If you’re wondering what is infinite scroll, 🖱️ the answer is in this post. Also known as endless scrolling, infinite scrolling is a design technique that allows your web visitors to view more content as they scroll down a single page.
This widespread technique works by continuously loading content rather than stopping at the end of a page or breaking it down into separate pages (known as pagination). The goal is to enhance the usability and user experience of websites.
If you want to consider leveraging this WordPress feature, knowing the benefits and consequences is necessary for an informed decision. Here are the pros and cons of incorporating infinite scroll on your website:
The pros of infinite scrolling 👍
Infinite scrolling keeps users interested and connected to the page. Besides that, here’s how it can benefit your bottom line:
- Boost user engagement: Because content is frequently updated, users scroll and interact with new content as it pops up. Hence, it’s a trick if you want your visitors to engage longer on your page and reduce bounce rates.
- Easy browsing: It’s the easiest navigation technique: you only ask your users to scroll down the page for more content. Your visitors won’t leave your site because they find it easy to use.
- Helpful for mobile users: Touch-screen devices are designed for swiping motion, and infinite scrolling works well for that purpose. This feature creates a seamless experience for mobile users, making them engage longer with your website.
- Excellent for displaying visuals: Infinite scrolling perfectly fits images and videos on your site to create a visually appealing viewing.
The cons of infinite scrolling 👎
While infinite scrolling works great, it also has technical and design drawbacks that outweigh its benefits. For example:
- Footer inaccessibility: Since content keeps loading, it abandons the footer information along the way.
- Slow load times or crashing: Sometimes, endless scrolling causes a page to freeze. When this happens, the site will be slow or won’t work at all.
- Similar design: The typography and layout look identical, which makes a website look ordinary and boring.
- Poor SEO: Google might treat the page as a single piece of content because bots don’t load more. Hence, it lowers your page rank with Google.
How to enable infinite scrolling on WordPress 🔘
Would you like to enable infinite scroll to your WordPress blog? It only takes a simple process to achieve.
There are several methods to enable infinite scrolling. Two in particular make the most sense.
If you happen to be looking for a new theme for your blog, check out Neve. It comes with an easy-to-use infinite scroll functionality that you can configure to match your needs.
Alternatively, if you’re not planning to change your theme anytime soon, consider getting a plugin like Catch Infinite Scroll. It allows you to add the infinite scrolling functionality to most themes and WordPress setups.
For more info on how to make either of these methods work, read this guide of ours.
Final thoughts on what is infinite scroll 🏁
So, what is infinite scroll? It’s a design feature that provides benefits for your website. However, when deciding whether to implement infinite scrolling on your site, you must first consider how it impacts the user experience, functionality, and aesthetics overall. As discussed above, this feature has its advantages and drawbacks, which are worth considering before making a final decision.
As discussed above, this feature has its advantages and drawbacks, which are worth considering before making a final decision.
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