WordPress Footer: 3 elements that all websites should include

August 12. 2020

When designing a website, most people focus on the larger issues. Of course, issues like setting up a domain and picking the right theme are important. On the other hand, even the smaller aspects of a website, such as a footer, can have a large impact on its overall design and quality. So, if you haven’t yet considered what your WordPress footer should have, make sure to read through our entire article. Here we will outline why having a well-optimized footer is a must. And, how to include in it the most basic elements.

Why is it important to optimize your footer?

If we were to tell you to find a good website that doesn’t have a footer, you’d probably struggle a bit. Almost all of the most common websites use footers for one reason or another. In fact, footers have become so commonplace that we don’t even notice that they are there. The reason for this is that footer makes website navigation far easier.

They usually serve to sum up the current page and give helpful navigation to other parts of your website. Ideally, you will navigate people to different pages on your website through careful interlinking. But, seeing as that can often be hard to maintain, you shouldn’t shy away from using a footer. If you implement it properly you will ensure that your visitors stay engaged after reading through your pages or posts. This will motivate them to further explore your website.

So, does this mean that your website must have a footer? Of course not. There is plenty of creative, minimalist websites that maintain surprising ease of use through navigation menus and careful linking. After all, a footer is simply another tool in website design that you can use. But, if you do choose to avoid using footer, we suggest that you plan and organize your website with the utmost care. Not having a footer on your website is like not concluding a post. Without a final though, people usually drift away from the content that they previously read and start looking for new. So, if you are new to the WordPress design, do yourself a favor and use a footer.

What elements does your WordPress footer need to have

The idea behind the footer is to give your webpage closure. The header serves to give your audience an idea of what the current page has. Footer, on the other hand, serves to sum up to read what they went through and give further ideas of what to read. To an inexperienced reader, this might not seem important. But, in fact, it is one of the most important elements of web design. Especially when it comes to retaining the reader’s interest. Ideally, you will put all of the most necessary info in your footer so that readers have an easy way to keep reading on your website.

Contact info

It should be fairly obvious that the most important info you need to place in your WordPress footer is the contact info. Your readers should be able to contact you whenever they feel the need to. And the only way to ensure that the connection is as fast as possible is by posting contact info in your footer. Now, there are a couple of ways you can do this. First, you can and should have a contact page where you will list in detail and the contact info that your visitors might need. After that you can:

• Only place the link to the contact info page.
• Use the most essential contact info in your footer, and place a link to the contact info page.
• Implement a contact form, and set up an easy way for your readers to contact you.

The more content you place, the more room your footer is going to take. So, try to figure out which style suits your website best and whether you should prioritize contact info or other elements of WordPress footer.

Featured links

When creating your website and writing blog posts, your goal shouldn’t be to simply catch people’s attention. Of course, finding traffic for your website is quite important, which is why people spend so much time researching SEO. But, in order to get proper results, you need to turn that traffic into quality traffic. There are many ways to do this, and one of the most important ones is making your visitors stay on your website. The more time people spend on your website, the more likely they are to do business with you. So, while designing your website, don’t forget that retention rates are quite important.

So, how do retention rates connect to footer content? Well, one of the ways to incentivize people to stay on your website is to suggest useful content that they can continue to read. And the best place to recommend that content is in your footer. Once your visitors finish reading the initial page, they should get recommendations for further reading that naturally connect to what they previously read.

CTA links

The last element that you need to incorporate in WordPress footer is the Call To Action links. Unless your website is purely informative, you need to use your footer to divert readers’ attention to your CTA links. If and when your readers wish to do business with you, they should be able to do so with a click of the button. It might seem that posting your contact info is enough, but you’d be wrong. The more steps you can skip between your reader deciding that they want to do business with you, and them hiring you, the better.