Why You Still Need a Slider Above the Fold
The above-the-fold area of a website, the area that you see first before you start scrolling through a page, is still the most important area to pay close attention to. The elements you place above the fold will affect a lot of things, from the time users spend on your site to how effective a landing page can be in converting visitors into sales.
Placing a slider on the above-the-fold area of your landing page is still considered the best way to go. There are a few reasons why a slider can be highly effective in retaining the audience and converting them into customers.
You Can Display More with a Slider
A slider allows you to display so much more than what the space allows. Instead of just one big banner, you can have five or eight by placing them in a slider. You can also display top articles and even a direct call to action as part of the slider.
More importantly, you are no longer limited to static elements. The best sliders nowadays can display video backgrounds and complex animations just as easily. You can fill the entire slider slots with videos of different themes, as long as the implementation is correct.
Speaking of animations and videos…
Retain More Users by Grabbing Their Attention
As mentioned before, you can place animations and videos as part of the slider. A video background has been increasingly popular this past year. You can work with creative agencies such as Spiel Creative in creating your own whiteboard videos or cool animations that will stop visitors dead in their tracks.
Since sliders are now based on HTML5 and CSS; they are much lighter and can display video and animation more efficiently. Adding these elements will not slow your website down and will instead increase your conversion rate by a large margin.
There is another point to make about not about placing videos as a background for the slider or as part of the slider’s contents: more interactivity. You can animate a button on top of a video background and have a very effective call to action nonetheless.
Direct Users to the Information They Are Looking For
Another great thing you can do with a slider is to add multiple calls to action and direct users to the content they are looking for. If you’re hosting a sale for different product categories, for example, you can display each individual offer and let users visit the correct page by clicking on the call to action on the slider.
A rotating call to action is known to be very effective in catching users’ attention. A 50% discount banner followed by another 50% discount banner for a different product category will certainly get visitors waiting for the next slide to appear. Increasing conversion rate and maintaining a high time-on-site measurement should be very easy to do this way.
Now that you know why a slider is still one of the best elements to add to your page’s above-the-fold area, it is now time to find a suitable slider script and start adding your own content to it. Make sure the site still loads quickly and you are all set.