Website Footer: Best practices and what to Consider
Website footers are an integral part of any successful website. They can be used to enhance user experience. Whether you’re a small business owner or a website designer working for an Austin web design company, utilizing footer elements that are user-friendly and accessible is essential.
Footers are essential for any website, as they provide helpful navigation elements such as policies, contact info, and social media links. In addition to offering visitors a familiar experience by marking the end of each page, footers also offer users an easy way to get in touch with you. With just one click of a button or link on your site’s footer section, potential customers can be connected directly with your business.
Crafting the perfect website footer is no small feat, but with a few best practices, you can optimize your website for maximum performance. Today this blog uncovers these must-use tips for designing an efficient and effective footer — let’s get started.
5 Best Practices for Website Footer Design
1. Understand the Purpose of Having a Footer
You may have noticed that social media apps often opt out of having a footer; instead, they use infinite scrolling. This is a feature-specific decision, depending on your industry and the type of website you run.
For example, some websites require a footer to provide important information about their company or support links not displayed anywhere else on the page. Your footer is a cue to the users that they have come to the end of the website. It also provided the final links and navigation items to urge the visitor to take a specific action if needed.
2. Make Every Part of Your Website Count
When designing a website, it’s important to consider every detail, including the footer. Some designers need to correct the mistake of treating the footer as an afterthought and filling it with random links and content. However, the footer can be valuable real estate that engages users and motivates them to take action.
Imagine scrolling to the bottom of a website and finding boring calls to action that don’t excite you. As a user, you’re still searching for what you want. That’s why you must carefully plan and design the footer to offer users exactly what they need.
So, how can you make your footer stand out? Think beyond the typical “About Us” and “Contact” pages. Instead, consider adding useful links that guide users to other parts of your site. You can also leverage the footer to showcase your social media profiles or promote upcoming events.
As you scroll down to the end of a website, it can be difficult for even the most compelling calls to action to draw your attention. “Buy this” and “read that” may not do enough to entice someone into clicking. Those who make it to your page footer are likely looking for something else entirely — so when designing with users in mind, ensure you help them reach their desired destination!
As you plan and design the entire layout of your website, it’s essential to consider the Footer too. Visualize how this will all fit together when everything is done. The Footer must blend in seamlessly with the rest of your web pages so visitors can easily navigate through them without any difficulty.
3. Make Visual Hierarchy a part of your footer
While this is more of a UI principle than UX, keeping the elements in your Footer properly arranged is essential. As explained, the Footer is an orientation tool for users — think carefully about what content should go there and why.
For instance, if you’re constructing a website with marketing objectives, filling up your footer with icons will be less useful; however, they can prove beneficial when used on app-related navigation bars.
Your footer should be more than a mere afterthought; you need to consider your users’ needs when exploring it. For example, refrain from filling up the footer with too much stuff, which can confuse new and regular visitors. Instead, ensure the design is minimalistic yet effective in guiding viewers around your website.
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4. Do Not Make your Footer a Dumping Place for all Your CTA’s
Placing calls-to-action at your website’s bottom might seem useful to capture prospects and customers, but its primary objective should be different. If prior attempts were unsuccessful, users likely wouldn’t respond favorably to an identical message in your Footer.
Therefore, if you want successful conversion rates from these tactics, ensure they differ from previous efforts for greater effectiveness. Your Footer should be used to give visitors the final bit of information they need, like a reminder of what they have seen previously.
It is worth noting that users will usually scroll down to the Website’s Footer if they haven’t found what they are looking for in your main navigation menu or when doing more thorough research into your business. So, please keep it simple.
5. Do Not Forget to Create a Sitemap and Include it in Your Footer
Aside from needing a full stop at the bottom of your website, there are numerous reasons why having an XML Sitemap in your Footer is essential. It is particularly vital for SEO; it allows search engines to traverse through all the areas of your website easily.
Structuring your Footer doesn’t have to be a daunting task:
- Utilize the sitemap tool: arrange and align cells within it to portray columns and divisions of your Footer.
- You can move components into different columns with a drag-and-drop movement.
- Reordering them is just as simple; try out various scenarios until you discover what works best.
Conclusion
Designing a website footer is an important step in the overall process. Think carefully about what content should go there and why, consider how it fits into the rest of your website, keep visual hierarchy in mind, and try to avoid dumping too much marketing collateral at the bottom. Lastly, remember to include a sitemap in your footer.
If you keep all these things in mind, you’re sure to create an effective website footer that complements the other pages of your site. Let Austin web development company help you craft the perfect footer for your website that meets all your needs and exceeds expectations. Their expertise will ensure your site is optimized to its fullest potential.
