Recently Google implemented a change in its search algorithm by introducing the mobile experience of a site as a factor in rank calculation. It means, now you need to become serious about making your site mobile-friendly to avoid loosing your search rank. You may have questions like what type of elements play an important role in making a mobile-friendly site. Does having a slider or slideshow or carousel on your site have a negative impact on SEO? To find out the answer, we picked some keywords and a few websites which are having sliders on its page including our own site. And found that if you have got website optimisation done to your website using a qualified SEO company like MashOn, and are having a responsive, mobile-friendly slider on your website and your site passed the Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, you do not need to worry at all.
#1 – Sliders on page didn’t affect the Search ranking
We picked one of the SliderVilla slider Roster Slider which is a responsive WordPress slider popular with the keyword horizontal carousel, and compared the search ranking before and after mobile-friendly algorithm implementation by Google. We were worried about the result but found that there is no change in the ranking of the page. Of course, the page passed Google Mobile-Friendly test. So the result is as we kept the slider demo on the homepage of the slider and it didn’t change our search engine ranking for the keyword ‘Best Horizontal Carousel‘.
Roster Slider page itself is running Roster Slider demo and passed Google Mobile-friendly test.
#2 – E-commerce sites love sliders and carousels
Most of the e-commerce sites use sliders and carousels to utilize the screen real estate effectively. We tested the most popular e-commerce portal Amazon and found that it is having multiple carousel on its homepage. Of course the page passed Google Mobile-Friendly Test and I am sure the SEO or marketing team of Amazon must have looked into the details. The verification of a passed test for Amazon is going to generate more leads, and if you’re any regular developer and are finding yourself on Sir Linksalot a lot, then your eyes are on the same target: to generate more leads. Amazon’s homepage is having as much as 5 different carousels on the homepage.
So if giants like Amazon are using sliders on their pages, I don’t think one should worry about having one. The only things is that the slider should be responsive so that your site will pass the mobile-friendly test by Google.
Responsiveness – An Important Factor for Good and Bad Slider
A slider should be responsive or should have an option to disable on mobile devices as it matters for the mobile-friendly algorithm of Google. All SliderVilla sliders are responsive in design looks great on all devices. It means if you open the same slider on desktop, it will cover the assigned area but if opened on mobile devices, it will adjust to the small area and still look good over there.
Browse SliderVilla sliders to have responsive and mobile-friendly sliders on your WordPress sites.
We are very excited to announce that in next few days, all our slider plugins for WordPress will be auto update ready. We have already started rolling out automatic update feature for few plugins like Pointelle Slider and Roster Slider.
What does Auto Update Ready mean?
As of now Roster v1.7.1 and Pointelle v1.7.1 are auto update ready which means, from next update onwards, you can use the default auto update feature of WordPress to update these SliderVilla Sliders. For example, when we will release the version 1.7.2 for Roster, you will see auto update notification on Plugins dashboard or on update page. The only requirement is that you must need to enter the License Key (explained later in this article) for purchased Roster Slider.
It is very important to keep the latest version of installed WordPress plugins. Till now only manual update option was available for SliderVilla WordPress plugins where you needed to upload the slider plugin folder to overwrite the existing folder at wp-content/plugins, but now you can use one-click auto update option as well.
License Key
To enable the auto update for SliderVilla sliders, you need to enter a License Key on Slider’s settings page. You can get the License Key of purchased sliders from “My Downloads” page. Here is the step by step guide to enable auto update feature.
Our plan is to make all sliders auto update ready by end of this week. You can check the changelog of purchased slider plugin to know if that is auto update ready. I would request to update the slider plugins to their latest version so that from next update, you can enjoy the auto update feature of our plugins.
‘Multiple Settings‘ feature is available in all SliderVilla slider plugins to create new settings set and have multiple sliders with different parameters. Using this feature, one can have so many sliders on one site with different settings and customizations. It is a general practice that first we install and use the plugin on test site and then move the plugin to live site and copy the customizations from test site to live site. To make life easier, we have introduced Export and Import settings set of SliderVilla plugins. It allows you to export the customized settings from one site to other with single click. First export the settings and download the exported file and then import that file on other site where slider plugin is active. Once imported, the new setting value will be populated with the new values from imported file.
Here is the step by step process to execute the export and import settings in SliderVilla slider plugins.
