The footer is the part of your site that people reach when they did not find what they wanted anywhere else. That single behaviour explains almost every decision you need to make about it. Visitors scroll to the bottom looking for a phone number, a return policy, an address, a login link or proof that a real company is behind the site. If the footer answers those questions in a couple of seconds, it quietly rescues the visit. If it does not, the tab closes.
This guide breaks down exactly what to include in a website footer, why each element earns its place, and which items you should delete today. Every element below is tied to a user behaviour or a business goal, so you can decide what belongs on your site rather than copying a template.
The short answer
A well-built footer contains four groups of information:
- Identity: who you are, where you are, how to reach you
- Navigation: a condensed sitemap plus the links that never fit in the main menu
- Legal and compliance: privacy, terms, cookies, accessibility statement, copyright
- Conversion and reassurance: newsletter signup, secondary call to action, trust badges, social profiles
Everything else is optional, and quite a lot of it is harmful. Let us go through the twelve elements worth building.
The 12 elements to include in a website footer
1. Business identity and copyright line
User behaviour it supports: visitors verifying that the site belongs to a legitimate, currently operating business.
Include your registered company name, not just your brand name, and the current year. A footer that still says “© 2019” signals an abandoned site faster than any other element. Generate the year dynamically so it updates itself.
In many jurisdictions you are also required to publish company registration details, VAT number or a legal notice link. If you sell in the EU, an Impressum or legal notice link belongs here.
2. Contact details that are actually usable
Goal: reduce friction for high-intent visitors and increase perceived legitimacy. squarespace.com goes into the numbers.
Contact information is the single most requested item in bottom-of-page navigation. Include:
- A clickable email address (
mailto:) or a link to a contact form - A clickable phone number (
tel:) with country code - A physical address, even if you are remote-first and it is a registered office
- Opening hours or response times if you offer support
- A link to directions or a map for locations customers visit
Sites that hide contact details lose trust in exactly the moment a buyer was ready to talk to someone.
3. A condensed sitemap
Goal: catch users who reached the bottom without finding their answer, and distribute internal link equity.
Group your most important pages into three to five labelled columns, for example Products, Company, Resources, Support. This is often called doormat navigation. Keep it to the pages that matter: a footer with 90 links is a maintenance problem and dilutes the signal you are sending to search engines.
Use real headings for each column and mark them up properly so screen reader users can jump between groups. Anyone digging further should read Your Website Footer: What to Include.
4. Legal pages
Goal: compliance, plus reassurance for cautious buyers.
At minimum: Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, and Cookie Policy or cookie preferences link. Depending on your business, add refund policy, shipping policy, acceptable use policy, DPA, and an accessibility statement. These links can be small and set in a bottom sub-bar, but they must be readable, which means real contrast and a minimum of 12 to 14 pixels.
5. Newsletter or lead magnet signup
Goal: capture visitors who are interested but not ready to buy.
Footer signup forms convert modestly, but they convert people who already read to the bottom, which is a good sign. Make it work harder:
- One field plus one button. Nothing else.
- Say what subscribers actually receive and how often
- Add the consent checkbox where the law requires it, and a link to your privacy policy
- Show a clear success message in place, without a page reload
6. Social media icons
Goal: let engaged visitors follow you, and show that the brand is active.
Two rules. First, only link to profiles you actually maintain: a dead account with three posts from two years ago damages credibility. Second, place them at the end of the footer, not near the top of the page, because they send traffic away. Give every icon an accessible name such as “275mb on LinkedIn”, not just a decorative SVG.
7. Trust signals and credentials
Goal: remove last-minute doubt before a purchase or an enquiry.
Depending on your sector, this can include security and SSL badges, payment method icons, ISO or industry certifications, memberships, awards, review platform ratings, or client logos. Keep it to a compact row. Three credible badges beat nine generic ones.
8. Customer service and self-service links
Goal: deflect support tickets and answer purchase objections.
For ecommerce and SaaS, these are often the most clicked footer links of all:
- Shipping and delivery information
- Returns and refunds
- Order tracking
- Size guides or spec sheets
- Help centre, documentation or FAQ
- Status page for uptime, if you host or run a service
9. Company and credibility pages
Goal: serve investors, journalists, candidates and partners without cluttering the main menu.
About us, Careers, Press or media kit, Partners, Affiliates, Sustainability, Investor relations. These pages have real audiences but rarely deserve top-level navigation, which makes the footer their natural home.
10. A secondary call to action
Goal: convert the reader who just finished your page and is ready to act.
Reaching the footer means the visitor consumed the page. Place one clear action there: request a quote, book a demo, start a free trial, check availability. One button, one message. If the footer CTA repeats the hero CTA, that is fine and often effective.
11. Language, region and accessibility controls
Goal: serve international and assistive-technology users without hijacking the header.
Language and currency selectors work well in the footer for sites where most users only need them once. Add an accessibility statement link and, if you offer them, contrast or text-size preferences. Never auto-switch language based on IP alone without an obvious manual override.
12. Logo, brand statement and back-to-top link
Goal: orientation and easy return to the top on long pages.
A small logo plus a one-line description of what the company does helps visitors who landed deep on a blog post from search and never saw your homepage. A back-to-top control is a genuine usability win on long pages, particularly on mobile.
