Smart Slider 3 does not limit you this way. While we do have templates you can choose from, that’s only for inspiration. You’re not limited to predefined layouts. You can make your product slider look any way you want to. This is the true way to create unlimited number of product sliders!

Create a WooCommerce product slider using Smart Slider 3

WooCommerce is considered to be the ultimate e-commerce solution for WordPress. The best part is that it’s completely free, and it’s as easy to use as to create a post. But of course, its products and their details can be created with WooCommerce. The products can also have various attributes, like size, or color. And it can be important to display this information on your product slider to help with the sales.

When it comes to enhancing your WooCommerce-powered online store’s appearance and functionality, you might also explore the world of the best WooCommerce WordPress themes. These themes offer a variety of design and feature options to make your online store stand out. While there are many product slider plugins available, some may lack customization options. However, with Smart Slider 3, you have the freedom to create your own unique product slider layouts.

Smart Slider 3 is a flexible WooCommerce product slider. You can select the categories and tags your products come from and set the amount of them. For example, your product slider might have 10 slides, or 20. Need to create a slider from certain products? Enter their ID or SKU and the slider will generate the product slides for you. The WooCommerce slider can display many details about your product. For instance, the product’s name, description, image and much more.

It’s up to you what information you would like to show in the product slider. You might choose to display only the product image and title with a “read more” text. This way your slider will be less crowded and visitor can check out all the details when they choose to do so. And the best part is that the layers can have a nice layer animation. These features make Smart Slider 3 the best WooCommerce product slider plugin available.

What makes a great product slider?

A product slider highlights the best goods the web shop offers in a clean and modern way. As for today’s trends, a product slider must be responsive. This means that the font size has to be big enough to make it legible on any device. If your mobile visitors have troubles with the product slider, they get frustrated. They leave the site and you lose customers and income. If you use Smart Slider 3, you don’t have to worry about this. Your product slider will be responsive and look nice.

When you create a product slider, you probably look for the Carousel or the Showcase look. These sliders show many smaller product slides together. This creates a nice layout and has a great responsive behavior. They work in a very similar way, and the main difference is how they behave in a responsive scenario. The WordPress Carousel shows the slides in the same size and shows more or less depending on the available space. The Showcase shows the same amount of slides in every responsive scenario. This means that the visitor sees, for example, four slides on both desktop and mobile.

Use layers to display the details of the product

When you create a product slider, it’s important to show specific details of the product. Smart Slider 3 has 16 layers to help you create the best product slider layout you would like to. The image layer might display the featured image of the product. But if you have many images, you can add more image layers, which show their image in a lightbox. This way the visitor can enjoy the product images in the highest possible size.

The best layer to show the name of the product is the heading layer. For the product description, the text layer is the best choice as you might make it shorter on mobile. You can create buttons to direct the visitor to the product or category page, where they can read all details.

5 Beautiful product slider examples

Do you want to create a product slider for your site, but have no clue where to start? I have great news for you! I’ve collected 5 beautiful product slider examples for inspiration.

1. Full Width Product Carousel

Live PreviewThe Full Width Product Carousel is a modern slider that helps showcase your products. In fact, it brings cool ideas such as adding a matching color background to the product. Additionally, it has place for special slides in the carousel. For example, a discount and a prompt to subscribe to newsletter. Thanks to the carousel layout, visitors can view more slides at a time.

2. Boxed Product Slider

Live PreviewThis template helps visitors focus on a single product, as it only displays one at a time. This gives enough space to display a large product image. As a result, visitors can inspect the product in great detail. Additionally, a slider like this allows writing long, specific description about it.

3. Top 5 Products

Live PreviewYou don’t see a full page product slider too often on websites. For this reason, creating a full page slider to display your products can be a good idea and help you stand out. The Top 5 Products template also has modern animations and cool navigation. Additionally, you can add plenty of description about your product.

4. Product Slider

Live PreviewIf you’re looking for a slider that focuses more on the product’s image, have a look at this one. While it does have textual content, it’s just a few lines. As a result, most part of the image is visible without any interruption.

5. Winery

Live PreviewThis template is based on the Showcase slider type. What makes it special is that it shows more slides together. However, it always keeps the focus on the middle slide, as it’s larger than the others.

