As a sitewide element (head logo is another one already discussed), footer used to be a widely used way to both interlink your own pages and add external sitewide links. It was then so much used and abused that it turned into a some kind of "red flag" for search engines (external link in the footer = very high probability these are paid links).
So now instead of optimizing the footer with links, most webmasters rightfully focus on both making it useful and avoiding any chance of being blamed for breaking any rules;.
So what to include in the footer? Let’s first see how other smart people handle this:
| Source | Footer elements and links | Nofollow applied to… |
 |
Copyright notice, external link to the related site, links to privacy policy and terms of service |
no |
 |
Main navigation (Home | About | Blog | etc), copyright notice, relevant external links | Main navigation, external links |
|
|
Design by {external link}, code by {external link} | link to WordPress.org |
 |
Main navigation (same as in the head) | no |
 |
Main site navigation + copyright notice | no |
 |
Tag cloud, contact information copyright notice, external link to the related site | no |
 |
Tag cloud, MyBlogLog widget, "About the blog author", Links to feed | no |
So what are the DOs and DON’Ts when thinking through the site footer?
- Adding useful navigational links in the footer is a good idea as once the visitor scrolls the page down, he will need some appealing link to click to continue browsing the site. Besides, if those links contain keyword-based anchor text, this may also be good for SEO (especially for pages that lack content of their own);
- External links (especially, off-topic links) shouldn’t be there, as they can very much look like paid ("spammy") links. Probably, if you need external links there, it’s wise to use nofollow attribute;
- Placing copyright notice (and year) in the footer is a common fashion:
- it makes your site look trustworthy;
- people are used to seeing it there, so it will make them feel safer.
- Footer shouldn’t be the only place where you specify your contact information (or link to contact-us page) – if you really want people to reach you. However it is wise to add some reference to your contact page there as footer seems to be the first place visitors check when they come to your site with the primary purpose to contact you.
So to conclude:
- make your website footer relevant and useful;
- don’t add too many elements to the footer – it should be clean and concise;
- focus on people (SEO value of the footer is too insignificant anyway);
- follow the common fashion: people want to see common elements at there common places.
Any other footer tips? Please share!
I always use an internal link that links back to the previous page at the bottom of every webpage I build.
I also include keywords, I believe this helps seo spiders and humans as when they get to the bottom of a web page they look for somewhere to link to.
You need to be careful with internal footer links if you are using or planning to use Yahoo SSP (Search submit Pro).
They get quite funny about footer links used for ’seo purposes’ with the use of their product.
Slightly contradictory of course considering the use of their own footer links on some of their own properties.
Don’t you have anything useful to write about? A waste of bits and bytes.
Mitch,
Maybe you should be taking your own advice there.
Why are you going to go and spend the time and effort to write something that has absolutely no value to the web or anyone else, just to say “stop wasting my time” when now you’re wasting other people’s time too.
A bit hypocritical in my opinion.
Mine is a 1 liner waste of time. that article had quite a few paragraphs of waste :)
While I agree that to some of us this article may seem a bit on the obvious side, not everyone has been in the SEO game for that long. And thus this information will be beneficial for them and their web site’ ranking results.
Hi Ann,
What do you think about putting name address and phone info in the footer to help the spiders associate your website with your location? Or is there another place on the page better for that info?
Thanks, Mary
@Mary, very good point! Actually where you place your location information depends on how geo-targeting is important for you. If you exclusively target some specific location, you should definitely choose a more prominent place. In other cases footer is a great choice.
I like having internal links on my footer to other relevant pages of the site. I feel that this can be useful as I may often link through a site that I visit through this sort of navigation.
Nice article, Ann. I enjoy your writing.
I’d like to respond to Mary. We consider putting the location information in the footer to be a basic good practice for any website targeting local search. It’s the first thing we do when we start optimizing for local search, in fact.
Miriam
each footer should contain the following:
1. Sitemap linkage
2. copyright notice
3. privacy statement
4. terms and conditions/legal statement
5. Address block
at least..
What about all the sites (like this one) that have external links to their web designer or template provider?
I don’t see why a link would assume to be paid because it is in the footer. A paid link could be placed anywhere.
It’s really no one’s business if the link is paid for, anyway. Let’s stop acting like Google is a government authority.
Nice article.
I do find it interesting that your paid “sponsor” links on the right hand sidebar do not have “nofollow” links.
@ paisley, I agree with you to add a “Sitemap” link in the footer.
@ Ann, any SEO views on sitemap link placement?
@Mary, for geo-targeting for a specific location, try the meta description plus somewhere in your content – it works beautifully well esp. on Google.
Sound advice, Ann. However I’ve gone in the completely opposite direction with my footers. It’s explained in a post on Foolish Footers.
@Software Testing, personally I am not a huge user of sitemaps; I believe in sound architecture structure instead. But I guess that’s not a bad option…
@Barry, awesome addition to the discussion.
Ann,
I have also noticed the links in the footer have no affect. I first started to notice when I check a sites external links by googling for link:techbranch.com and noticing nothing every shows up on google for those sites. Even if you put relavent keywords around the link like Web Design and Hosting whatever. It doesnt matter.
Ehat we must add to footer sections: “We all love Ann Smarty!” :-)
Lol, thank you :)
thanx for the article
i am thankful to your post.
really helpful info.
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