What Premium Features Should a Modern WordPress Slider Plugin Have?

Modern websites are all about big, high resolution photos with some animated features that impress, tell a story and just engage users. In this step just simple photo sliders are far behind of that and you need to have a premium slider plugin with rich features that will enable your website to tell a story. Yes, I really mean that. You should either not have a slider at all or have a one that will truly make your visitors say “WOW”.

So what are those must-have premium features that you should consider while choosing your ultimate WordPress slider plugin.

Responsive

Yes, I’ll never get tired to tell that in this world each and every plugin should be responsive and this is the number one point, because if the slider fails in this point then you can even stop to go further in its features and functionality. Before buying the plugin try the slider demo in different screen sizes and positions to see that it works perfectly on different viewing environments.

Touch Swipe Navigation

Modern slider should have smooth swipe navigation like iOs and Android devices. The user shouldn’t look for navigation buttons. This is extremely comfortable for touchscreen users. Just think how many how many people will enter your website with those devices you will understand why this point is so important. Swipe navigation works on desktop computers like dragging slides with mouse: again much more comfortable then clicking on those tiny buttons.

Animated Layers

Having a smart slider which supports animated layers you can create nice animations without being an artist. For better animations make sure that the slider supports different type of layers like text layer, photo layer, video layer, and social media. Also make sure that you can apply effects on each layer individually. You can check the demo page I have shared above (Multi-layer section) to visually better understand what I mean. The above mentioned plugin has more than 35 layer effects, so just imagine how many things you can do with that range of effects, plus ability to use different layers like photo, video, etc.

Rich Transition Effects

All premium slider plugins should have great transition effects including 3D effects and it is just up to you to decide whether you need eye catching effects or some simple things work more for you: the matter is what you want to highlight in your website.

Parallax Effect

This is one of the latest achievements in slider developing. Everybody likes to play, this small trick will just make your visitors to play around and get more engaged with your website. Check this parallax slider demo to see the Parallax effect. Just use your imagination to get something really cool and smart related to your industry and I’m sure your visitors will remember your website.

Support for Video Slides

Modern slider should have video embed possibility. In this point you should make sure that it supports videos from YouTube and Vimeo. Also make sure that it has autoplay and full-size video support.

Video as Slide Background

Well, this is really cool latest trend. There was a time that people were talking that slides are extremely useless: they just take valuable space on the website, have no importance for visitors and make the websites load slowly. No, friends! Everything depends on how efficiently you can use them. Lately I have visited a website where this slide option was used. Let me just describe you, there was a silent video in slide’s background on which there was some text telling about the company. In the video there were some smiling people at working process (pity I did not save the link). I felt like I’m looking at that company from a window and I see how they work.

Do you remember what I was talking about in the first paragraph? That was about telling a story. Yes, slider can really tell a story, so just be creative enough to use it in a non-standard way.

Slide View option for News Websites or Blogs

You may think that in news or blog websites space is very essential for putting a slider. But let me convince you back. Premium slider plugins have nice views of posts right in your slider. You can check slider with posts in the demo page of Slider WD.

Smart Loading

This is very essential point while choosing a slider. You should make sure that the slider will not slow your website down. Some smart sliders use smart loading possibility, the logic is that all slides are not loading at the same time: at the beginning first slides load and meanwhile users look at them other slides are loading, this way you will reduce website opening time.

Absolutely User friendly

Premium slider plugin should be intuitive: rich features and functionality should not be confusing from the back-end. So while choosing one, take some time to navigate demo admin if there is one. You should be sure that you will be able to create the desired slider in reasonable time frames.

These are the premium features that I wanted to underline in this post, if you have experience in using some other great things, please share with me. I will not mind even doing editing and adding them in this post.