The post Do you Need a Product Slider for your Webshop? Yes, you do! appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/9-inspiring-wordpress-carousel-examples/ Mon, 06 Sep 2021 12:06:47 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=41986 There are many ways to call slider-like elements. You’ve probably heard the most common names by now: slider, carousel, slideshow and showcase. Many people simply call everything “slider”, that looks like a slider. Some distinguish sliders based on how they look. For instance, they call the element that displays one slide, one image at a […]

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]]> There are many ways to call slider-like elements. You’ve probably heard the most common names by now: slider, carousel, slideshow and showcase. Many people simply call everything “slider”, that looks like a slider. Some distinguish sliders based on how they look. For instance, they call the element that displays one slide, one image at a time a slider. They call those sliders that display more slides next to each other, a carousel or a showcase. In this article we’re focusing on the carousel, which displays more slides at once. I’ve also collected some beautiful WordPress carousel examples for you to check out.

What is a WordPress Carousel?

A WordPress carousel refers to the carousels which are created in WordPress. Generally, people use a plugin to create them. In fact, there are many plugins you can use to create a slider or carousel. More importantly, there are many free options you can choose.

Choosing a free slider plugin for your site is not easy. Make sure you pick the one that has: many active installs, good rating and good support. The Free version of Smart Slider has more than 800.000 active installations and 4.9 of 5 rating on WordPress.org. Additionally, even the free version is well supported. Although it’s worth noting to create the WordPress carousel examples you’ll see below, you need Smart Slider Pro.

Why do people use WordPress carousels?

Carousels, regardless of what they’re called, save space. They also help make the visitors’ life easier. For example, by saving them the effort and time they’d have to spend scrolling. Additionally, carousels make it easy to compare similar elements, such as two products.

What’s more, carousels let you be creative. They help you create visually stunning designs to amaze your visitors. So, web developers, designers and clients like them. However, just like any element, carousels should be used with a purpose. There are many purposes for people to create carousels to display various kinds of content. Some of the most common types are:

• Image Carousel. Displays images with, or without caption.
• Post Carousel. Displays latest, most popular or selected list of articles.
• Product Carousel. Displays products, typically from WooCommerce to showcase them and to increase sales.
• Logo Carousel. Displays the logo of sponsors or companies the author has worked with.

9 Inspiring WordPress Carousel Examples

Do you want to create a cool WordPress Carousel to enrich your site, but don’t know where to start? I’ve got great news for you. I’ve collected 9 beautiful WordPress carousel examples you can create for your website. Let’s check them out!

1. Full Width Product Carousel

Live Preview

Generally, every slide in a product slider looks the same, only their content differs. In other words, they have the same colors, and their content is in the same order. If you want to stand out of the crowd you can mix different looking slides into your slider. For example, if you have more product categories, you can create a slider that shows 3 items from each. Then between them you can add a slide, that’s not about the product. For example, it can be a slide that prompts the visitor to check out the other products in the category. Or, use it to advertise a current or upcoming discount.

2. Product Carousel

Live Preview

The Product Carousel template looks modern as it uses pastel colors. It features a product image, and another one on mouse enter. Below the product image, visitors can see the name, category and price of the product. As it’s a full width slider, it’s perfect for using it as your shop’s hero.

3. Testimonial Carousel

Live Preview

Displaying customer testimonials is important for any business. Customers want to make sure they choose the best product, service and company to work with. So, they like to know how satisfied others are with your product or services. A carousel is a great way to display the testimonials, as it allows organizing them.

4. Post Slider Carousel

Live Preview

This carousel offers you a cool way to showcase your latest posts. You can use it to display the featured image, title, publication date, author and tags of your blog posts.

5. Boxed Product Carousel

Live Preview

Another cool carousel to display your products in a modern way. Product sliders typically display a picture of the product. This doesn’t only give a visual clue about the item, but also helps raise attention. When you create a product slider, make sure you also display the name, category and price of the product.

6. Logo Carousel

Live Preview

Most visitors can recognize the logos of large companies. This makes it easy for them to see the big name clients your company worked with. Seeing these logos gives reassurance: if a well-known brand works with you, you’re doing a good job. So, they’ll want to do business with you, too. So logo sliders and testimonials can be used for similar purposes.

