Even the most trendy website can become stale after a while. New trends appear, and specific design styles can quickly become obsolete. To counteract this, you need to give your website some visual boosts from time to time. You don’t need to do a full re-design; just tweak some things here and there to give the sense of a fresh look.
The use of a parallax effect can do just that. For example, it may make your graphic elements pop while also breaking up your text-heavy material.
Today’s tutorial will explain parallax effects, the pros, and cons of parallax effects, why you should use them, what WordPress themes are a good choice for a parallax effect, and some best-case practices you can learn from.
So let’s start with the very beginning:
What Are Parallax Effects?
A parallax effect means that the background image on a website is either frozen in place or scrolls slower than the rest of the page’s contents. This creates the illusion that the content moves in front of the backdrop image, giving your site depth.
The parallax scrolling effect made waves a new and exciting web design trend when it first appeared online in 2011. Of course, since then, parallax scrolling has cemented itself as a fundamental design asset that is here to stay.
The parallax effect is a widely known design element frequently seen on WordPress websites. In a nutshell, it’s a scrolling effect in which background images move slower than foreground elements, creating the illusion of three dimensions in a two-dimensional space.
It’s been popular in the gaming industry for years, but it’s only recently made its way into web design. With the help of a parallax scrolling effect, you can now create a beautiful page design with eye-catching elements that make visiting your pages even more appealing.
You can use the parallax effect on a business website’s landing pages, long-form content, sales pages, or homepage. It’s a great way to draw attention to different sections of a long page.
Many premium WordPress themes include a parallax effect on the homepage. In addition, most WordPress page builder plugins also support the parallax effect. However, not all themes include a parallax effect by default, and you may not want to use a page builder to create custom page layouts just for a parallax effect. But we’ll get into that later.
Why Use Parallax On Your WordPress Website?
Let’s start with one of parallax scrolling’s more valuable benefits: It’s an eye-catching approach to display certain website sections.
Now let’s look at several websites that demonstrate what else this fantastic new method can do so that you can conclude yourself.
1. Bold Product Presentation
By presenting your product with a parallax effect, you fully display that product’s potential. In addition, the parallax technique allows users to scroll through the product and view it from all angles, giving them a better understanding and making it easier to visualize.
Take, for example, Bagagia.
This website is an excellent example of allowing your visitors to experience your product in a completely new way. And it’s an excellent example of a parallax effect. Instead of static images, you get a 3D presentation controlled by your scrolling behavior. The design is straightforward, with a lot of whitespaces and a focus on the unique product: a leather-covered hot water bottle and bag at the same time.
2. Increases Website Engagement
The modern web user seeks to be entertained and involved. Therefore, we are more than happy to interact with a website if we are invited. You can do many cool things with parallax scrolling to encourage your visitors to interact with your site.
Parallax scrolling creates a fantastic, engaging, and immersive environment for a story to unfold. Parallax allows you to dynamically reveal details of your website as the user progresses through the narrative you’ve created for them.
3. Improves UX
According to research, it only takes a user 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about a website and decide whether or not they like it (Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek, & Brown, 2006).
By making the background images move slower than the foreground images, this scrolling technique creates the illusion of depth on a webpage. Users of parallax scrolling claim that it improves user experience and engages users with a website. Researchers attribute this pleasurable user experience to the fulfillment of the following variables: usability, satisfaction, enjoyment, fun, and visual appeal.
4. Lowers Bounce Rates
Bounce rates are the percentage of site visitors who click the ‘back’ button or close the tab before exploring other pages on the site. Bounce rates can have a significant impact on your SEO ranking. Engaging parallax effects can help to reduce that rate.
If a website uses parallax animation to tell a story effectively, you can bet that customers or readers will stay on a page for longer. For example, if you look at Alex Dram’s portfolio page here, you’ll notice several shapes interacting during the parallax scrolling animation.
The whole website aspect tells a story about the visual experiences Alex can design for customers. It’s a way to draw the viewer’s attention and connect with them without simply writing about what you do in text.
