What to Include in the Footer of Your Website
A Guide for Online Service Providers
Hey there, online service provider! 🖐 If you're here, it's because you know that every inch of your website should be working hard for you, including the often-overlooked footer. Let’s talk about what to include in the footer of your website to ensure it’s as powerful as possible.
A website footer is the bottom section of a webpage, typically repeated across all pages of a site. It's a valuable space for providing important information and links that visitors might need, such as navigation menus, contact details, social media links, and legal notices like privacy policies and terms of service. Think of it as a quick-reference guide for your site, ensuring that even if visitors scroll all the way to the bottom, they can easily find essential information and continue to engage with your content.
Spoiler alert: Our templates have got you covered on all these fronts!
Essential Elements for Your Footer
Navigation Your footer should include a simple navigation menu. This is your chance to provide visitors with quick access to key areas of your site. Think of it as your website's map, guiding visitors even when they’re at the bottom of the page. Include links to your most important pages like Home, About, Services, and Contact. All the main links in your top navigation should be repeated and linked up to those pages in your footer.
Ways to Work with you Sales Pages Make sure your different sales pages or pages that go into detailed ways to work with you are prominently linked. This is a crucial part of your business, and you want to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to find out what you offer. For example, maybe like us you offer 2 main services. Website templates and Done-for-you websites. Link both of those detailed sales pages in the footer under Services or Ways to Work with Me.
Call to Action Button Don’t forget a strong call to action! Whether it’s booking a consultation, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a freebie, a clear CTA in your footer can capture those leads who scroll all the way down.
This call to action should be the main goal of your website. That will all depend on how you typically take people through your sales journey. Do you do sales calls? Then your call to action button should be “book a free call”. Do you want them to apply to work with you? Then direct them to the application. Are you trying to grow your email list? Link to your freebie one last time in the footer!
Social Links Social media links are a must. It’s a great way to keep your audience connected and engaged with your brand across different platforms. Use recognizable icons and make sure they open in a new tab.
Logo and SEO-Rich Description of Your Business Reinforce your brand by including your logo and a brief, keyword-rich description of your business. This not only looks professional but also helps with SEO and makes it really clear who you are and what you do.
Link to Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions Page Show visitors you mean business by including links to your privacy policy and terms and conditions. It’s all about building trust and being transparent. Every website has to have a privacy policy. It is a good idea to put a copyright sentence at the bottom. For example, “Copyright [YOUR BUSINESS NAME HERE] 20xx-2024”. This shows that the content on your site is copyrighted by you from the start of your business year to the current year.
Optional: Pull in your Instagram Feed Your footer can be a great place to gain more followers and keep your business in front of people. You can pull in your Instagram feed through your Squarespace website and your footer is the perfect place for that.
Optional: Hours and Location If you have specific hours of operation or a brick and mortar location that people come to, it is a good idea to include those in your website footer as well. Since our team works different hours and don’t have a physical location, we keep that off of our site.
Example of a Footer
Below is an example of our Footer from our own website. One of our biggest goals for our website is to grow our email list. That is why we link to our freebie again in the footer. You will also see that we have a navigation, services pages linked up, our logo and SEO rich paragraph, legal pages linked, our social media profiles and also our Instagram feed across the bottom.
Why Our Templates Make This Easy
All of our templates at Carbon and Clay are designed with these key elements in mind. We’ve infused the same strategies we use for our one-on-one clients, so you’re getting top-notch design and functionality right out of the box.
Why shell out the average $5K+ cost for a website when you can grab one of our expertly crafted templates for just under $200? Seriously, our templates are designed to help you launch a polished, professional site in a weekend. It’s all about working smarter, not harder.
Wrap Up
So there you have it! Make sure your footer is doing its job by including these essential elements. Ready to take your website to the next level? Check out our shop and grab a template that will help you launch a stunning, strategic site without breaking the bank.
Happy designing! ✨
