A Place For A Few Good Links & Text

Typically, a webpage has a section at the bottom called a footer. Although it might live at the bottom, a footer supports the body by providing a spot for useful information which visitors customarily look for after viewing your page's main content.

Sometimes, visitors skip the main body and scroll right to the bottom, in fact.

W3Schools defines the footer below:

A <footer> element typically contains:

  • authorship information
  • copyright information
  • contact information
  • sitemap
  • back to top links
  • related documents

This is the place where your site's legalese lives – things like copyright and links to your terms of service (terms and conditions, terms of use).

Not to be overlooked, especially if you have visitors from California, is the Privacy Policy link. The California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 is a state law applicable to online properties. The law requires operators of commercial websites or online services that collect personally identifiable information from visitors who live in California to post a privacy policy and to comply with that policy. See: CA Internet Privacy Requirements 22575 – 2257

Also, although your About Us page already exists in your main menu, the footer is another place many visitors will go to for that important page link.

A sitemap is a secondary navigation area to help visitors reach your important site pages aside from the main menu.

Make sure that you include contact information or a link to your Contact page here too. I always look for that useful information in the footer.

Footer Design

This is a good tip:

Keep your footer clean, concise and readable. Avoid flashy graphics and fonts. Make sure that you can read the font over the background color and be clear what is and what is not a link. Keep with standard conventions when choosing how to make your links appear to your users. Many footers are centered. Having a footer align right or left can sometimes make the bottom of a site appear lop sided. Be sure that the information discussed above really is at the very bottom of your site. The only thing lower than it would be a copyright notice.
6 Things To Include for a User Friendly Footer

A website without a proper footer is a lost opportunity for tasteful UX. Life at the bottom is a good spot for tea leaves – ever hear of the tea leaf paradox? So if it's good enough for a few tea leaves, it's good enough for some well placed links and text.

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