

Examples of dead clicks

Dead clicks can happen when your website visitors have clicked:

• The background of your site
• Not working buttons
• Error links
• Not working icons
• Non-interactive graphs and charts
• Logos
• Broken links
• Texts
• Image

What do dead click metrics show?

1. How many times has a visitor clicked

Every time your visitor clicks and your website does not react back, web analytics takes a count and provides you with a detailed picture of the metrics of all the dead clicks by all your visitors.

2. Where visitors click

Web analytics metrics also show all the parts of your website wherever your visitors have clicked so far.

3. Noticeable or ignoring one

Clicking on the text or backgrounds can be ignored because there is nothing to worry about. Visitors would have clicked without knowledge. But some must be noticeable, like buttons and icons.

How to avoid dead clicks

• Make sure you use a user-tested design for your website.
• All the pages have proper and short links.
• You did not add any broken links.
• Check if you did not use any image or chart that looks like a call to action.
• Check your elements if they are broken in the interface.
• 3D charts lead to interaction, if your charts are non-interactive then make sure it is in 2D format.
• Reduce shadows in your interface unless it is interactive.
• Make sure all your buttons and links are pointing to the right action.

There are many other user frustration signals just like the thrashed cursor.

• Rage clicks
• Error clicks
• Thrashed cursor