7. Post Carousel

Live Preview

There are many ways to create a post carousel. You can use its featured image as a background and place its details on top. But you can also put the image above, below or next to the textual content. As a result, the visitors can view the images uninterruptedly. For example, on this carousel, the category, title, excerpt and read more button are on the left. The image itself is on the right side.

8. Squarespace carousel

Live Preview

What makes Squarespace’s carousel interesting is its animation. It’s like there’s a box moving around, that covers different parts of the images. The movement grabs the attention of any visitor and they’ll stop to check it out. It makes the whole carousel look unique and creative which visitors will appreciate.

9. Playersroom carousel

Live Preview

Playersroom is another example of a carousel that looks cool because of its effects. If you open the site and look at the carousel, it doesn’t seem special. But if you move your mouse over an image, it displays a text which describes what product you see. It’s a cool way of making the carousel interactive.

Conclusion

Don’t be afraid to use a carousel on your site! Carousels, and any other type of sliders are great design elements and will enrich your site. Additionally, they save space, look great and make your site more interesting to your visitors. Let these cool WordPress Carousel examples inspire you to create something awesome!

The post 9 Inspiring WordPress Carousel Examples appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/slider-types/ Sun, 17 May 2020 06:38:56 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=20556 You can find a slider on almost any kind of website. Either you love them or hate them, sliders are incredibly versatile design elements. As a result, web designers use them for various design tasks. In order to make a slider easier to fit into a website, there are many types of sliders available. In […]

The post What Do You Need to Know About Slider Types? appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> You can find a slider on almost any kind of website. Either you love them or hate them, sliders are incredibly versatile design elements. As a result, web designers use them for various design tasks. In order to make a slider easier to fit into a website, there are many types of sliders available. In this article we’re going to explore all there is to know about slider types.

What is a slider type?

The slider type determines the look and feel of a slider. For instance, it decides how many slides to you see together. For example, the common slider types display one slide at a time. The slider type can also control the responsive behavior of the slider.

What kind of slider types are there?

The most common slider type is the “simple” kind of slider. This slider shows one slide at a time for the visitor to view. This helps them focus on the message, one at a time, which makes this type perfect for headers or galleries. As a matter of fact, you can use this simple slider for any purpose.

The other common type is the carousel-like slider. This slider presents many slides for the visitor. As a result, each slide gets a limited space, but the visitor can browse through the slider faster. People often use such carousels for showing off products or blog posts.

What kind of slider types can you find in Smart Slider 3?

Smart Slider 3 is the most versatile slider solution for WordPress and Joomla. It’s packed with amazing features to fit everyone’s needs. With Smart Slider 3, you can create gorgeous sliders for your website. You can also use the popular design effects like parallax or Ken Burns. What’s even more, there are many different slider types to let you pick the best one for your specific needs.

The following slider types are available in Smart Slider 3:

• Simple (available in the Free version as well)
• Block (available in the Free version as well)
• Carousel
• Showcase

Simple type

Smart Slider 3’s Simple slider type looks exactly the same way as the commonly known sliders. It shows one slide at a time, so it doesn’t distract the visitor. People usually use these sliders in large size or full width size. This gives enough space for creating a slider with lots of white space.

Default responsive behavior

The Simple slider type’s responsive behavior is easy to understand. As the screen gets smaller, the slider gets smaller as well keeping the original ratio.

However, when you use Content mode, this behavior can change. Content mode can increase the height of the whole slider based on the tallest slide. So if you have at least one slide which needs lots of vertical space, that will make the other slides taller as well.

When should you use the Simple slider type?

Simple slider type is one of the most versatile slider types. It suits for any kind of sliders you can possibly create. You can use this type to create a gorgeous header slider or a full page video block. A Simple slider makes a good post and product slider as well.

Carousel type

The Carousel type lets you show many slides next to one another. As a result, you can have lots of pieces of content to occupy a single space. The visitor can switch all visible slides at a time, which lets them browse fast. If you don’t have enough slides, this can result orphan slides.

But if you would rather want them to explore your slider side by side, that’s possible as well. What’s even better that you can change the behavior with a flick of a button. With the Single Switch setting, you can avoid orphan slides in your slider.

🎓 This slider type is available in the Pro version of Smart Slider 3 only.

