Carousel Website Design | SEO Issues
Carousel Webpage
There are numerous ways through which a website can be made extremely appealing and functional. Ironically, there are also numerous ways through which the usability of a website is ruined completely. A skilled website developer is one who possesses in-depth knowledge about both the ways. It has been observed that in the context of the B2B websites (business-to-business websites), the use of a carousel website design, especially on one’s homepage, can ruin the entire functionality. Designing a video and/or image carousel website may not only end up in irritating the target users, but it also ends up in hurting the SEO and usability of a website. In a thorough research about the carousels, it was found out that they prove to be a bad option for B2B websites. By having a glimpse on 30 diverse B2B websites, it was found out that out of those, 18 websites did contain a web page slider. The use of the carousel website design was for three major reasons that included branding, service/product promotion and thought leadership. If you were unaware about the potential damages these multiple image slider website designs, here read on to know about that:
SEO issues from using a Carousel Website Design
1. Alternating Headings – Importance of H1 Tag in SEO
It was being found out that the majority of the sliders were created with the help of HTML5, AJAX and iQuery. In most of the cases, the headings of the sliders were being enfolded in an H1 tag. In accordance with the fundamental SEO practices, there should not be more than one H1 tag/page. Besides that, it should emerge before any other heading tag. The importance of the H1 tag in SEO can not be understated as the H1 tag helps search engines understand what your website and page is all about. When the H1 tag is used in the slider, whenever the slide will change, the H1 tag will also change. Thus, if a page will feature five slides, the number of H1 tags also will become five, consequently diluting the keyword relevance.
2. Usage of Flash
When Flash is not incorporated sensibility in a slide, it can dilute the SEO. Not all search engines are capable of displaying sites that contain Flash within them. Unfortunately, a lot of web developers cannot resist themselves in the matter of integrating flash in a website.
3. Poor Web Page Loading Speed
An attractive page can certainly fetch more visitors, but if the download speed of a website is poor, the drawn visitors will be compelled to close the webpage. It was observed that a lot of B2B websites were featuring full-width carousels. These sliders were loaded with high resolution images. Due to the incorporation of these images, the downloading speeds of websites were hurt badly. Try to do a file download speed test on your website to see how fast your website is performing.
Conclusion
In the context of the usability issues, it was found out that nobody clicks on the carousels. The biggest mistake committed by the web developers proves to be the one wherein a user is required to scroll down below the fold in order to reach the content. Now, when you know how damaging these sliders can prove to be, you should remove them immediately from your site. You should try to provide personalized content. You should also incorporate attractive images in order to enhance the content quality. Overall, by not using a carousel website design and web page slider, this can dramatically increase your website performance score for better SEO.
Want a professional website? Check out WittyCookie’s award-winning website design and development services!