What should you include in a website footer?

A website footer is an essential part of a web design and most often businesses tend to ignore its importance. Here is an answer to what you should include and how you should organize it.

As a web design company, we often endure an overwhelming number of clients who do not emphasize the website footers as much as they do on other attributes. What they miss out on is perceiving the fact that it drives conversions and promotes engagement as it helps the audience to grab crucial information in a short span. After all, the visitor is trying to figure out the information he is looking for as he skims through the entire page and the website footers offer them such information in a matter of seconds. 

Use a simple design

Before you decide on the elements that could be added to the footer of your web design, pause for a minute to think why they should be there. Just because there is ample space, people tend to overload information. Do not mess up with too many attributes. Choose to add only the most-needed information, and organize them in a simple manner, but with a clearly defined flow. You may also consider grouping them for an organized view- say under the company, you may add About Us, Careers, Contact Us, etc. 

Spotlight critical information that would add to your SEO

Most often, people tend to just copy the same information on the header of the web design to the footer as well. But adding unique content to the footer of your web design adds more value. It could be your overall company information like address and contact details, apart from links to social media sites. You may also include links to pages that may not fit in the primary navigation bar, say careers page. Though it is a fact that Google and other search engines prioritize the header and body of your web design over the footer for ranking, you may choose to highlight keywords and pages that add to your SEO authorization. 

Do not forget to link the information to key pages of your web design

When you are adding the company details, you may choose to link them to the About Us or Our Team page, or while adding Social media icons, do not forget to link them to the relevant pages. You may link the contact details to the contact us page for information at the granular levels. You may also include a call to action like ‘Subscribe to our monthly newsletter’, or ‘Talk to our customer care executive’, etc. 

Add elements that enhance the credibility of the web design

For startups and small companies building trust and credibility decides is a key to success. You may use website footers to add and highlight your certifications, awards, recognitions, key membership details, security notices, etc. that may help you build trust in the minds of the visitor. Adding in the footer helps because they get displayed on every page of the website. 

Add copyright details and other legal terms

Many of the sites include a single line covering legal terms, but you may also include comprehensive information. You may choose to add copyright notice with details of the owner, and year of publication,  apart from terms of service, privacy policy, and other legal notices. You may add such exhaustive information on a separate page and then link it from the footer.   

No matter, A good website is a sales team’s best friend and the best way to design a website is to stay updated to the web design trends and understanding the attributes of static vs dynamic web design.