Default responsive behavior

The Carousel slider type displays as many slides next to one another as many can fit into the slider. It doesn’t resize the slides, as long as the last slide can’t fit anymore. For instance, you configure the carousel slider type to show 470px slides. The slides will keep this size, and the slider will rather display fewer slides. The slides are not resized until the only visible slide can fit anymore. In other words, the slide won’t resize until the slider gets smaller than 470px.

Most useful features of the Carousel Slider type

The Carousel slider type has many awesome features to fine-tune the result. Here’s some of the best options you have to customize the slider.

• Maximum pane width. You can use this setting to set the maximum number of slides for big screens. For instance, if your set it to 1200px, your slides won’t be able to take up more than the middle 1200px area of the slider. As a result, your full width slider can cover the whole browser width, but the slides will remain in the middle.
• Minimum slide distance. It’s not always pleasant to see the slide sides touching each other. This feature lets you set a minimum distance between the slides.
• Single switch. The single switch is useful to avoid orphan slides at the end of the slideshow.

Best usage of the Carousel slider type

Not sure how to make the most out of your Carousel slider? Here are 5 amazing usage examples for your website.

• Post slider: Due to the nature of carousels, they make excellent post sliders. A single slide doesn’t take up much space, but still allows the visitor to learn more about the post.
• Product slider: Showing a couple of products next to one another is a common practice on ecommerce sites. A product slider allows the visitor to quickly browse the products in a visually pleasing way.
• Testimonial slider: Testimonials are essential for any online business. A testimonial carousel helps you display them in a modern way.
• Thumbnail gallery: The size and resolution of an image matters for photographers. As a matter of fact, good quality photos which photographers need are often heavy and take a long time to load. With a small thumbnail gallery you can speed up your site, because you don’t need to load the big images with the page. Then using the lightbox feature you can let your visitor enlarge the picture and enjoy it in full detail.
• Logo slider: Companies that use your product or service can help to build trust in your future customers. After all, if a service is good enough for Google or Amazon, it’s surely good enough for them, right?

Showcase type

Like the Carousel, the Showcase lets you display many slides next to one another. However, there’s a major difference between their behavior. The Showcase type makes the visitors focus on one slide which is in the middle. You can make the rest of the slide semi-transparent or smaller to help direct the visitor’s focus. Unlike Carousel sliders, they can have a fixed distance between the slides.

Default responsive behavior

The Showcase slider type’s default responsive behavior is quite simple. You’ll see the same amount of slides on different screens, regardless of the screen size. For example, on desktop you see the active slide and half of the next and previous slides. If you switch to mobile, you’ll see that many slides as well. However, you might see less of the next and previous slides.

What are the best usages of a Showcase slider?

With a showcase type slider, you can make your visitor focus on one slide while letting them see others. As a result, you can promote your posts or products without distracting them. Showcase sliders are also great for an image gallery.

Super cool features to make your Showcase slider more unique

The Showcase type has a bunch of cool animation settings. Let’s see some of the best ones you can use to make your slider stand out of the crowd.

• Direction. By default the Showcase type has horizontal orientation. But you can change that with a flick of a button. However, it’s also worth changing the slider and slide size settings for the best result.
• Opacity. Showcase sliders make the visitors focus on the middle slide. To make this slide stand out even more, you can make the other slides semi-transparent. If you would like to have a darkened/lightened shade, set a background color for the slider.
• Scale. Scaling is another great way to let your visitor know which is the slide they should interact with. For instance, you can make the slides on the left and right smaller, which directs the focus towards the one in the middle.
• Slide distance. If you use the Showcase slider type, you can make the slides have a fixed distance. As a result, you can create a nice spacing between your slides.

Block type

With Smart Slider 3 you can create more than just what people usually think of when they hear the word “slider”. A slider contains a set of slides which can move automatically or on user demand. A block, on the other hand, has one single slide. As a result, it loads faster than the other slider types while letting you use Smart Slider 3’s awesome features.

When it comes to the responsive behavior, the Block type acts as the Simple type. It gets smaller as the screen gets smaller, and the Content mode can also increase its height.

Best usage of the Block sliders

Block sliders make amazing headers. They’re lightweight and load fast, but they let you create awesome effects. You can also add shape dividers to them and use them to break your page’s layout with a cool effect.

