People come to your website with a particular intention. They usually have a question. This is the earliest stage of the buying cycle. And the first thing they see is a big carousel that fills they entire view port of their desktop; we won't even mention the small screen "whack a mole" effect as the screen starts exchanging out images.
People want an answer to their question. They do not want to sit through your slideshow to figure out if what you are so eager to show off has anything to do with their quest.
Now carousels are popular because the people who pay for websites are not actually using the website and are all excited to show off what they think is important. And the web designer gets to appear as if he has worked his fingers to the bone, by making something twinkly.
Carousels create all kinds of dismal effects for your website.
So a good share of web visitors hit the back button and return to the search engine where they figure the perfect answer is at the next click. So, what is the result of this quick return to Google?
Well, google notes that their searcher did not get much help from your content and bounced back and the result is that your page is denigrated with google as useful to Google's clientele, and I guarantee Google cares about their users.
Now some of your web visitors are intrepid and so they find something promising to click on and the next page, looks exactly the same! Is the site broken? Oh, no they quickly figure out that the carousel is still here filling the view port and they get to scroll down to actually find real information around the carousel.
The carousel is a disaster and serves no useful purpose.
You don't have to take my word as truth on carousels, here is another opinion. This is great. Jared W. Smith doesn't really like them either. http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/ He has his own set of reasons.
Is there a place for a carousel?
Maybe, if you are offering a smorgasbord of entertainment and your visitor is perusing your offerings. If you are doing this, you are on the wrong website.
The purpose of this website is carrying on a dialogue with smart small business owners who are in a service business, or maybe you are a small manufacturer. None of you should be or are in the entertainment business.
If people are coming to your site for information, to check you out from a referral, or figuring out if they can trust you, a carousel is a bit of hubris that stands in the way of your web visitor finding value on your site. You are expecting them to patiently wait while your carousel takes them on your flight of fancy rather than helping them with their quest.
And you are losing web visitors. And maybe your referrals are wandering off.
Content strategy is serious business. It helps you create new customers. When the strategy works. Bad design issues don't help.
Anybody want to defend carousels?
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