The success of your business depends on your website – it has to convey a clear message to the customer and persuade him to stay.
Sliders – also known as carousels are the most popular right now. However, research has shown that they can seriously damage your engagement with your audience and obstruct traffic to your site. In this article, we will discuss the main reasons why sliders don’t work.
They are similar to banner ads
Their size, position, and the way they continuously change make them similar to banner ads – resulting in most people not paying attention to them. That is because they are tired of coming across so many ads on all the sites, so they decide to completely ignore them.
They are hiding important information inside the slideshow
People are used to scrolling so even if they are paying attention to them, they will see what the first slide is about and move on. In the best scenario, they will click on it, overlooking the message on the other ones.
Their constant auto-rotation can be distracting
Users need to be in control of what they are doing. The constant auto-rotation of the sliders can be distracting and may result in annoying them. The time of rotation is also a problem. Moving too fast results in the impossibility of reading them, moving too slow will make users think that there are no other sliders beyond the ones that they have seen.
They cause problems with SEO
SEO is as important for banners as it is for the website. You need to make sure that the SEO is on point – otherwise, Google will downgrade your website in the ranking list. The problem is that the text within the slider’s picture can’t be recognized by Google. The multiple H1s in the sliders are also problematic and confusing for Google.
Not suitable for mobile
Most people are using their phones to browse and shop online, so making sure that the mobile experience is great is your top priority. The problem is that sliders don’t function well on smaller devices. To make them work, you need to reduce the picture’s size – resulting in the text and call-to-actions being hard to read.
Is the hero image the solution?
The answer is YES. A hero image is a single banner with a clear message and call to action. By using it, your conversion rate will surely improve.
Users will focus on the message that you want to convey and will get directed to take the action you want them to.
What are the benefits of using hero images? If we were to list a few, these would be:
- A better experience for mobile users
- Easier SEO optimization – you will rank higher in the ranking list, with no timing issues
- Faster page loading times
- Fewer banners to worry about / less work for your marketing department
A hero image will serve you better so we recommend ditching the sliders without delay.