Do you use a slider on your Wordpress blog?

I got a new theme that has a slider option and have not decided if I want to use the feature or not because a slider can cause the site to load slower from what I understand so I don't know if I should use one or not.

I would like to have some images that will catch the eyes of my blog visitors but I don't know if it is worth the loss of speed or not.

Should I use the slider to help catch the eyes of people or not use it and have a faster loading blog?

I use a slider on a couple of my sites but not on all of them. I think that it matters what niche your site is in because some niches are very image oriented and having a slider with some eye-catching images can help get the eyes of your views caught and interested in looking around your site longer.

Now for speed, if that's a concern, I would try out different sliders because there can be a big difference on the load speeds from one to the next. Also, make sure that your images are optimized and are the lowest file size possible and still look good. That can help load speeds.

Dean said:

I use a slider on a couple of my sites but not on all of them. I think that it matters what niche your site is in because some niches are very image oriented and having a slider with some eye-catching images can help get the eyes of your views caught and interested in looking around your site longer.

Now for speed, if that's a concern, I would try out different sliders because there can be a big difference on the load speeds from one to the next. Also, make sure that your images are optimized and are the lowest file size possible and still look good. That can help load speeds.

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I have tried using the image optimizer websites but I don't know if they work better or worse than the image optimizer plugins I have read about some times. Have you used any image optimizer plugins?

I have a slider on my blog but it only has 2 images on it. I really don't know how much if any it slows down my blog or not. I haven't heard anything about that but I guess it makes sense though.

Catherine1 said:

I have a slider on my blog but it only has 2 images on it. I really don't know how much if any it slows down my blog or not. I haven't heard anything about that but I guess it makes sense though.

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Do you use large size images on it or smaller images?

Catherine1 said:

I have a slider on my blog but it only has 2 images on it. I really don't know how much if any it slows down my blog or not. I haven't heard anything about that but I guess it makes sense though.

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They all have some kind of impact on speed but many don't make much of an impact. They add additional code that needs to be loaded along with extra images that might not be on the page without the slider.

As long as the images are not really high in file size then that can really help to have less of an impact on loading speeds.

Traveler said:

Do you use large size images on it or smaller images?

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I usually use 800 pixel wide images for my slider. I think that's kind of in the middle of large and small.

Dean said:

As long as the images are not really high in file size then that can really help to have less of an impact on loading speeds.

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Most of the images that I ever use are under 100kb (i just checked) so I don't know if that's considered high sized images or not.

Catherine1 said:

I usually use 800 pixel wide images for my slider. I think that's kind of in the middle of large and small.

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I think that is smaller than a lot of slider images but I don't really know. I have been trying to find an answer for what would be the best size but I just can't find any kind of good answer.

Catherine1 said:

Most of the images that I ever use are under 100kb (i just checked) so I don't know if that's considered high sized images or not.

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That's not bad but many slider images that I have seen are less. As long as you are using the smallest file size that you can and still have the quality that you are wanting for your images then I think that size will be fine.

If you are not already, you can use some of the online image optimizing sites to help reduce the file size of your images.

Dean said:

That's not bad but many slider images that I have seen are less. As long as you are using the smallest file size that you can and still have the quality that you are wanting for your images then I think that size will be fine.

If you are not already, you can use some of the online image optimizing sites to help reduce the file size of your images.

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Yes I am using one of those online image optimizers. It called optimizilla I think.

I have tried to use one on my blog on several different occasions but I can't ever seem to get it to look right with the images. It's the kind that pulls them from my blog and even though the images are all the same size some are distorted and some aren't.

If I get that little gremlin figured out then i'd probably use it permanently on my blog.

I do not have one on my blog right now because when I was using one it made my blog load very slowly. I would like to have one but I do not want my blog to be slow because of this. Maybe if I can find a way to make my blog faster to load with one I will use it again.

KeralMTG said:

I do not have one on my blog right now because when I was using one it made my blog load very slowly. I would like to have one but I do not want my blog to be slow because of this. Maybe if I can find a way to make my blog faster to load with one I will use it again.

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Are you optimizing your images with either a plugin or by some other methods? Images that are too big is file sizes can cause a slider to really slow down your site.

Make sure they aren't any kind of HD images because those are really big and can put a big hurt on the load times of your site. I know that people like to see good HD images but they can really hurt load times.

Some of my sites are using sliders and some are not. I think using a slider can help some website to maybe let some chance visitors see things that might keep them on the site and also to help keep intended visitors on the site longer if they see something of interest.

Sure a slider can slow down a site but it should only slow it down a little if you are using good images that are optimized or low file size.

I have tried a few different slider plugins and some are slower, noticeably, than others so do some testing or checking.

If your theme comes with that function you can always use a separate slider plugin if the default is too slow.

Storm said:

I have tried to use one on my blog on several different occasions but I can't ever seem to get it to look right with the images. It's the kind that pulls them from my blog and even though the images are all the same size some are distorted and some aren't.

If I get that little gremlin figured out then i'd probably use it permanently on my blog.

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I don't know if it will work for you or not but if you make the images all the same size and make them twice as wide as they are tall then that had worked for me for one I was trying out.

KeralMTG said:

I do not have one on my blog right now because when I was using one it made my blog load very slowly. I would like to have one but I do not want my blog to be slow because of this. Maybe if I can find a way to make my blog faster to load with one I will use it again.

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Are you using optimised images? You can upload them to the free image optimisation sites and that will lower their file size and can help the page with slider images load faster.

Traveler said:

Are you using optimised images? You can upload them to the free image optimisation sites and that will lower their file size and can help the page with slider images load faster.

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I am using one of the optimize sites on some of the images but if they are already small sizes then sometimes I do not.

Traveler said:

I don't know if it will work for you or not but if you make the images all the same size and make them twice as wide as they are tall then that had worked for me for one I was trying out.

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I didn't think about trying that. I'll give it a go and see what happens when I get a chance.

KeralMTG said:

I am using one of the optimize sites on some of the images but if they are already small sizes then sometimes I do not.

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Every little bit help it to load just a fraction on a second faster so even the small ones can get smaller.

Traveler said:

Every little bit help it to load just a fraction on a second faster so even the small ones can get smaller.

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I know I need to start doing it on all of them but some times I do not have a lot of time to do things like that. I am more worried about my marketing.

I will be making a new blog soon and I was seeing some themes that had a slider feature that looked really nice. I did not have one on my old blog but I was considering this feature with my new coming blog but I read some things that said that an image slider can cause your blog to load slowly. Is this true?