Now that the internet has been hugely popular for decades, all of us who have spent time online have seen our share of web trends come and go. A new and exciting web element comes along and every web designer jumps at the chance to include it in their projects. Some of these elements were necessary tools of the time that are no longer needed, and some of them just looked flashy and cool at one point, but faded out of existence as the internet moved on.
But there’s one website element that neither looks cool, or serves any usable function…the website banner slider. And it’s still being used ALL. OVER. THE. INTERNET.
Maybe your own website even has a slider, and we’re sorry if it does.
Of course, as web developers, we’ve included plenty of the latest “cutting edge” web elements in our work, but if we don’t see positive results, we get rid of them and stop including them in our projects.
Here’s why you won’t see us using banner sliders on our websites anymore, and why you should get rid of yours:
Your audience has been conditioned to completely ignore them
Let’s face it, sliders look a lot like banner advertisements. After years of exposure to them, most website users have become used to completely ignoring this style of advertisements…and in turn, will likely skip right past your slider. There’s even a term for this: Banner Blindness. Don’t put your most important content in an element your visitors have learned to ignore.
The overload of different information on your sliders is daunting for visitors
We get it. You’ve been told that it’s best to show your visitors the most important information first, so you want to put it all in the first section of your homepage or landing page. While it’s true that you should be displaying your value early in a users’ journey on your website, putting it all in one spot is overwhelming for your audience, and gives them too many competing options before they’ve had a chance to look for what they need.
Most importantly, sliders have horrible click-through rates
The goal of displaying your most important content first is almost always to get users to convert, and banner sliders do the opposite. Studies have demonstrated that an average of 1% of users actually click on slider items, and even that percentage of people mostly clicked on the first item in the slider. Users simply don’t stick around and wait for the slider to play through- they know what they’re looking for, and they’d prefer to find it themselves rather than wait for you to deliver it to them.
If you’re still using a slider on your website, it might be time for a redesign. Contact us today for a free website evaluation!
