No, Your Website Doesn’t Need a Homepage Slider

Big images are all the rage on websites. It’s a trend that’s been going on since the advent of high-speed internet made it possible to load an image-heavy website in seconds instead of minutes. A properly composed, full-width image with concise text is an extremely effective way to communicate your message. So if ONE big photo is good for communicating your message, then does that mean that a slider with three or four big photos will boost your company into sales heaven?

No! We’ve built websites with sliders before, but we stay away from it as much as possible. Here’s why.

1. Too many pictures make your website slow.

The biggest component of most modern pages is the “hero” image. That’s the big, full-width image at the top of the page. A slider usually has three or more images, which effectively triples the amount of data that loads when your user goes to your website. That translates to a slow website.

2. Moving pictures distract from your brand’s message.

We take a lot of care in crafting homepage content, especially the text that goes “above the fold” (at the top of the screen) on your website. This content needs to be focused, clear, and consistent with your company’s message. We don’t want your client to be distracted from that message when the next slide starts fading in.

3. If your content is worth seeing, it should be seen.

Modern users are accustomed to browsing the web on a mobile phone, and they’re accustomed to scrolling. Many users will scroll past a slider before it has a change to advance to the next slide, which means that they’ve missed any content that was on those slides. That’s an issue, because they’ve missed important content. And if it wasn’t important, was it really worth slowing down your homepage to include it?

4. You can’t trust our taste in clothing, but you can trust our taste in websites.

We don’t pretend to be experts in clothing, but we’ve been building websites for over a decade, and we’ve seen a lot of trends come and go. Just as acid-washed jeans bring back memories of 1989, sliders bring back memories of 2010. Your company isn’t looking to move backward, and your website should reflect that.

Do you have a website with a slider that you want to update? Or maybe you’re considering a new website with a slider, and you need someone to talk you off the ledge. Either way, give us a call. We’re the Nashville web design experts. We’ve got over a decade of experience with Kentico and WordPress development, and we’d love to talk about your website project.