Should You Use Sliders On Your Homepage?

Sliders are a bad idea. It’s been proven time and time again.

And yet, we often see it when we review our customers’ websites. People come to us still requesting for image sliders to be used on their homepage. But you really shouldn’t. Here’s why.

It muddies up the message of the first impression.

Sliders are often used to quickly show options to make selection easy for users. But it’s counterproductive if you’re going to put it on your homepage.

Because sliders present multiple choices all at once, it can confuse visitors. It distracts them from the main message of your website.

When a visitor first comes to a website, he should be able to quickly understand what the website is all about. So the first thing he should see, without scrolling down, is your main message.

If you have more than one message to show them, pick the core message and highlight that. The rest of the things you want to show users can be done further down the page.

It slows down your site.

Because sliders require Javascript to be pulled whenever the page is loaded, it will slow down your page load speed. A page that loads slow is bad for SEO and increases bounce rates. If no one’s going to stick around to see everything on the slider, then it’s pointless to have it.

People often ignore sliders.

People often ignore sliders anyway because one, they look similar to advertisements. Two, it’s hard for them to focus on moving objects. And three, sliders don’t allow them to read at their own pace. Even choice sliders can result in missed images—in other words, missed opportunities.

There are other ways in making your homepage eye-catching, but without the disadvantages of sliders.