Final thoughts

Slider types help you control the look and behavior of your slider. Finding the best slider type can be essential to define the purpose of your slider. What’s even more, the type of your slider can also play a huge role to enhance the user experience.

The post What Do You Need to Know About Slider Types? appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/wordpress-logo-slider/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 12:00:56 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=15351 Thinking about adding a WordPress logo slider to your site? If there’s one thing successful businesses have in common, it’s the use of customer logos on their sites. Logos inspire trust in your brand. Essentially, you’re saying to potential customers, “trust us because they these guys did!” With your own WordPress logo slider, you can […]

The post How to Create a Stunning WordPress Logo Slider appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> Thinking about adding a WordPress logo slider to your site? If there’s one thing successful businesses have in common, it’s the use of customer logos on their sites. Logos inspire trust in your brand. Essentially, you’re saying to potential customers, “trust us because they these guys did!”

With your own WordPress logo slider, you can easily showcase client, customer, sponsor, or partner logos on your site. In this post, we’ll take a look at what WordPress logo sliders are, the benefits you can expect when you add one to your site, and how to get started creating one with Smart Slider 3.

What is a WordPress Logo Slider?

A WordPress logo slider, also known as a logo carousel, lets you display logos on your site. This makes it easy for customers to see what brands are you associated with your business. For example, WP Engine uses a logo slider to display some of the big name customers it works with:

WordPress logo sliders are one of the best ways to display logos because you can:

• Display as many logos as you want. Whether you have two or 20 logos, you can display them all with a logo slider since space isn’t a concern.
• Display logos responsively. With a logo slider, you can keep your logos organized and ensure your design looks great on any device.
• Set manual or auto-scroll. You can set your WordPress logo slider to scroll automatically (like the WP Engine example above), or let your visitors advance through logos manually using arrows, dots, or swipes.
• Control other settings. There are many other design and configuration settings you can control, including the size of your logo slider, any animations, responsive design, and navigation.

Why Use a WordPress Logo Slider?

There’s one simple reason why so many brands display logos on their site: logos inspire trust and credibility in your business.

Logos offer quick visual brand recognition. When skeptical visitors see well-known logos on your site, their guard comes down. It’s like walking into a party and seeing someone you know — you immediately think, “Okay, these people are cool!”

Often, logos will impress your customers — and the bigger the businesses, the better. If you’ve worked with Google or Apple, why wouldn’t you want to tell potential customers about it?

Best Practice Tips for Using a WordPress Logo Slider

Before you dive into creating a WordPress logo slider, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Choose a Prominent Location

Place your logo slider somewhere where people are going to see it — your homepage, product/services pages, and About page are ideal.

2. Manual vs Auto-Scroll

Do you want visitors to manually advance through your logos using left/right arrows, dots underneath the slider, or swiping on mobile? Or do you want the logos to scroll automatically?

3. Ask for Permission

Ask for permission before using logos on your business site. Not only is it polite, but it’ll save you from getting a nasty letter from a lawyer later on.

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Choosing a WordPress Logo Slider Plugin

There are some key features you’ll want to look out for when choosing a WordPress logo slider plugin:

• Ease of use. Choose a solution that is intuitive and lets you quickly design your logo slider and insert it into your site.
• Size. Check that you can control the size of your logo slider. You want to make sure that it can easily fit into the layout of your site.
• Responsive design. Choose a solution that is responsive and allows you to control how your logo slider displays on tablet and mobile devices.
• Auto-scroll. Check that you can set the auto-scroll speed.
• Navigation. Look for a solution that lets you configure the navigation, whether you want to display left/right arrows that visitors click, or simple dots below the slider.
• Number of logos. How many logos can you include? Make sure the solution you use can handle the number of logos you want to display.
• Design. There are lots of WordPress logo slider plugins available that can help you create a basic slider but have limited functionality. For more features and control, Smart Slider 3 can help you create a WordPress logo in minutes.

Creating a WordPress Logo Slider with Smart Slider 3

In Smart Slider 3 Pro the Carousel slider type is the best choice to create a logo slider. In a WordPress carousel you can show more slides next to each other at the same time. And what is even cooler? You can create a logo slider easily and now I will show you how you can build the Logo Carousel template.

