One of the things that makes websites attract new clients to your business is having visuals that are compelling. And one way you can accomplish this is with an “Image Slider”
Image Slider
An image slider typically shows one big image at a time with a little snippet of text, each linked to a page or a post. The images get automatically or manually advanced, allowing you to click on whichever image that piqued your interest to go to a linked post/page to read more. (Sometimes they are called ‘carrousels’.)
Watch this short 4 min video see how this works, and watch some images sliders in action:
Watching the video, you can see how image sliders captures your attention and makes you want to click on the pictures, doesn’t it?
Here are some examples of the websites I showed in the video above who are my students in the Website Creation Workshop using an image slider on their WordPress sites:
Women’s Wisdom
www.womenswisdom.net
Practical Astrologie
www.PracticalAstrologie.com
Tova’s Garden
www.TovasGarden.com
A slider helps your site look lively, and also allows you to maximize the use of the limited real estate. Quite a few WordPress themes come with their own image sliders built into the theme. This theme I am using on my blog (The Divi Theme*) has a slider on the homepage that cycles through different featured blog posts. If your theme does not have a slider, you can of course find lots of free slider plugins inside WordPress. Many developers believe that it’s better to use a slider plugin vs. a slider in the theme. I say use whatever is easiest for you!
Here are some of the most popular slider plugins:
- Ultimate Responsive Image Slider (https://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-responsive-image-slider/)
- Meta Slider (https://wordpress.org/plugins/ml-slider/)
- Soliloquy Lite (https://wordpress.org/plugins/soliloquy-lite/)
You may also be interested in this other article and video I did on a quick overview of a WordPress “Image Gallery”. Some people prefer image galleries over image sliders. It all depends upon how you want to display the images on your site.
A word of caution about using a slider on your site… Some say a slider can hurt your website conversions because people get mesmerized by them and don’t focus on your words. Many web developers HATE sliders, but many business owners LOVE them. You choose, it’s your website you are building! Here is funny website that argues against having a slider/carousel on your website. And here is a great article from Yost on this topic.
Just like anything else, make sure to do your due diligence to weigh out the pros and cons and choose what is right for YOU!
*Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. And if clicked and purchased, we may receive a small compensation for the recommendation.
Hi Christina, thank you for your helpful tips on sliders. Could you tell me what theme Tova’s Garden is using?
Yes she is using the free pinboard theme! You can find it at wordpress.org
Very helpful info. I have a WordPress.com site. Can I have a slider added?
I don’t teach wordpress.com. you will have to look there. I teach the self hosted version. But I’m sure that it’s possible