Replace the slider with one current photograph, a line saying what and where the hotel is, a date search with rates, and the phone number. The other six messages belong further down the page.

The site

A hotel with eighteen rooms on the main street of a lakeside town in the Okanagan. It is full most of the summer, hosts weddings on its lawn at weekends, and runs a restaurant open to the public.

The home page opens with a slider filling the whole screen. Seven slides rotate every five seconds: the building at sunset, the lobby, a suite, the restaurant terrace, a wedding, a meeting room and the lake.

Each slide carries a line of text set into the photograph. Book your stay appears on the third. Rates appear nowhere on the home page.

Below the slider, a paragraph welcomes guests. The booking link is the fifth of seven items in the menu.

The inference a visitor makes

Most people who reach a hotel's own site in July already have dates in mind. They want to know two things: whether there is a room, and what it costs.

The page answers neither. It shows them a building, then a lobby, then a suite they probably cannot afford.

The inference is that this is a brochure rather than a place to book, or that the rates are something the hotel would rather not show.

Either way, many go back to the booking site they came from, where the price and the button are on the first screen.

Where the seven slides came from

Every slide answers to someone inside the hotel. None was chosen by asking what a guest on a phone needs first, and the seventh, the real reason to stay, is the one nobody waits to see.

Why slides two to seven go unseen

At five seconds a slide, the seventh appears half a minute after the page opens, and only for someone still looking at the top of the page. Almost nobody is.

People decide within seconds whether a page has what they came for. They read the first slide, if it has loaded, then scroll or reach for the menu.

On a phone, the thumb is moving before the second slide arrives. The slider keeps turning above the screen, showing the wedding and the lake to nobody.

So the first slide is the home page, in practice. Here it is the building at sunset, which tells a traveller nothing they can act on.

Seven photographs before the first screen

Each slide is a full-width photograph, and this slider fetches all seven, plus the script that animates them, before the first one appears.

On a phone connection in a parking lot, that is a long wait, and the top of the page stays blank until the script is ready.

Google's mobile speed test or WebPageTest shows the delay plainly, and shows that most of the page's weight is pictures nobody will see.

Words baked into pictures

The line on each slide is part of the photograph, not text on the page. Search engines cannot read it, and on a phone it shrinks until people can barely read it either.

That leaves the home page with almost no words about where the hotel is, what the rooms are like or what they cost. A traveller searching for a lakefront hotel with free parking finds a page that says neither.

The booking link in fifth place

The only permanent route to booking is the fifth item in the menu, which on a phone is folded away behind a menu button.

The words book your stay, on slide three, show for five seconds in every thirty-five, and only to people still watching.

A traveller ready to book has to find the menu, open it, read seven items and choose the right one, on a small screen held in one hand. Each step is a chance to give up.

A worked example

The owners began by asking the front desk what callers wanted to know. The answers barely varied: rates for particular dates, whether parking was free, how far the beach was, and whether dogs were welcome.

The slider was replaced by one photograph, taken this summer: a room with the lake in the window. Over it, in real text, sits a single line: eighteen rooms on the lakefront, a short walk from the beach.

Beneath that line are a date search showing rooms and rates for the chosen nights, the phone number, and a sentence on parking and pets.

The other six slides became sections further down the page, each linking to its own page: rooms, the restaurant, weddings, meetings, the town.

The wedding and meeting photographs now sit on the pages that people planning weddings and meetings actually visit.

What the first screen is for

The first screen has room for one image. It should answer what the guest is choosing, which is usually a room, ideally with the view that makes the price worth paying.

It should be a current photograph taken at eye level, not the best suite shot through a wide lens. Guests compare what they saw with what they find, and say so in reviews.

Then the words: what the hotel is, where it is, and one reason to stay. Then the dates.

The counter-case within the site

Some rotation earns its place. A gallery on the rooms page, which a guest opens and moves through at their own pace, is a different thing from a slider that moves by itself.

A wedding page can open with a sequence of past weddings, because people visiting it came to look at exactly that.

And a hotel that depends heavily on weddings may give them a second clear route from the first screen, beside booking a room.

On the home page, though: one photograph, one line, dates and rates, and the phone number.

What to change

  1. Replace the slider with one current photograph.
  2. Say what and where in real text.
  3. Put a date search on the first screen.
  4. Show the phone number beside it.
  5. Turn the other slides into sections below.
  6. Link each section to its own page.
  7. Test the first screen on a phone.

Step three is what the whole site exists for. A traveller who can see rooms and rates for their dates on the first screen has one less reason to go back to the booking site.

A first screen that asks for effort before giving anything back is the same problem as in a gutter company site with a twenty-field quote form.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a slider wrong for a hotel home page?

Travellers arrive wanting rooms and rates for their dates. A slider shows them a building and a lobby, and most never see past the first slide.

Do visitors see all seven slides?

Rarely. At five seconds a slide, the seventh appears half a minute after the page opens, by which time most visitors have scrolled or left.

What should a hotel's first screen show?

One current photograph, a line saying what and where the hotel is, a date search showing rooms and rates, and the phone number.

Where do the wedding and meeting photographs go?

Into their own sections lower on the home page, each linking to a page of its own, where people planning weddings and meetings actually look.

Does a slider slow the page down?

Often. Many sliders fetch every full-width photograph and the script that animates them before showing anything, so the first screen waits on pictures nobody sees.

Is any rotating gallery acceptable?

Yes, one the visitor controls, such as a gallery on the rooms page or past weddings on the wedding page, since those visitors chose to look.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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