Carousels are the best!

The idea behind scrolling banners is that you can fill an important bit of website real estate with a large amount of information. The problem it, they don't work!

Stop wasting important space

The top of your homepage is without a doubt one of the most important spaces on your website. You need something to catch the users' attention. A lot of people think that carousels do this - but they're wrong.

Conversion rates are dreadful

Only 1% of the users interacted with the slider, and of that 1%, more than three quarters only clicked on the first slide. So users don't really click on the carousel, and when they do, they only really click on the first slide.

Listen to the experts

You have seen one on your favourite website. You thought it looks cool. I thought it looked cool. Well, sometime cool isn't what you need. You don't want Mr T doing your bookkeeping, do you? It's best to listen to the data, and the people that gather the data. Here are a few marketing experts ideas on the carousel:

We have tested rotating offers many times and have found it to be a poor way of presenting home page content.

• Chris Goward, Wider Funnel

Rotating banners are absolutely evil and should be removed immediately.

• Tim Ash, Site Tuners

Almost all of the testing I’ve managed has proven content delivered via carousels to be missed by users. Few interact with them and many comment that they look like adverts and so we’ve witnessed the banner blindness concept in full effect. In terms of space saving and content promotion a lot of competing messages get delivered in a single position that can lead to focus being lost.

• Adam Fellows

So what should we do instead?

Focus on your primary offer.

It could be a sale on an online shop, an offer on development packages or a pet name generator - whatever you want the user to do, tell them! Create an impressive hero shot instead - and don't forget a call to action.

You can read more on my blog - mctweb.co.uk