ARE CAROUSELS BAD FOR SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION?
The dreaded carousel is the bane of SEO specialists. They aren't necessarily bad, but they frequently don't function as intended. Even then, they frequently create more issues than they resolve. We'll talk about carousels in this article and why they're such a problem for both users and search engines.
WHAT ARE CAROUSELS?
A rotating collection of pictures, links, and text known as a carousel is designed for mobile use. The intended method of use is to swipe through the texts or images.
Carousels are frequently used to advertise goods and services. In this instance, they would include images of the products and links to their product pages on e-commerce websites like Amazon or eBay. They may also be created with a specific objective in mind, such as displaying to clients the services that your business provides.
With a touch-screen device, such as an iPhone or Android phone, carousels are designed to be used. They can also be modified for use on non-mobile-friendly websites.
There are many uses and circumstances for carousels. They may be created to advertise an online store, highlight the goods and services offered, or provide details on a particular subject. Carousels are most frequently used on websites that have been made to work well on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
ARE CAROUSELS ACCESSIBLE?
Several things about your carousel can make your website less accessible, such as:
1. You can't scroll through carousels. This means that users of screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, or other tools like voice recognition software cannot use them.
2. Mobile devices cannot use carousels. When a user uses their phone to access your website and tries to scroll through a carousel, they are simply spun around in circles with no way to escape.
3. SEO is harmed by carousels. They can lower your site's ranking because Google dislikes them. If you use a carousel on your site, it's likely that a significant portion of users will never scroll past the first slide because carousels don't work well on mobile devices.
SEO: DO CAROUSELS WORK?
Carousels are ultimately bad for search engines. They can be confusing for users as well, especially when stacked on top of one another. They're not very effective at getting visitors to convert or even just act on your website.
Therefore, think twice the next time you consider including a carousel on your website. Perhaps it would be wiser to utilize that area for something else.
Additionally, carousels can confuse users and hurt SEO. They are frequently used when the page has plenty of content to offer or even when there would be space on the page if the carousel itself weren't present.
Carousels frequently resemble a jumble of disorganized images because they are notoriously difficult to design well. Make sure it's designed in a way that makes sense and doesn't take away from your content if you're going to use one.
SEO: ALTERNATIVES TO CAROUSELS
There are several alternatives if using a carousel is not possible or desirable. Creating a single product page for each item in your store is the most popular substitute. Although it might seem like a simple solution, using this approach can be just as challenging as using a carousel. This might be your best choice if you have hundreds of products and want them all on one page.
Creating individual pages for each product would take up too much space on your website and significantly lengthen the time it takes for customers to find what they're looking for, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid by using carousels in the first place if you have dozens or even hundreds of products available at any given time.
An attribute-based comparison table is another option. These tables are similar to those in Amazon's product listings, where customers can filter results by brand or price range to see only the matches that are important to them at once.
The issue is that these tables are less user-friendly, less aesthetically pleasing, and less convenient to use than carousels. Last but not least, if you choose to keep your product list on a single page but add a filter at the top to allow users to select products by category or brand type, you've essentially just created an attribute-based comparison table.
Making a carousel that shows the most pertinent products first is the best solution. Then, you can link this carousel to a product page with more information so that customers can read more about each item and then decide whether or not to buy it after gathering all the necessary data.
CAROUSELS AREN'T THE WORST FOR SEO
Although they are not inherently bad, carousels frequently fail to function as intended. Different types of content, including images, videos, and other types, can be displayed using carousels. Some CMSs do not support the carousel feature.Only a few themes come with this feature pre-installed, and if you want to add it yourself, you might need to buy a plugin.
Content producers can display multiple slides simultaneously within a single module by using carousel modules. An attribute-based table might be the best option if you're trying to sell clothing or accessories in a variety of designs and price ranges. Google's Panda update penalizes websites that lack quality content or care little for the content's quality because if it doesn't meet certain requirements, those websites will appear at the bottom of search results pages.
Product comparison tables are often the best way for eCommerce sites to make their products stand out from the competition. This is because they let users filter by price and brand.
This can be especially useful if your website sells a wide variety of goods, from low-cost necessities like T-shirts and jeans to high-end couture gowns or accessories that cost more than the average person would spend on their entire wardrobe in a single year.
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So are carousels detrimental to SEO? Yes and no, I suppose. Depending on how you employ them, They can be very helpful if you have a lot of content that is worth showcasing. However, using a carousel is probably not going to be very helpful if your main objective is to rank higher on Google.