Footer
The purpose of a website footer is to help visitors by adding information and navigation options at the bottom of web pages. While they remain an optional element, you’ll definitely want to include them on large websites.
These are important choices because footers are highly visible. A lot of visitors see them. A study by Chartbeat looked at 25 million website visits and found that visitors scroll down thousands of pixels. No page is too tall, no footer too far.
Include the copyright. If your footer had just one element, this might be it. The year and the copyright symbol. It’s a weak but easy protection against website plagiarism.
Make sure the year is correct, you might want to include some code to keep the year updated.
If you have multiple pages, add a basic sitemap. This is the most common link found in footers which links to the HTML version of the sitemap. These links are rarely clicked by visitors, but like the XML sitemap, they may help search engines find things.
If you store user data, include our privacy policy. This is the second most common element in footer design. It typically links to a page explaining what information the website collects, how it’s stored and how it might be used. For most websites, it’s about tracking (Analytics and remarketing), form submissions and email signups.
Plenty of privacy policy generators exists on the web like: TermsFeed or FreePrivacyPolicy.com
Include a terms of use if you have one. The “terms of use” are a bit different from privacy. They explain what the visitor agrees to by visiting the website. Like a disclaimer, they state that by using the site, the visitor agrees to certain things. For websites in highly regulated industries, you may want to put the text right in the footer. If legal text is critical, adding it to your footer will make sure that you have maximum coverage. You’ve got the fine print on every page.
Include contact/address information. Visitors expect to find contact and address information in the right of the navigation bar. It’s a web design standard. It’s also standard to find a “contact” link in the bottom right (or center) of the footer. It can be an email link, but we recommend having a contact form.
Social media icons. Add your social media icons if you’re using social medias. Don’t make larger or more visible than other items in your footer, you want people to know that you have social networks, but don’t push them to go on them, otherwise they probably won’t come back.
Newsletter and email sign up. The website footer has become a very common place to let visitors subscribe. Make sure they are unobtrusive (never use popups) but visible enough so that your users can subscribe. You can also ask them to sign up to your newsletter when the authenticate.