5. Adds an Action Trigger
Adding an action trigger for your users may be the most crucial aspect of parallax scrolling. We are more alert and willing to continue interacting with your site because we receive instant feedback. Something happens as we scroll. We continue to scroll, and something else occurs. This promise is very motivating, and it makes people want to enter your website and listen to your story.
Parallax scrolling can be an excellent way to entice visitors to visit your website.
And now that we’ve covered the obvious benefits of incorporating a parallax effect into your WordPress website, it’s time to delve into the various types of WordPress themes that are parallax-ready for your website!
Top-Notch WordPress Parallax Themes You Can Choose From
To excite visitors and convert leads into customers, your best websites rely on engaging content and impressive design, and a smooth user experience. That is why you should think about using a parallax theme for your website – there is something particularly awe-inspiring about browsing a site with parallax scrolling.
Here’s a list of some WordPress themes that come with a parallax effect:
ColibriWP
Did you know that Colibri is one of the most popular WordPress themes on WordPress.org, with over 50.000 active installs? Its creators are also responsible for the popular themes Mesmerize and One Page Express.
This theme is multipurpose, beautiful, and entirely customizable for your needs. You can use Colibri to create captivating hero sections that leave a lasting impression on your visitors. You can combine different media types, such as images, videos, collages, and lightboxes.
Colibri provides numerous customization options and is fully responsive to work on all devices. Furthermore, it is a translation-ready theme that works flawlessly. This theme also includes three predesigned website templates, image and gradient backgrounds, three header layout options, two navigation menu layouts, and other valuable features.
Divi
Divi has a lot going on beneath the curtains, and it offers a plethora of options for creating a slick, responsive, image-focused website. For example, the Divi Builder, included with the theme, is a fantastic way to design layouts using a drag-and-drop interface. In addition, configuring the parts of your site is a breeze, thanks to the user-friendly theme options menu.
There are also many demos, including interior design, cafes & restaurants, photography, and more! You can also choose from one of the beautiful parallax demonstrations and enhance your parallax effect even more by adding a video backdrop.
It’s pointless to have beautiful parallax effects if you don’t have a way to make the rest of your site stunning. Divi (review) is a great, powerful, and simple-to-customize multipurpose theme with several parallax-specific features.
OnePage
OnePage is a one-page WordPress theme designed for freelancers and creative professionals. It is a highly adaptable and responsive design, so your site will look fantastic on any device.
You may use OnePage to add several parallax backdrop images to your site for added depth and great-looking sliders with arrow navigation to make it simple for viewers to navigate your content.
OnePage also has CSS3 animation, pricing tables, testimonials, endless color possibilities, font icons, a portfolio part, a floating menu, an animated counter, and a team section, to name a few features.
Parallax
Ironic, huh? Themify’s Parallax design is one of their most popular. It combines two design trends by combining a single-page layout with parallax effects, and it is designed to create a superb front-end user experience.
The Themify Builder includes over 60 fully customizable pre-made layouts with sliders, parallax scrolling, and other animations. Parallax uses the WordPress custom post type functionality to let you customize each component of your site, including a section for your portfolio, team, products, and services, among other things.
You may also choose from 11 different layouts, add a custom header picture or slider, and give each page on your site its menu. That way, you may give each page a distinct look or have them all have the same style and feel.
Parallax is perfect for creative professionals such as web designers, music instructors, and analysts because of its built-in page builder, pre-designed layouts, and versatility
eCommerce
eCommerce is a WordPress theme designed by MyThemeShop. eCommerce has a fast loading time, an SEO-friendly design, and other great features as their other themes.
This theme is built to operate with the famous WooCommerce plugin, making it simple to set up an online store. In addition, you may use this theme to sell your products or affiliate products and earn money quickly.
A parallax slider, six header designs, four pagination choices, infinite categories on the homepage, a simple checkout process, a footer section with three, four, or five columns, a ribbon banner for new products, and a fixed floating navigation bar are some of its primary features.
Stockholm
Just like the city itself, Stockholm has a timeless, classic look. Over 140 ready-to-use samples are included in the theme, ranging from architecture business websites to photography portfolios and everything in between. Every design makes excellent use of negative space, resulting in a look of effortless elegance.
