Many people do not realize the importance of a footer and tend to ignore them completely. What they should realize is that footers act as a safety net that catches visitors who otherwise would have been turned off by your web setup.
Why is the Footer important?
The most common notion is that footers are less important than a header and a body since crucial information must be at the top where it can be easily visible. However, a chartbeat study found out that users spend most time scrolling to the bottom of the webpage.
Additionally, some website owners experienced a 50% spike in their conversion rate after they designed a footer with certain goals in their mind.
These numbers tell us one thing, that regardless of the size of the webpage, visitors will scroll down to the bottom to view your footer for shortcuts. If you are curious about how low your visitors scroll down the webpage, then there are a number of paid tools like Crazyegg and Lucky Orange. These tools can provide you with scroll depth statistics for a fee.
Anyhow, the bottom line is that a footer is necessary and worth strategizing over.
Now, the question is how can you design a footer for maximum conversion? Here are a few best practices that can help you out.
1. Copyright Protection
If you think that your website can do without a footer, think again! Having excessive content in the body of your website does not mean that you should skip on the footer. Moreover, if you cannot afford to have any shortcuts in your footer then you should go with just one element which is a copyright notice.
Although copyright is weak, still it is protection against website plagiarism.
2. Privacy Policy
Privacy policy enlists ways through which the website will collect user’s information, how they will store it and in what ways they will collect it. Based on the information it provides, a privacy policy is one of the most common elements in a footer. For the majority of the websites, the privacy policy is all about tracking users, email sign-ups and form submission.
3. Terms of Use
Terms of use and privacy policy are slightly different when compared. The former one works by explaining certain terms to users which they will have to agree to in order to use the website. It functions more like a disclaimer.
If you have a website in a highly-regulated industry, you may want to include a brief version of the terms of use in the footer.
4. Contact Information
It is pretty standard to have contact information present at the top right corner of the header. What else is quite standard? Including a contact link in the footer. But this contact box needs to be a link to your actual contact form and it should not be an email address.
In the footer, many people include their email link in place of actual contact information. You need to steer clear of this strategy as it is wrong. The reason why emails are a big no-no is that your visitor may not be visiting your website from a computer that they usually use for emails.
So ditch email addresses and opt for phone numbers or contact forms.
5. Addresses
Having correct company address in the footer is a quick way of telling Google where you are. This is also important for businesses who have local clients. You can also link a Google map to your address which will make it easy for visitors to find you. Also, if done correctly, this link can turn into a button for mobile users which they can use to find the address on any map app.
6. Social Media Icons
Having social media icons in the header is a good way of kissing your visitors goodbye because once they leave through the icons, they will not come back. The best way to filter serious from non-serious clients is by having social media icons in the footer. This is because only potential clients will scroll all the way down to the bottom.
You can take it a step further by including social media widgets in the footer that displays your posts. But be careful with this strategy as your recent posts will be available for viewing from all your media profiles.
7. Email Signup
24% of the top marketing websites have an email signup box in the footer. These numbers are not substantial but it is still not a bad idea to have your visitors sign up through the subscribe box in the footer.
8. Core values & Mission
Displaying company logo is great but why not tell visitors your story and the values you stand up for? A footer is a great place for this type of content. Moreover, you can put this section to good use by re-stating your mission and telling other people the kind of impact you have had on your clients.
9. Certifications & Awards
Displaying awards and certificates in the footer is a great way of instilling confidence regarding your services. So if you have earned any certificate, a footer is the best way of exhibiting your achievements.
10. Recent Blog Posts
If you are active in the content marketing world, you can push your latest blogs or articles in the footer. There are two approaches to displaying your content. The first one is that you embed your latest articles in the footer or you can select such content that seems to answer questions commonly asked by visitors.
11. Upcoming Events
If your company organizes a lot of business events, a footer is a great place for promoting them. Everything in the bottom section is likely to be seen by your visitors. But do not create space for this section unless you have planned an event.
12. Testimonials
Nobody has time to visit testimonial pages to see what the customers are saying about you. But that does not mean that you should delete all your testimonials. The best way to let visitors go through your testimonials is by adding them to your footer.
Depending on the size and length of the comments, you can add two or three testimonials in your footer.
So go through all the ideas and if you still have some troubles you can hire web programmers to help you get a great footer.
Conclusion
This is our take on the best practices for a website footer design. These twelve practices are capable of delivering results but do not use them altogether. Analyze your market, identify the needs of your visitors and think about how you can catch their attention. Only then, you will be able to create a footer worthy of praise.
