We’ve all seen the websites with banners that slide across the top of the home page. They scroll through multiple images to try and draw our attention on all the top reasons to do business with them. Usually, these images are filled with the top USPs or the most important information on the whole site. There just one problem… sliders don’t work. It has been proven over and over again that the harm far exceeds any perceived benefits for your website.
Go ahead, give this quick visual a try to see what we mean! Gather as much information as you can from each slide without clicking backward, or pulling your hair out. After this exercise, you’ll likely understand why we as marketers advise against slider content.
We broke down the top reasons why you should consider replacing the hero slider on your Home page.
1. Low Conversion Rate
On average, less than 1% of users actually click on anything on a home page slider. Of those that actually do click on the slider, nearly 90% of them are clicking on the first slide anyways.
2. “Banner Blindness”
Subconsciously, we have all become accustomed to advertising. Since our world is literally spammed with ads, we have evolved and taught ourselves to tune them out. We literally ignore things that start to look like ads because our brains are already overstimulated. Our eyeballs automatically skip over things that our peripheral vision picked up and interpreted as a potential advertisement.
This has become “banner blindness”, and this is exactly what happens to your sliders. Your revolving content mimics an ad, causing your consumer’s brain to literally ignore that portion of your site. If you’re trying to put your most important content into a slider, your users are going to miss out on your most important information because they think it’s an ad.
3. Poor Page Load Speed & SEO Implications
How fast your website loads is extremely important for user experience. Users do not like to wait. If they have to wait too long, they leave and they don’t come back. So your site needs to be fast to prevent losing out on potential customers and leads.
When you put a slider on your page, you’re loading up a number of very large, high-resolution images that take longer to load. Plus, you’re loading up a bunch of javascript, HTML, and CSS to pull off the animation that moves the sliders along. All of this adds up to slowing down your page and can result in lower conversion rates.
Knowing that sliders can reduce your page load speed, it’s important to note that this can also affect your SEO efforts. Search engines often struggle to read the content on your sliders, so if you’re putting important information in these moving tiles know that search engines could be missing it.
4. Not Mobile Friendly
An estimated 70% of web sessions in 2018 came from mobile devices. And since sliders typically have a hard time displaying properly on mobile devices, you’re potentially alienating 70% of your visitors from important information. Plus, recent updates to Google’s search algorithm takes into account how mobile friendly your website is. If your site doesn’t work properly on mobiles, you will rank lower in search results. Double whammy there.
So What Should You Do Instead of Sliders?
There are many creative alternatives to engage users and maintain SEO best practices without the use of sliders or carousels. We recommend trying these out for your site:
- Static Hero Images
Consider your businesses best unique selling position (what makes you better than your competitors) and feature that messaging and CTA (call-to-action) along with a single static (well optimized) image. This technique performs significantly better than revolving content, which is why we are often drawn to this alternative. The creative is far less distracting, allowing users to actually absorb and respond to your content. Guide users down your funnel using strategic CTA(s) that aren’t lost in revolving content.
- Background Video
For those that fancy a little motion in their header, we utilize (well optimized) background video to tell your story and capture your website visitors. Captivating b-roll coupled with a strong call-to-action will drastically increase conversion rates over sliders.
If you’re struggling with your site and need help strategizing your landing pages, our team of experts are here for you. Let’s chat about making your website convert!