Stockholm has a lot to offer in customization, and it’s all neatly arranged under the Select Options tab. You may change everything about your website here, including the logo, header, and footer, as well as the sidebar, 404 pages, and parallax.
Ronneby
Ronneby is a multipurpose WordPress theme for businesses, bloggers, creative professionals, and freelancers with over 40 ready-to-use demo options.
The theme is well-coded, SEO-friendly, and fully responsive so that you can concentrate on the design rather than your site’s performance.
Lastly, the theme has a robust admin panel and a huge number of shortcodes that make it simple to customize and add functionality to your site when it comes to design.
Neve
Neve is a WordPress single-page theme with a fantastic parallax effect. Together with the site’s fully responsive design, these features can help you build a successful site that looks amazing on any device.
The comprehensive theme settings panel included with Neve will assist you in quickly setting up your site and making modifications as needed.
Neve is a fantastic theme for any business or portfolio site. These examples include services, teams, contact information, testimonials, pricing information, a blog, and a shop to sell your products or services.
And you probably think that if it’s this fantastic, almost too good to be true, there must be some drawbacks. Right? And you are correct. Like everything else in the tech world, the parallax effect has a few disadvantages and benefits. Let’s see what those are.
WordPress Parallax: Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. It can produce a dynamic, interactive user experience that is visually appealing. | 1. Seeing as parallax scrolling uses a lot of animation, it can make pages take longer to load, and it won’t work correctly on all browsers. |
| 2. If you are a small business owner with just a few products or one particular service, you can put all of your content on one page, saving users from having to navigate multiple pages or wait for them to load. | 2. The website should be easy to navigate, which can be difficult if parallax scrolling is not used correctly. Using the effect on a content-heavy site may necessitate excessive scrolling, which may frustrate the user and make reading difficult. |
| 3. Designers typically rely on graphics and colors to guide the user’s eye around the website. However, parallax scrolling allows you to lead the user around the website in any direction the designer or UX expert wants. | 3. If your website employs parallax scrolling, you should be aware that it will not appear the same on a mobile device as it does on a PC. This is not a significant issue, but the designer must understand how to correctly translate the effect from a PC to a mobile device to avoid considerable compatibility issues. |
If you decide to use the parallax effect on your website despite its disadvantages, keep the following in mind:
Web Design: What to Keep in Mind When Using Parallax
Now that you’ve learned about the allure of parallax website design, it’s time to study the best practices. We chose a more wary title for this section because a parallax website isn’t for everyone and should be used with caution. Here are our two tips:
Keep the Page Loading Speed in Mind
It should go without saying that putting sophisticated effects into your website will impact its performance. One of these effects is parallax scrolling. A site’s SEO success is harmed by a long page load time. Users are prone to jumping from one website to the next and are ready to abandon a page that takes too long to load.
Make sure that the parallax effects don’t degrade the performance of your website too much. You may check your website’s speed and see what’s causing it to slow down. There are numerous online tools available to assist you in this endeavor. One of them is Google’s free PageSpeed Insights service.
Use it in Moderation
At its best, parallax web design will expertly attract attention to all of the appropriate website areas. The worst-case scenario will divert attention away from the core point, leaving the audience befuddled. Using parallax effects in the proper places and moderation will ensure that your instance is the former.
When creating a parallax website, it’s critical to consider accessibility. Mobile devices, which account for over half of all web traffic, are incompatible with parallax designs. Furthermore, outdated browser versions may be incompatible with parallax website design.
Over to You
This brings us to the end of our parallax website design guide. Improved online storytelling, captivating messages, more interactions with the user, and longer time spent on site are just a few of the advantages of parallax effects.
However, don’t overuse parallax design, as it might easily overpower your core message. The primary goal of any web design element is to improve the user experience on the site. As a result, make sure that your design accomplishes this.
We hope this article provided you with the information you were looking for. Best of luck with designing your website!
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Gabriella is a Content Marketer with a zeal for all-things WordPress. When she's not writing and editing upcoming articles, you can find her hiking with her four-legged buddy.
