Sometimes called a carousel, otherwise known as a slider.
Whatever you call it, having one on your recruitment website is harming your conversions!
Watch the video (or read the transcript below) to find out why and what you can do about it.
Today I’m going to tell you why carousels, or sometimes known as sliders, are killing the conversions on your recruitment company website.
Above, you can see a rough layout of a typical homepage. At the top, is the carousel/slider and some general content below that.
The problem with carousels is that you can see only one slide at a time
So when someone is browsing your website, let’s say you have three slides as in the example above, someone lands on your website. -We know from experience that when people browse websites, they browse very quickly.
They’re not going to wait for the next slide to come in. We also know that people do not interact with sliders/carousels. They don’t click the next button or the previous button, for example.
So this means that when someone lands on your website, they’re only seeing one slide. What that means is the two slides, as you can see, that are off the screen, are not in view. So what’s the point in having them?
The other problem is that you can’t guarantee which slide somebody’s going to see
So, let’s say you have a carousel and the order of your sliders is set, so there’s one slide followed by the next and then the next etc.
Then, let’s say someone lands on your website and the slider loads, and they see slide number one and then they scroll down the page or they click a button to take them to another page.
They’ve only seen slide number one.
Now, let’s say your sliders are set to load randomly, so someone loads up your page and they see slide number three. They don’t see slides one and two or four or however many you have. They’ve only seen slide number three, scrolled down or clicked to another page.
Now, the biggest problem is when, let’s say in this example, this first slide is the slide they see, and it’s got some general copy about your business, a picture of your offices and a button that takes the person through to your ‘About Us‘ page, for example. No problem.
One of the slides which they don’t see is aimed at your candidates. So you’ve got some compelling copy in there saying why someone should register with your business or why someone should inquire about some of the jobs you have.
On another slide that is out of view, you’ve got content that is geared directly towards winning new business. You’ve got, again, some compelling copy, selling the USPs of your recruitment agency over your competition, a button that takes users through to more detail about your services, for example, and a related image.
Now, if a prospect lands on your recruitment website and they see either the general business or candidate slides because we don’t know which side they’re going to see, they’re missing out on the content you’ve created specifically for new business, for potential clients. So there’s a big problem here. So we’re missing opportunities and that’s where we lose conversions.
How to fix it
First of all, get your carousel off your website, get rid of it.
Obviously pull the content out, because if there’s good content in there, we can use it. But it’s important that we have objectives for your website. So, prioritise the objectives.
What’s the main thing you’re trying to achieve?
Is it new business? It might be new business or it might be that you need to grow your talent pool. So maybe it’s more candidates.
Whatever it is, the highest priority should be the first thing that people see when they land on your website. So, at the top of your page, instead of having a carousel, have some static content, have some compelling copy, have a great vibrant image, and speak to the needs or desires or problems or pain points of the person you’re trying to attract in, whether it be a candidate or a client.
Then below that, you can have your secondary objectives met. So if the top area of your homepage is dedicated to clients, then have the content below it aimed at your candidates, so how you attract candidates and so on down the page.
That way, you’re in control.
You know what content is being seen. You know in what order it’s being seen and you know that nothing’s being missed through the randomness of which slide appears.