How to make a footer site footer: design options, why you need it, tips
Developers often overlook the fact that the footer for the site (translated from English footer / basement) is one of its basic elements. It can give more complete information about the company, and also performs various useful functions: it facilitates navigation, helps visitors of the web project to orient themselves, and will be useful for some commercial purposes.
Earlier in the blog, we considered the development of the site header and today we will talk about the basement. Here you need to competently approach the choice of control components that will be included in it in order to obtain an effective and optimal solution. We bring to your attention a translation of an article from Agentestudio, which contains the best developments in footer design and its illustrative examples.
The post consists of three parts:
1. It visually completes the content block.
Creating a catchy footer will attract even more visitors. It is difficult to imagine how long potential readers will be browsing the website – perhaps indefinitely! Therefore, when designing it, you should remember: the element is “in the air”, it will always find its audience.
content completeness
2. Helps the site owner to make leads (sales, actions)
Let everyone see that after the content the web project does not end. Place there any suitable option for return contact: Email-mail, contact form or just your address. These additional details will help readers take the “next step” and call / write you.
help with leads
3. Footer contains useful information.
Have more information that can not be placed on the page? – in this case, it is easily added to the “basement”. These can be any external links to useful resources, your partners or colleagues. It is also logical to include here some legal data on the type of reference to the terms / conditions of service, disclaimers, etc. (they are usually placed somewhere at the very end).
useful information
4. It directs visitors to the website.
It is necessary to take into account one important nuance: if a person when viewing / scrolling a web page is too far from its title, it means he did not find what he came to you for. “Redirect” it using the navigation at the very bottom of the screen to the main sections of the web resource.
direction of visitors
5. To attract attention
If all the content looks rather poorly, then you can try to attract attention by decorating the site’s footer in the most vivid, creative style and even make it somewhat “entertaining” (as in drawing designs and layouts with cartoon graphics).
attention of visitors
TEN FUTTER WEB DESIGN OPTIONS
Considering the available design trends and reviewing dozens of examples, the authors of the original note highlighted the most popular and effective areas for this task.
1. Conciseness
minimalism
“Simplicity is an extreme degree of sophistication,” said Leonardo da Vinci. Excessive “fullness” of the footer does not always indicate its informativeness. It is better to focus on a few (no more than three) elements and keep it minimalist and simple. It is logical to use the following combination: copyright + logo + social networking buttons. In our time, we must not forget about the risk of plagiarism, therefore drawing attention to copyright is always useful.
2. Sitemap
Site Map
This element is often underestimated, since few people use it. However, unlike the above-mentioned minimalist solution, here the volume footer with an extensive number of rubrics / directories serves somewhat different purposes. Even if readers do not find what they need, search engines will definitely be able to: a big footer allows Google to better index the pages of a website, which can have a positive effect on its position in search results.
3. Feedback form or newsletter
contact form
By placing the contact form, web designers choose the following positions: top right, bottom right, or center. If you add a link, it should redirect to a webpage with a form, and not display it in a pop-up window. It is also not recommended to publish postal addresses, as they often attract spammers and automatically get into their databases.
The second method of attracting additional audiences is a subscription to the newsletter that is located in the basement of the site. This feature is especially recommended for online stores: tell us what and how often the user will receive in this mailing list + mention the number of existing active subscribers.
4. Additional navigation
navigation
This solution will help orient those who are “lost” in your online project. If people are already on the page at the bottom, then most likely they have not found what they were looking for. In this case, a correctly selected set of useful links in the footer will correctly guide them through the main sections of the web resource.
