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Posted on Jul 29, 2022
It’s not a secret that we come across hundreds of image carousels and sliders on a daily basis and most of the time we find them quite cool. People use them for the likability factor and many believe that it's a great way to convey their brand message in the very home page. Here’s an astonishing fact! According to the conversion optimization (CRO) experts, image carousels and sliders don’t boost conversions, but tarnish the conversions.
It’s human nature to feel comfortable when we have the control in something that we deal with. But in the carousel, the images may rotate in every few seconds that bombards the user control. Nevertheless, we have to act quite fast to interact with the sliders before it disappears which kind of forces us into unplanned interactions. This can be really frustrating and therefore many of us simply ignore them because sometimes it’s too much to deal with.
It’s the nature of the primates to react quickly to the movements rather than any other thing in the background just as we do with the image carousels and sliders. ‘Oh, yeah that’s exactly what I want,’ you may argue. I also will agree with you if there’s no other content in the web page. What about all the other important data and the unique value proposition that you’re going to highlight using them? Yes, your visitors may ignore all such absolutely important data if the image carousel is everything they pay attention about.
Digital marketing is all about getting the visitors to take actions. However the worst thing that can bombard Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is giving your visitors too many options to make them indecisive. Yes, this is what exactly happens with the carousels and sliders. They scatter the user’s focus and too many options or information in the carousel will bounce their attention away.
For a quite long period of time, the web users have been bombarded with banner advertisements. As a result, they are quite confronted by the carousels and sliders thinking that they are nothing more than just a banner. So there’s a high tendency that we may ignore them at the first glance. So what is the use of adding all your strengths to the carousels if no one’s going to bother about it?
Take a look at vancutsem website guilty as charged! (https://www.vancutsem.be/en/).
In the vancutsem website, the sliders zoom in, zoom out and move into frame. Indeed, it’s quite a lot to focus. And the frames move quite fast with all these effects. Do you think it’s a great move towards Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?
As stated earlier, we grow interest towards things that we have control over. You can simply embed arrows that advance to the next slide on click. Or, you can embed ‘dot’ navigation to give the visitors the chance to scroll through images whenever they want. Such activities put the visitors in control and it definitely acts better than the automated carousels towards Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). Also, if you can focus on one major thing in each slide, it will amplify the result.
Take a look at Aeron Blaise’s website (https://creatureartteacher.com/).
Aeron’s art works have been showcased as a portfolio giving the users the full control to move on to the next slide using arrows and dots both. This way the users have enough time to admire his art works and it indeed works great towards Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)!
