How to create a Slider in WordPress

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The concept of slider or slider in Spanish (we’ll better use slider from now on, because slider sounds terrible…), it’s one of the classics on the web, especially in WordPress.

However, like any good WordPress tool focused on improving the user experience, over time it are creating new trends in the useand getting better.

And if you also add the favorite word of all WordPress consultants to respond to their clients, the use of the slider becomes something that many find convenient for their project, and others do not. (The magic word is depends).

Personally, I don’t usually use sliders much, since I don’t usually work with projects that require it, although it does have several uses and very successful for certain pages (magazines, news blogs, online stores, etc).

If you are looking for an article to learn and describe what are the plugins that are often used today to create a slider in wordpressyou are in the right place.

Keep reading because throughout this article I will explain why you should use a slider on your website, what plugins you can use (free) and how to start creating your own WordPress slider.

At the end of the article you will find a small tutorial which will summarize everything discussed in this last point of slider creation.

Go for it!

What is a slider

This section is similar to when you are driving and the police stop you… and they ask you: Do you know why I stopped you?

You know the answer perfectly… but you decide to play “the crazy one” and have the police explain it to you…

Same thing with the question. What is a Slider?

You know that it is something that many websites use, and that if many websites use it, it cannot be so bad or unnecessary.

It is a very characteristic element of a website, which moves with different effects and transitionsand it goes showing different content.

But what you have to know, long before the manual definition is: is the slider useful for your website specifically? Well, I hope to clear your doubts throughout the article.

Keep reading.

Advantages of having a Slider

Now visualize the general set of your website: think about where it comes from and where it is going.

Namely,what goals do you want to meet with a specific page of your website? (for example with the or with a simple landing page in your social media campaign).

dowhat do you want to communicate? What do you want to provide to your visitors?

Read carefully the advantages offered by a slider on a WordPress website, and see if they match or help meet those goals you just defined.

Give dynamism to the web

When the visitor arrives at your web, his eyes are going to land on something that move.

In addition, it is very easy nowadays to make a interactive slider with the user (that when moving the mouse something moves, or that when clicking on a certain element something else happens).

In the end, it’s something that will grab your reader’s attention, just like .

Offer specific information in an easy way

Normally, the sliders include information that changes over time (dynamic).

That is, you are not going to put the content of “about us” in the slider, it would not make sense.

That is why when you are interested in highlighting certain content (an important event, an article you want people to read, a product on sale…) the use of the slider is ideal.

In this way, said content will be just one click away from your visits.

Causes the desired wow effect

Although today the trend is already changing a bit, what has been done in the last two years in terms of web design is create very flashy heroes.

By hero I mean when you visit a website, and you find a very nice image in full color and occupying the entire screen, with a sentence or two, and a button as a call to action.

There are many types of hero with different functionalities, and some of them they are sliders

This use is very good if you have a one page page (one that only scrolls and there are no internal sub pages) and you want the visitor to be enthusiastic about your website from the first moment.

It can help sell more products

In relation to the above, if you have an online store and use the slider to highlight certain products, it is a matter of course that the products you select will have more visibility on your website, and they will receive more sales opportunities.

Obviously here we must highlight the small Google result effect that some sliders have (it all depends on how you do them).

Let me explain: there is a very funny joke for the most geeks, which says that the ideal place to hide something is in the second page of google (because nobody usually visits it).

The same thing happens with sliders: the first slide is the one that is always seen, and it is usually difficult to hook the visitor so that he stays, without doing anything on your website, to see which slide is the second, the third… but I assure you that whoever gets there, is because really interested in what you offer.

Sometimes it helps to organize the content well

I have a client with a digital magazine, full of categories on politics, various labels and many articles.

It is on this type of website that I almost always use a well inserted slider in a strategic place (even more than one slider at a time) so that it offers an aspect of organization and control on the web.

In this way, no matter how many articles or content a website of this type has, you will always be able to see, for example, the last 5 articles of each category at a glance.

Best plugins to create a WordPress Slider

now play the part more practice of the article, once all the theory has been overcome (you can now breathe easy, let’s go to the fun part now!)

Next I am going to describe (briefly, because it is not my turn to sell them to you) what I like about each of them.

And keep in mind that none of the three have paid or bribed me to talk about their qualities (I wish I was that important).

I bring them to you in this article because they are the ones i useand the ones I like.

Obviously there are many more, and everyone chooses the one that suits them best! :).

Smart Slider 3

We start with the plugin that I consider major in this article (and which I will analyze in the video below), .

When I have to use a slider in WordPress, I always go for this one (in fact I “invested” in the lifetime license to use it on unlimited sites).

Of the three that I present to you is the one that offers more capabilities when it comes to animating the content, and offers some very good predefined templates.

Obviously with the pro version you will have more options to achieve that desired wow effect, but with the free version you can manage perfectly.

I especially like this slider because it is very easy to integrate, comes with a lot of great animations, a very powerful slide editor and is compatible with all page builders of the market (including my dear ).

I invite you to watch the video at the end of the article, where I analyze it a bit.

Goal Slider

I want to mention the plugin, especially if you’re a bit obsessed with it. SEO.

At the plugin level that simply works, it is one of the best.

It is a very plugin lightweightvery easy to use, and does not disappoint.

It doesn’t have as many advanced options as the previous one, but if you’re looking for something simple and without too many fireworks, I encourage you to take a look.

More than 800,000 installations in WordPress guarantee it.

Soliloquy

And finally I bring you everything a classic of the sliders, the plugin .

In the slider market there is a lot of competition (good, bad, big, small, expensive, cheap plugins…) and Soliloquy, despite its difficult name, always He has managed to stand out from the rest.

Soliloquy is and has always been very simplefocused on the functionality and in making not very complicated sliders and that adapt very well to any type of screen and they load fast.

And finally we move on to the video!

If you often read my articles you will know how much I like to include explanatory videos, and on this occasion it was not going to be for less!

In this section we analyze how, with the Smart Slider 3 pluginIt can create a slider in WordPress very easily.

Option from template

The good thing about this plugin is that it comes with a lot of very nice built-in templates.

If you want to use any of them then customize them to your liking, take a look at all

Next, it will be enough for you to start creating a slider from the template, and modify what you want before publishing it through a shortcode.

Option from scratch

Before making a template from scratch, I recommend you play around with a template already made, so you understand how the large number of options that this plugin brings work.

At first it may seem a bit overwhelmingbecause there are really many options, but in the end you get the hang of it.

This is what you get when you create a blank slider.

But come on, here I come to the rescue.

See in the following video how we can create a WordPress slider in the two different ways that I have mentioned.

conclusion

As you can see when creating a WordPress slider you have to take into account different factors: what type of website you have, what type of slider suits you, and which plugin is the most successful.

In this article I have described three of my favorite plugins to create sliders, and I have explained in a fabulous video tutorial how to create a slider in WordPress with my favorite plugin Smart Slider 3.

Now it’s your turn to get down to business, and create the slider of your dreams! (or better yet, the slider of dreams of your visits).

I hope this article has been very useful to you, and see you in the next one!

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Online Marketing and WordPress Consultant with more than 8 years of experience. I create websites with a user experience focused on specific objectives (increase visibility, increase customers, etc.) and I support my clients with their social media strategies and online marketing campaigns.