Export Setting
1. Open the settings page of the slider plugin. In this example, I am performing the export and import on Pinwheel Slider WordPress plugin.
2. Select the setting set that you want to export. For example, I want to export the Setting Set 3, I opened the Settings Set 3 page.
3. Click on the ‘Export’ button available on top-right side of the settings page. Download the .csv file and save it on your local computer.
Import Setting
If you want to copy the setting set to a new domain, the Pinwheel Slider plugin should be installed and active over there.
4. Go to the settings page of the Pinwheel Slider WordPress plugin. Choose whether you want to import the new settings in an existing settings set Or in a new set. In case of new set, you need to create a new setting set on the setting page. Now open the new settings set page.
5. Click on the ‘Import’ button available on the top-right side of the settings page Or scroll-down the page to bottom.
6. Upload the .csv file that you saved earlier in step 3. Click on ‘Import’ button available over there.
Once the import is completed, you will see new values in the settings set fields. Now you can embed the slider using that setting set (read more about using the settings set parameter in the shortcode).
Currently we have introduced the export and import settings feature in Pinwheel v1.2.1 and Flashcard Slider v1.2 WordPress plugin. Gradually, we will add this feature in other sliders as well. Keep yourself updated by subscribing to our newsletter.
SliderVilla slider plugins are feature rich and capable of showing WordPress posts, pages, media gallery images and videos inside the slider. But as WordPress provides custom taxonomy and post types inside the platform for different purposes, we are introducing Add-ons for SliderVilla plugins to have slider of those data types.
Say you want to have a slider of a particular WordPress Tag or a custom taxonomy, you just need to activate Taxonomy add-on which will allow to paste the related shortcode. Add-ons are like an extension for SliderVilla sliders which add value to the slider plugin itself. For example, you want to have a Pointelle slider with posts under a specific WordPress tag, say “Technology”, you just download the Taxonomy add-on and activate that. Now you need to paste the shortcode or template tag mentioned on the “Add-on Usages section” to get “Technology” tag specific posts inside Pointelle Slider.
Note – You need to have Pointelle as well as Taxonomy Add-on activated on your site to have this feature.
Similarly, we have also released another add-on named Post Attachments which enables you to have a slider of image gallery to a post or page (i.e. WordPress Image Gallery of a post) inside a blog post, page or homepage or anywhere on your WordPress site.
Why Add-ons?
You must be thinking that why do we need to install a separate plugin to get this feature and why not it comes with the slider plugin itself, right? Our slider plugins are easy to install and run and doesn’t involve much coding experience to add a slider on any theme template. They are having features to include posts, pages, images and videos etc. which are commonly used in WordPress. They are also capable to show category taxonomy inside the slider without any add-on. But if will keep adding other data fetching capability inside the slider itself, it will increase the plugin size as well as will make the slider installation a bit confusing for normal users. That’s why we came up with add-ons which allow to add extra features in all slider plugins as per requirement.
Check the list of compatible SliderVilla sliders on add-ons page before purchasing the same. Add-ons work only with compatible SliderVilla Slider Plugins. We will release upgrades for all SliderVilla plugins in next few days to make them compatible with our add-ons. Kindly let us know your feedback/inputs or add-on idea to make SliderVilla the perfect place for WordPress Sliders.
We are committed to provide the best possible support to our users. Until date, we were providing the installation and customization support only through email communications, but now onward, you can follow our new Support Forum as well and raise questions or post suggestions over there too. Forum is one of the best ways to get solutions from relevant community and support team. Here you can get answers to your queries or provide answer to other SliderVilla users who are facing trouble somewhere in the process or you can post your suggestions and let others discuss the same. This well-organized platform will provide an opportunity for us to come up with more stylish and feature rich WordPress Slider Plugins in the future.
SliderVilla Support Forums login access is only available for users who purchased any plugin from us. Everyone can browse the forum and see what others have posted, but to ask a query or discuss something, you need to login. We will provide the login details to our users within the next few hours of the purchase. We are trying to send the login details to our old users as well. If you have already purchased a slider plugin from SliderVilla, then can contact us to get the access details for support forum.
We hope that the new automated test tools will help our users as well as us in building better relationship.
P.S. Support Forum is an addition in providing help and support. We always welcome your emails and that medium will remain as active as it was until now. Take this Support Forum as an additional tool rather than only tool to get helped.
