Is your website footer optimized? Here are a few best practices we recommend.
Your website footer isn’t dead space! Visitors do actually scroll that far down. A study by Chartbeat looked at 25 million user sessions, finding that many users scroll as far as 1200 pixels down, which is about the size of two screens.
Include relevant Calls to Action (CTAs)
Don’t think your website footer is a place for CTAs; think again. But they need to be relevant. Often, visitors scroll too quickly to catch your CTAs in the body of the home page or in a blog post. They may immediately be going to your footer to find useful information like contact us, sign-up for a newsletter or shop. If they are going to spend time on your website footer, put it to work with the most important of your CTAs.
Links: internal vs. external
Most footers include either a full site map or some kind of navigation. Depending on how large your website is, you can choose which of these makes sense. Keep it simple and uncomplicated. What links will a user most be concerned to find in your menu? You could use your analytics data to see which of the pages are most popular on your site and use those. But don’t include irrelevant, external links in a bid to rank higher in SEO. This is a big no-no and is considered a Black Hat SEO technique.
There is also an opportunity to be creative with your footer links. You may decide to do icons as well, as long as this seems like a natural extension of your branding and design. Check out these very creative and effective footers.
Make it easy to be found or contacted
If you’re a local business then your address and phone number will ensure that Google understands you are local. This can help with SEO. It also makes it super quick for a user to find you. They should be able to get map directions immediately on their phone. And, on mobile, it should be one tap to call you. This gets users to you faster.
Social Media icons and feeds
To add or not to add? By inserting the icons, you’ll be taking people away from your site. Even though the links go right to your Twitter or Facebook, you risk losing them. However, most sites do include them in the footer either with text or icons. Other brands opt to show feeds with their latest tweet or post. Another idea for social is to include your total current followers. Visitors will see that others trust you as an expert and may be persuaded to follow you as well.
The legal stuff
This is the stuff that’s not creative; it is however necessary. A copyright protects your content. Remember to keep it updated yearly, or add code that will update it automatically.
Terms of Use is another legal link you’ll want to add. Terms of Use is akin to a disclaimer, stating what a user agrees to by visiting the site.
Finally, don’t forget the Privacy Policy. This is a link to your Privacy Policy page, which explains what type of information the website collects.
The website footer is another important part of your website design. It’s another opportunity to convert a lead, inform a user or get more social followers. If you’re not sure what works then test different options. Use the data to then determine what elements have the most value for this particular real estate.
