Looks like parallax effect is the must-have detail of every up to date popular design feature that is commonly used on WordPress websites. Each business owner wants it for their online project to attract customers attention and engage more clients. Usually, you can see parallax scrolling effect on home pages, landing pages, user guides, and product pages. It can cover the whole page and demonstrate a full story or can be applied to the certain section of your site.
In this article, we will discuss, what is a parallax effect and what are the benefits it can bring to your site and business. We will then discuss how to quickly and easily add a parallax effect to any WordPress website, page, or post, with the plugin and also with CSS.
What Is Parallax Effect?
The parallax effect is a design effect that makes the background image scroll down slower than the foreground content. This causes a sense of depth that gets added to the page on which the effect is taking place.
Many premium WordPress themes come with built-in parallax effect on their homepage. You can also use parallax effect on most WordPress page builder plugins as well. Most page builders also incorporate a parallax effect tool, enabling you to add the effect to any page or post on your website. And of course, there are numerous WordPress plugins that you can install to add parallax effect elements to your website.
However, not all themes have a built-in parallax effect, and you may not want to use a page builder to create custom page layouts just for a parallax effect.
What Are the Benefits of Using a Parallax Effect?
Enhancing the appearance of your website is an ongoing task and you should always be improving and thinking of ways to make your website look better. Many visitors will judge a website solely based on the homepage appearance and in that first glance, they will choose to either stay or leave, which makes the first impression especially important. The appearance of your website starts with the theme you choose to use. There are many ways to modify the appearance of free themes, but sometimes you may choose to pay for a premium theme that has the desired feature built in.
Of course, you may not want to pay for premium themes and you will be pleased to know that you can make an awesome website without spending any money. One of the best ways to make a dynamic theme is to add the parallax effect to your pages. Depending on the nature of your background and foreground images, the added depth can really make them look great together.
Having said that, let us show you how to easily add a parallax effect to any WordPress theme without any complications.
Add a Parallax Effect to Any WordPress Theme using a Plugin
As earlier said that there are numerous WordPress plugins that you can install to add parallax effect elements to your website. Here we are using Advanced WordPress Backgrounds. It is easier and beginners are suggested to use this method.
First thing, you need to install and activate the plugin. After activating the plugin, you need to edit the page or post where you want to add a parallax effect. You will be able to see a new “Advanced WordPress Backgrounds” button on your Visual Editor.
A popup window will appear. In this window, you can create a lot of different background effects and combinations other than the parallax effect, but we will focus on it. Select the “Image” option for the Background Type drop-down box. Click on the Stretch checkbox that appears next to the drop-down box.
Now, click on the “Select Image” button to upload or select an image you want to use. You need to ensure that you are using a large image, or else it will appear pixelated.
After that, you need to enable Parallax by choosing a parallax type. There are a number of styles available for you to experiment with. The most used parallax effect is the scroll.
Click on the Insert button to continue. The plugin will now add a shortcode inside your WordPress post editor. It will look something like this:
[nk_awb awb_type=”image” awb_stretch=”true” awb_image=”292″ awb_image_size=”full” awb_image_background_size=”cover” awb_image_background_position=”50% 50%” awb_parallax=”scroll” awb_parallax_speed=”0.5″]
Your Content Here
[/nk_awb]
Simply replace the “Your Content Here” with your actual content and you are all done!
Add a Parallax Effect to Any WordPress Theme with CSS
If you do not have any HTML experience, I would not recommend trying this because you could potentially insert the code into the wrong location and mess up the website.
Firstly, you will need to upload the image you want to use for parallax effect to your WordPress media library by visiting Media > Add New page. After you’ve uploaded the image, you need to copy the image URL by editing the image in WordPress media library.
Now is where your HTML knowledge will come into play. You need to add the following HTML lines into your post or page where you want the effect to be present
<div class=”parallax”>
<div class=”parallax-content”>Insert Content here</div>
</div>
Now, you need to add the following custom CSS to your WordPress theme.
.parallax {
background-image: url(“Copy the url of your Image”);
height: 100%;
background-attachment: fixed;
background-position: center;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: cover;
margin-left:-410px;
margin-right:-410px;
}
.parallax-content {
width:50%;
margin:0 auto;
color:#FFF;
padding-top:50px;
}
You can now save your changes and visit your website to see the parallax effect in action. Note that you might need to adjust CSS to work with your site’s layout.
Conclusion
If your theme doesn’t have a built-in parallax effect feature, or if you want to add an effect to more than just your homepage, then Parallax Scroll will enable you to quickly create parallax sections to add to your pages or posts.
As you have seen, adding a parallax effect to your website can be very worthwhile. Not only can it greatly improve the visuals of your website, but it will also help appeal to your audience, enable them easily navigate your site and access content, and increase the time they spend on your site. This improved user experience should ultimately help your site convert against its goals, whether they are to increase returning visitors, collect leads, or sell products or services.