Which elements matter most for your type of site
| Element | Primary goal | Ecommerce | B2B / services | Blog / media |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact details | Trust and enquiries | Essential | Essential | Recommended |
| Condensed sitemap | Navigation rescue | Essential | Essential | Essential |
| Legal pages | Compliance | Essential | Essential | Essential |
| Customer service links | Ticket deflection | Essential | Recommended | Optional |
| Newsletter signup | Lead capture | Recommended | Recommended | Essential |
| Trust badges | Objection handling | Essential | Recommended | Optional |
| Secondary CTA | Conversion | Optional | Essential | Recommended |
| Social icons | Community | Recommended | Optional | Essential |
What to leave out of your footer
Deciding what to remove is as valuable as deciding what to include. These six items regularly cost sites conversions, speed or accessibility:
- An entire keyword-stuffed link farm. Dozens of city or service links crammed into tiny grey text is a pattern search engines have discounted for years, and users ignore it.
- Live social feeds and embedded widgets. They load third-party scripts on every page, slow down Core Web Vitals and often fail to render.
- Duplicate versions of the main menu. If the footer repeats the header exactly, it adds nothing. Use it for the links the header cannot hold.
- Auto-playing video, animated backgrounds or parallax. The footer is a utility area, not a stage.
- Fake urgency and popups triggered at the bottom. A visitor who reached the footer is exploring, not fleeing. Interrupting them backfires.
- Text at 10px in light grey on white. This is the most common accessibility failure on the web and it usually lives in the footer.
Footer mistakes that hurt conversions and accessibility
Contrast and font size
Footer text still has to meet a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. “Small print” is a design convention, not a licence to make links unreadable. Legal links are exactly the links people with low vision most need to find.
Tap targets that are too small
On mobile, footer links are often stacked with 4 pixels of spacing, which produces mis-taps. Aim for a minimum touch area of 44 by 44 pixels, or add vertical padding to each link.
Collapsible sections that are not keyboard accessible
Accordions are a good pattern for mobile footers, but they need real button elements, aria-expanded states and keyboard support. A <div> with a click handler locks out keyboard and screen reader users.
Missing landmark and heading structure
Wrap the footer in a <footer> element so assistive technology can identify it as a landmark. Give each link column a heading. Use a navigation landmark with a label such as “Footer” for the sitemap section.
Icons without accessible names
Social icons and payment logos rendered as bare SVGs announce as “link” or nothing at all. Add aria-label or visually hidden text.
Links that go nowhere
Broken footer links accumulate quietly because nobody audits them. Check them every quarter along with your sitemap.
An overloaded footer that becomes a second homepage
If your footer takes three screens to scroll past on mobile, it is not helping. Prioritise, collapse, and cut.
How to structure the footer visually
- Top zone: optional CTA or newsletter signup, visually distinct from the rest
- Middle zone: three to five link columns plus a contact block
- Bottom bar: copyright, legal links, language selector, social icons
On mobile, convert the link columns into collapsed accordions and keep the contact block and legal bar always visible. Test the whole thing with the keyboard only: tab through it from the last piece of page content to the very last link and make sure focus is always visible.
Footer checklist before you publish
- Company legal name and dynamic copyright year
- Clickable phone, email and physical address
- Three to five labelled link columns covering key sections
- Privacy Policy, Terms, Cookie preferences, Accessibility statement
- One newsletter form or one secondary CTA, not both competing
- Only social profiles that are active
- Trust badges limited to what is genuine and relevant
- Contrast ratio checked, minimum 4.5:1
- Tap targets at least 44 pixels
- Keyboard navigation and focus states verified
- All links tested and working
- No third-party widgets slowing the page
FAQ
What should I put in the footer of my website?
At minimum: business name and copyright, contact details, a condensed sitemap of key pages, and links to your privacy policy and terms. After that, add a newsletter signup, customer service links, trust badges and social icons depending on your business model. withgraceandgold.com walks through the specifics.
Is a footer required by law?
The footer itself is not, but the information usually placed there often is. Privacy notices, cookie consent access, company registration details and, in some countries, a legal notice or Impressum are legal requirements. The footer is simply the place users expect to find them.
How many links should a website footer have?
There is no fixed number, but between 15 and 40 links is a workable range for most sites. Beyond that, users stop scanning and the footer becomes noise. Group links under clear headings rather than listing them in one long block.
Should the footer be the same on every page?
Usually yes. Consistency is part of what makes the footer useful, because people learn where things are. Exceptions are landing pages built for a single conversion, where a stripped-down footer with only legal links reduces distraction.
Does the footer help SEO?
Indirectly. Footer links help crawlers reach important pages and pass internal link signals, and a clear footer improves engagement metrics. What does not help is stuffing dozens of keyword-rich anchor texts into it, which search engines discount and users ignore.
Should social media icons go in the header or the footer?
The footer. Social links send visitors off your site, so placing them at the very end means only people who finished the page will see them.
What is doormat navigation?
It is the multi-column block of grouped links at the bottom of a page, named for the way it lies across the base of the site like a doormat. It works as a rescue mechanism for users who did not find what they wanted in the main menu.
Final word
Treat the footer as a service desk rather than decoration. Every element should answer a question a real visitor has at the bottom of a page: how do I contact you, where else can I go, can I trust you, and what should I do next. Build it around those four questions, delete the rest, and test it with a keyboard and a contrast checker before it goes live.