1. Plan

Planning is the most important part of the slider design process. You should plan for example where you would like to put your slider, or how big it should be. In a logo carousel you should calculate a bit. There are 3 main points: the slider size, the slide size and the maximum pane width. The slider size will be 1200px width and 350px height. This is the base size of your carousel, but the responsive mode will define how big your slider will be. In this template there is the auto responsive mode used, so the logo slider can be as big as the container it’s in.

Now you can decide how big the maximum pane should be, at this slider it is 1200px. It gives the maximum width of how far your slides can go within the carousel. The last thing you should plan how many slides you want within a slider at the same time. In this logo slider you can see 4 slides next to each other. 1200px/4 = 300px, but in this logo slider there is a little space between the slides, so the slide size will be a little smaller: 270x160px.

2. Create a new slider and choose the Carousel type

After you’ve planned the sizes, you can create your slider. First you should click on the New slider button, and you can choose the Carousel slide type. With this slider type you can create a logo slider the easiest way. Here you can add your Slider size, but you can change it later too.

3. Add a new slide

Now that you have a slider, you can create your first slide. In the logo carousel each slide has the same layout with a 1 Row 1 Col structure, where there is a simple image layer, the logo. The column gets 2px white border and 5px border radius, and a hover background color which makes a good impact.

4. Carousel slider type settings

After you’ve created the first slide, you can see the Slider settings, and at the General tab you will see the Carousel type settings too. Here you can add the Slider size, the Slide size and the Maximum pane width as I‘ve written above. Also you can upload a slider background image. This image will be below the slides, so when you navigate between the slides, this background gives you a static impression. Since the slides and the logos are white, this background gives a nice contrast too which the slides will be more visible. Finally you can set a slider autoplay interval to your slider, and the carousel will automatically move after the given time.

5. Use your first slide as a layout

You are almost ready with your logo slider. Now what you can do is that you duplicate your first slide, and use it as a template. The only thing what you should change is the image.

And that’s all, your logo slider is ready now. It wasn’t difficult, right?

Wrapping Up

Don’t hide who you’ve worked with. Inspire your customers with a WordPress logo slider. Because the more businesses that can vouch for your company and help potential customers feel confident working with you, the better!

Hopefully, this guide has helped you learn more about logo sliders. If you have any questions about how to create a logo sliders with Smart Slider 3, leave a comment below!

The post How to Create a Stunning WordPress Logo Slider appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> https://smartslider3.com/blog/wordpress-carousel-slider/ Thu, 13 Dec 2018 09:00:49 +0000 https://smartslider3.com/?post_type=blog&p=13483 Though hotly contested by many web designers in the past, many websites feature carousels or sliders in their design. A WordPress carousel slider is essentially a filmstrip of several images you can scroll through. Websites make use of this element because it allows multiple pieces of content to occupy a single space. What is a […]

The post All You Need To Know About Carousel Slider Type appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

]]> Though hotly contested by many web designers in the past, many websites feature carousels or sliders in their design. A WordPress carousel slider is essentially a filmstrip of several images you can scroll through. Websites make use of this element because it allows multiple pieces of content to occupy a single space.

What is a WordPress Carousel?

Many people confuse the words “carousel” and “slider” because they both display images in a slideshow format while offering some form of control either through arrows or thumbnail navigation. However, they differ in some aspects. When using sliders you can see only one slide but with carousels you can show more slides next to each other at the same time.

The Best Uses for WordPress Carousels

Carousels find their greatest use in websites that rely heavily on visuals, such as ecommerce, news and photography websites. In general, use WordPress carousels to:

• Save time, space and clicks
• Make messaging clear
• Organize a bulk of related content on a website

Many WordPress carousels offer a number of bells and whistles to customize according to your preferences. Make sure to follow these best practices so that you’re not tempted to let shiny objects get in the way of usability.

1. WooCommerce product Carousel

WordPress carousels are useful when there is a need to compare things, such as products or offers. For example, WooCommerce sites incorporate carousels in the recommendation section of a product page, so that users are shown a selection of related products without having to leave the page. Product carousel lets you alter the way your product is displayed to the user.

