How to make a website footer: design options, why you need it, tips
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How to make a website footer: design options, why you need it, tips
basement of the site Developers often overlook that the footer for the site (translation from English footer / basement) is one of its basic elements. It can provide more complete information about the company, and also performs various useful functions: it facilitates navigation, helps visitors navigate a web project and is useful for some commercial purposes.
Earlier in the blog, we examined the development of the website header, and today we’ll talk about the basement. Here you need to competently approach the choice of control components that will be included in it in order to get an effective and optimal solution. We bring to your attention a translation of the article from Agentestudio, which contains the best practices on the design of the footer and its illustrative examples.
The post consists of three parts:
Use footer’s for a web resource.
10 design options for the item.
3 steps to create it.
WHY DO YOU NEED A BASEMENT AT ALL?
1. It visually completes the content block
Creating a catchy footer will attract even more visitors. It is hard to imagine how long potential readers will be browsing the website – maybe ad infinitum! Therefore, when you design it, you should remember: the element is located “on the hook”, he will always find his audience.
content completion
2. Helps the owner of the site to make “leads” (sales, actions)
Let everyone see that after the content the web project does not end. Post any suitable option for a contact back: Email, 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
Do you have more information that cannot be placed on the page? – in this case, it is easily added to the “basement”. It can be any external links to useful resources, your partners or colleagues. It is also logical to include here some legal information on the type of reference to the conditions / rules of service, disclaimer, etc. (usually they are placed somewhere at the very end).
useful information
4. It directs website visitors
One important nuance must be taken into account: if a person is too far from its title when viewing / scrolling through a web page, it means he has not found 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.
visitor direction
5. To attract attention
If all the content looks a little scanty, then you can try to attract attention by designing the footer of the site in the most vivid, creative style and even make it to some extent “entertaining” (as in hand-drawn designs and layouts with cartoon graphics).
visitors attention
TEN FOOTWEAR WEB DESIGN OPTIONS
Given the existing design trends and looking at dozens of examples, the authors of the original article identified the most popular and effective directions 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 information content. It is better to focus on a few (no more than three) elements and keep it minimalistic and simple. It is logical to use the following combination: copyright + logo + buttons of social networks. Nowadays, we must not forget about the risk of plagiarism, so drawing attention to copyright is always useful.
2. Site map
Site Map
This element is often underestimated, since few use it. However, unlike the minimalist solution mentioned above, here a voluminous footer with an extensive number of categories / directories serves somewhat different purposes. Even if readers don’t find what they need, search engines can certainly: a large footer allows Google to better index pages on a website, which can positively affect its position in search results.
3. Feedback form or newsletter
contact form
For the placement of the contact form, web designers choose the following positions: top right, bottom right or center. If you add a link, it should redirect to the web page with the form, and not display it in a pop-up window. It is also not recommended to publish mailing addresses, as they often attract spammers and automatically fall into their databases.
The second method of attracting additional audiences is to subscribe to the newsletter, which 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 newsletter + mention the number of active subscribers already available.
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 very bottom, then most likely they did not find what they were looking for.
