The footer area is probably the most ignored part of most websites. This area can be very well utilized not only for online stores but for blogs, forums, and any other type of website. Here I will talk about how I optimized my online store’s footer.
First lets address the question of what should be included in the footer. Later we’ll discuss how to optimize the location of items in footer and optimizing its design.
What should you put in the footer?
The footer area is the last place your visitors look at let ago pay attention to. So don’t rely on the footer for any critical information that your visitors must see.
Usually if the visitor is checking out the footer in detail and reading it, he/she is already interested in your site, so put objects/link to encourage his initial feelings and improve his confidence in your site. You can that by putting some or all of the following in the footer:
- Trust/Security logos
- Links to your shipping/privacy/satisfaction guarantee pages
- Links to your Facebook/Twitter/MySpace pages
- Security logos
Footer is also a good place to put links to
- Customer service pages
- Most popular products
- Your best articles
- What credit cads you accept
Put Newsletter Sign Up Forms
Another very important object to put in the footer (actually it is a MUST for a good footer) is putting a newsletter sign up form. I have two large online stores and in both of them users sign up the for our newsletter from the footer forms more than any other single form (including homepage and pop-up, and sidebar). So put the newsletter form there.
Design of a footer
The best way to illustrate this is by an example. Below are screen shots of some of the best footers I have seen online (for eCommerce websites):
