What to include in your website footer
A footer on a website is the last section of information you see when you reach the bottom of a website page. The footer is repeated at the bottom of every page on the site. Once the website is complete, the footer generally doesn't change unless there is new, permanent information to convey. It isn't used as an announcement area because you can't be sure that someone will scroll or swipe that far down on your website.
Components of a footer
Typically the footer contains contact information and copyright and legal information. It may also contain navigation links to website pages, mailing list signup forms, social media links, a search bar, and calls to action, such as scheduling a consultation or sending in a contact form.
What should your footer contain?
Your footer should contain the information that is most important for the goals of your website and what your clients need to know.
A copyright line is recommended for all websites
You should have a copyright line with a link to a Privacy Policy page.
Contact information is recommended for most websites
A physical address is useful if customers need to come to you to do business or if they need to send mail or packages to you.
A phone number is useful if you want customers to call you.
A link to an email address is useful for email inquiries.
(If you’re wondering why I don’t use these on my website, it’s because I prefer to have client inquiries come through my Contact form.)
Navigation links
To avoid overcrowding, the navigation bar at the top of your website should have no more than seven or eight links to the main pages of your website. That leaves the footer as an area where you can add links to other pages that aren’t critical enough to put in the main navigation. These are pages that customers may need to look up occasionally, such as Resources, FAQs, appointment scheduling, pages with downloadable files, or specific Services pages. You should add these links as a collection of text links in a column or a row so people know they are navigation links.
Other options to add to your footer
Here are other examples of items you can add to a footer. What you choose depends on how large you want the footer area to be and what actions you want people to take easily from the footer.
A mailing list signup form
A link or button to your Contact form
Social media icons to encourage new followers
For an online store, links to purchase and return policy pages
A logo for reinforcing brand awareness
A short description of your business as a reminder about what you do
A search bar to allow people to find information on your site if you have a lot of pages or blog posts
How to style a footer
Once you’ve decided which pieces of information you want to add to your footer, you can start to work on placing the elements in a pleasing, readable way in the footer. As you design the footer, you should preview the design for both desktop and mobile viewing. A footer on a larger screen like a laptop will show up differently from a footer shown on a smartphone.
Number of columns
A one-column footer is the easiest to create because you don’t need to spread the information equally among multiple columns. If you have a lot of information and don’t want the footer to be too long, you can choose to spread the information across multiple columns, but you’ll want to be sure that each column is the same height, so that can be challenging to design. Also keep in mind that on a smaller screen, columns will be stacked one on top of another, so the left column should be the one you want people to see first.
Color
Squarespace allows you to change the background color of a footer to match the colors of your website. Text colors are determined by the styles you choose for your template.
Images
If you want an image, such as a logo, to show through a non-white footer, use a transparent image format called a .png.
Squarespace examples
Here are some examples of footers from Squarespace websites.
These are footers on Squarespace websites, with a variety of styles from single column to three columns. These are from LearningBeyondLimits.com, ZeetoonSoap.com, and MelanieEisner.com.
Things to know about Squarespace footers
You can remove the Squarespace branding to customize your footer. That branding is only provided as an example.
You can't have a footer on a Cover page in Squarespace 7.0 or a Lock Screen in Squarespace 7.0 and 7.1. These pages are meant to look like they are pages that aren't attached to a website.
Your template may give you multiple footer sections (for example, a top footer and a bottom footer), but you don't need to use them all.
Some Squarespace 7.0 templates offer footer navigation, which is an easy way to highlight some pages on your website in an additional navigation area. You can simulate footer navigation on other templates or in Squarespace 7.1 by creating a row or column of text links in the footer and have them open different pages.
With all the ways you’ve learned to design your footer, I hope you now feel more comfortable using the space at the bottom of your website as a way to provide valuable information and to ask your website visitors to take action on their way to becoming loyal customers.