Carousels can also be incorporated in showing off detailed product shots. Doing so improves usability by providing shoppers with access to additional perspective shots to help make a purchasing decision.

2. Testimonial Carousel

Some websites even have testimonial carousels that act as social proof. A testimonial carousel shows the testimonials, reviews, and feedbacks from a customer in a beautiful, modern and responsive way.

3. Logo Carousel

It is very trending now to create a logo carousel. With this carousel type you can show your sponsors, partners or clients.

4. Post Carousel

Blogs with several visual content assets, also use sliders to show off featured or new post. This is the best, if your carousel refreshes automatically if you upload a new post.

5. Event Carousel

If your site focuses on events, carousel can be a good way to feature them. This WordPress carousel can draw the visitors’ attention to your event. And if you put a button on your carousel, you can take the reader to an action, for example book the event.

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How to Setup an Image Carousel for WordPress

There are several plugins you can use to set up an image carousel for WordPress, but one of the best plugins to use is Smart Slider 3 Pro.

Apart from allowing you to create sliders, it also has tools that allow you to create slides for Vimeo and YouTube. As an added bonus, you can use it to create slides from WordPress posts. In general, it provides a number of customization options to achieve your desired look and feel without sacrificing the user experience or technical necessities for SEO.

Installation and basic configuration of the Smart Slider 3 plugin into your WordPress website after purchasing or downloading takes less than 2 minutes. There are three ways to setup the plugin.

Most important settings of a Carousel

Slider size: This is the base size of your carousel, but the responsive mode will define how big your slider will be on your site.
Slide size: The width and height of the slides within the slider. This is a fixed size until you resize your slider to a lower size than the size of your slide.
Maximum pane width: This value defines the maximum width of how far your slides can go within the slider.
Minimum slide distance: You can set here the minimum gap between the slides. This value is calculated from the difference between the slider size and the visible slides, the rest place is the slide distance, and you can set a minimum slide distance which always should be there.
Single switch: The animation will change only one slide, not the entire pane. You can use this option to avoid the empty spaces in the last pane of your carousel slider.

Create a dynamic carousel

If you have an e-Commerce website, dynamic WordPress carousels is the best what you can choose to feature your products. Smart Slider 3 Pro has a WooCommerce generator, so you can create and dynamically change content which can display the products by a filter. For example you can create a carousel slider where you can put your featured products, and if you upload a new one, then your slider will automatically change.

But there are many options to create dynamic sliders, you can create from your post or articles, or from Twitter, Facebook and a lot of other sources.

Here’s how it all comes together

A general principle of good design is to let the users be in control. Because of this, another best practice when it comes to WordPress carousels is not to put slides on autoplay.

There are two ways to control sliders:

• Arrows that advance to the next slide: Can be placed on the slide, either above or below them.
• Buttons or dot navigation: Hollow circles that appear filled in reference to the current slide. This design scheme indicates how many slides there are and allows people to move to the slide they want, when they want. Make sure to use it only if you have more than two slides in your slider.

Within the carousel, keep images crisp and text short and simple. The clearer the text and images, the more likely users are to engage and understand the intended points. When designing slide content, make links and buttons large enough to easily click (even on mobile). Speaking of mobile, 56% of website traffic comes from mobile, so your website, including your WordPress carousel, must incorporate responsive design.

The Controversy Around WordPress Carousels

Many web designers have been outspoken about the use of carousels (and sliders in general), calling out specific elements that they think cause problems either technical or relating to usability. And since there’s nothing more enjoyable than playing the devil’s advocate, we’ve already debunked a lot of the “research” behind why many web designers hate sliders and carousels.

Why to Setup a WordPress Carousel

Though not without their critics, the benefits of using a WordPress carousel far outweigh any potential issues they may cause. Furthermore, most web designers criticize negative aspects of sliders that are no longer relevant, thanks to a multitude of customization options and technical optimizations available with today’s best WordPress carousel plugins.

So with a carousel you can draw your visitors’ attention to the products or the elements of your carousel, and in that you can summarize the important data. And with a button you can let the visitor click on, and navigate to another page on your site. In a carousel the user can see more slides than in a traditional simple slider, so you can share more information with your visitors.

The post All You Need To Know About Carousel Slider Type appeared first on Smart Slider 3 — WordPress Plugin.

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