Homepage Sliders Utilizing Idea is Good or Bad for Website?
- Last Updated On April 26, 2018
- 8 min read
1. Sliders Negatively Impact Conversions
There was a time when sliders were a new trend to follow, and users loved to interact with sliders. Hence, website owners added sliders to their site regardless of its heaviness.
But, now the plugins for sliders have become much more efficient. The space-consuming thing nowadays is not completely the code but partially the image. People have started using high-quality images in the sliders assuming that would increase the number of people clicking on it, but it seems like the thing is going completely upside-down. Nobody bothers to click on the slider as it takes a huge amount of time to load.
Today the ratio of people looking at sliders and looking at Taglines and Headlines have exponentially decreased because of which its popularity has decreased. Few months from today the websites having sliders in it will be considered bad websites.
2. Sliders Are Not Accessible
Accessibility has always been an issue in building websites. Websites should be such that it could be accessible to physically disabled persons such as partially or completely blind person. Now the question arises that how disabled person cannot access the slider.
There are tools through which we can automatically increase the text size and change the font according to comfort. Also, there is various text to speech apps available through which we can literally hear the webpage into multiple languages.
Sliders are not capable of doing any of these things. They are like a dead element which continuously with any permission keeps on moving. At some point in time, it annoys the users and makes them feel less authoritative which is not a good move.
In a good website, the user should be the king of the website and should be able to do whatever they want.
3. Causes Website Slow-Down
If there is a slider on the website, then that would probably be the heaviest slice of code in the entire site. There are many reasons that the code for a website slider is heavy.
The first thing is that most of the sliders contain heavy, high-quality images which occupy a lot of space.
Another reason is that the slider contains animation code in it which is another substantial slice of code. Also, there are various types of animations available in different plug-ins. Heftiness depends on the type of animation that we choose.
And finally, the combination of both of them makes the website as heavy as an anvil. Hence, if we want a simple yet, the useful website is recommended by the experts not to use an image slider at any cost.
4. The Cause Banner Blindness
Banner blindness might be a new word it surely is functioning among users who visit websites. Users avoid looking at things that look like a banner or an advertisement. Sliders nowadays almost look like a banner and hence, are ignored by the users. To avoid this ignorance from the users, it is always better not to use a slider on the first place; yet, if we want to use it, then we need to make sure it is unique and looks different than an advertisement.
5. Multiple Slider CTAs Distracts User
Multiple options have always been confusing users and site visitors. Higher the options lesser the conversion rates. Hence, it is always advised not to provide more than one link or Call-to-Action to the users. If we want to take a user from the paid advertisement services then, in that case, providing only one option will do all good to the conversion rate. The homepage of every website works on the same principle. If a homepage contains footer, a sidebar as well as the navigation bar, then there is a high probability that the user will get confused eventually.
One of the biggest disadvantages with images on the website nowadays is that people don’t care about images as much as they care about the text material such as headlines, taglines, closed captions, etc. these things add more value to the website compared to the images.
6. Sliders Are Not That Important
If there were something you wanted your user to see, as soon as they land on your homepage, you would show them that one thing. Therefore, identify that one is quite difficult that’s why it’s so important to work on your Customer Avatars.
7. Website Sliders Are Sensitive to Hackers
The safety of a slider plug-in depends on the number of times it gets updated. The slider plug-in that WordPress Development Services provides does not get updated frequently. Because of which the vulnerability of the slider code increases and it can get hacked easily.
Although with a regular update this problem can be solved. But, it has got a disadvantage as well. The code gets heavier as it gets an update which can slow the loading speed of the website. Hence, if we want to add a slider regardless of any of its disadvantages, it is recommended to use encrypted images and the latest version of the slider plug-in.
8. First Impression is The Last Impression.
As it was already mentioned in some of the points mentioned above that the slider is like a paperweight which increases the heftiness of the website and causes high loading time. If the user had loaded the website earlier when he had plenty of time, then it’s fine because all the heavy images are cached by the browser. But, if the user is in a hurry and is loading the website for the first time in the browser, then it is going to be an issue because every second past 2 seconds is pretty painful to the user.
If we choose to use low-quality images then it would reduce the loading time but, at the same time, it is also reducing the effectiveness of the slider as a whole. This is the reason why sliders are one of the least recommended things.
9. Sliders Add Nothing but Distraction for Users
The reason why most of the people are willing to add slider is that they don’t know what users want to see or because they don’t know what they want the users to see. That is why the creators add sliders to their website so that users can see all the things that one needs to offer.
The reason why sliders got a disadvantage is that the user can see multiple things which are good at times but also bad because it distracts the user from the main focus of the website. People use sliders because either they don’t have just one thing to show or they don’t know which the thing on which they need to focus on is.
Sometimes to attract clients, it is vital to creating a focal point on the website. Once the focus is lost it becomes complicated to gain attention. Image sliders are always a greater attraction to the visitors because it is the best source for the visitors to gain quick information about the website. But, it can be dangerous at times as users don’t care to visit the full website once they go through the image slider. Visitors might not even visit the product page which is the actual highlight of the website.
Ashish Tiwari
Ashish is an SEO manager at Pixlogix Infotech Pvt. Ltd. With his dedication and learning mindset, he achieved many milestones in the short term. He has a good understanding of business, marketing, and promotion strategies. With 8+ years of experience, he can effectively handle online marketing campaigns for various industries.
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