Believe it or not, the footer on your website is a lot more important than you may think.
Each section of your website plays an important and unique role in your overall user-experience, marketing, and how Google views your site from an SEO perspective.
Along with playing a functional role, your website’s footer also creates a “foundation” for your site from a design perspective. For many businesses, their website Footer is their primary branding area on a website.
So to design an effective footer, you need to consider both the functional and design aspects.
The bottom section of a webpage is also known as a footer. This area typically contains the name of the company or organization that publishes the website, along with relevant copyright information. Some websites may also include basic navigation links, such as “About Us,” “Contact,” and “Help.” Corporate website footers often include additional links to “Terms of Use,” “Privacy Guidelines,” and “Advertising” pages as well.
While footers are not required on webpages, they are found on nearly all major websites. HTML 5 even includes a footer tag, which is designed specifically for placing footer information at the bottom of a webpage. Additionally, visitors often expect to find certain information about a website when they scroll down to the bottom of a page in their web browser. Therefore, most web developers include a footer as a standard part of their website template.
The content and components critical to an effective website footer
1. Company Information
Users and search engines search the Footer for information about your business. Therefore it is important to include your logo, tagline, and/or a few sentences about your company.
2. Contact Info
The Footer has become a de-facto place to list your company’s contact information – streamlining the process for users to reach out. This includes:
Direct Contact
- Phone number(s)
- Email address
- Physical/Mailing address
Indirect Contact
- Social media accounts
- Help & Support
- Web chat
3. Useful links and Sitemap
If there are a few pages that are the most popular, or you want to drive traffic to, these should be listed out in your Footer. Additionally, a link to your full sitemap simplifies user navigation of your site as well as improves the ability of Google index it properly.
4. Legal Stuff
Every website needs a Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. As user rights expand and become more complex, it’s becoming more and more important that your business adheres to both best practices and laws. Likewise, this is an area that search engines like Google are placing more emphasis on.
5. Style & Branding
All of the above help to increase engagement and trustworthiness, but the design element helps convey the feel you want your website to present. Recommendations for styling include using a contrasting background color, complimentary highlight colors, and distinct fonts.
6. Call To Action
Website real estate is too valuable to not be purposeful. Your footer can be the ultimate toolbox to allows users to engage with your in whichever way they prefer. So the last piece to the perfect footer puzzle is your CTA.
Whether it’s a subscribe, sign up, or contact us, tell your users what do to next.
While often an afterthought for many businesses, I hope this article helps you see the value in taking the time to design a powerful footer!
