Blog Footer - Space for Blog Improvement Items
Photo by the plunkmaster
Blog footer are said to be the least accessible place for average Joe blog surfers. Webmasters or fellow bloggers might be reading the footer to check out your stats (research on your traffic) and theme resource link (they want your theme).
Conclusion from the statements above shown that whatever the frequency and types of readers reaching your blog footer, there are still people viewing it.
Readers often arrive at your blog footer after finishing what your blog home page has to offer. At this time, what they are looking for is how can they continue surfing or should they close down the window. This is why a blog footer is extremely important for containing blog readers or reaping benefits for you.
9 Item Options for A Blog Footer
Adverts
Ad panels can be placed at the footer. The blog footer is a good place for pay-per-click ads because when readers wanted to quit your blog, they can click on these ads. However, placing CPM ads in your blog footer is not recommended. CPM ads provider often pays better if the ads are placed above the fold since the ads will get more exposure.
Photo by sylvar
Affiliate or sales page links
When readers got attracted with your information offered and a message like "We got more offered at XXX so check it out now" pops up, readers will certainly check the link out. This improves the conversion rate of your sales (if you have your own products) or your affiliate marketing activities.
Reminders
Readers are often idle when they reach your footer. Thus, give them something to do! A simple reminder to bookmark your blog or subscribe to your RSS feed can be placed at the footer since readers is not distracted by contents or your sidebars and thus, more inclined to perform the actions reminded.
Back to top
Some blogs is long in terms of length and this means it will be a long way down, which also means a long way up if the readers want to. Having a back to top same page link will help the readers get back to the header fast. This should be done if for example, you have an opt-in box or an event which requires attention at the top. To do this, you must also make sure that your header is capable of getting into the subconscious mind of readers so that they will click on the link.
Search engine manipulation links
Due to the fact that most blog footers are least accessible by readers, some had made the place as a link farm by trading links or having link exchange deals to boost their Page Rank and search engine ranking positions. However, this is not recommended by me as Google and other search engines has been more powerful than you think it is. Irrelevant links from your site will only raise their curiosity rather than reaching your aim with that action of yours.
Outgoing links
Relevant outgoing links do not only act as a tool to get the attention of bloggers that you have linked to. Also, it can be a good resource list which readers might come back again just to refer to the list. This is because most readers don’t bookmark a long list of sites. Making these links opening in a new window will stop you from giving your readers away.
Internal links
Internal links improves the stickiness of your blog. Readers will stay on your blog longer as you offer them more information. They got more fascinated with your blog and this improves the chances of turning these first time readers into your loyal readers.
Navigation bar
Navigation bar are often seen on top of a blog. They consists of pages such as "Featured Posts" and money making page such as the "Advertise" page. All these pages have benefits for you when a reader of potential advertiser visits it. A navigation bar at the footer will serve as a reminder as well as an exit point for such readers.
Miscellaneous stuffs
Don’t feel like having anything of the above as your blog footer item? Well, there are plenty of other items that can be placed in your blog footer such as:
- Blog stats
- Various widgets
- Copyright policy and information
- Relevant videos
- About the author section
Such stuffs might commonly be placed in the sidebar but they got neglected since the contents is there attracting the attention of readers. Free up the sidebar for more useful stuffs and put these into your footer!
Conclusion on Maintaining a Blog Footer
There are more than 9 things as listed above for you to place into your blog footer. However, stuffing your blog footer with all of them is not a wise move.
First of all, you will need to know what is the main aim for your blog. If it is to make money, place PPC ad panels there. If it is content-orientated like this blogging tips blog, place links to your articles.
Blog footer is often neglected by bloggers and now, with the list of items that can be included has been provided, I hope you can revisit your blog footer so that it can be improved.
Feedback by Readers
Have you been paying attention to your blog footer? When you visit a blog, will the blog footer get your attention? What other items that exist in your blog footer but not covered by my list?
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Have you been paying attention to your blog footer?
Oh yeah, my footer is very rich.
When you visit a blog, will the blog footer get your attention?
Definitely.
What other items that exist in your blog footer but not covered by my list?
Recent viewer widget, powered by MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog.
Personally, I prefer BlogCatalog more as I believe it to be better than MyBlogLog.
Google Adsense Referral Link Boxes.
I killed all the ads in my site, only these two (2) referral boxes remain.
Alexa Rank Widget.
I heard rumors claiming that by placing the Alexa Rank Widget on one’s site would help improve the traffic rank?
Recent Posts and Comments.
For visitors / readers / myself to find out what I have written recently, and what / where folks have been commenting.
Cheers!
In my opinion, it’s best to put all those MyBlogLog type widgets in your footer. No one really cares about them anyways and it will free up your sidebar if you place them in the footer. Also, instead of a normal blogroll in the sidebar, you can put your blogroll in the footer…
@Ruchir:
I care for them! As a site owner I would like to know who has visited, dropped by my domain before.
As a visitor to other sites, I would be interested in knowing who visited their sites before.
Ya. I forgot to mention that my “blogroll” thingie is in my footer area as well.
Right now I’ve only got some simple text links that duplicate my main header navigation - I might consider changing this as I develop / replace my current theme.
@Ruchir - I take it that placing your blogroll wouldn’t reduce the value of the links when search engines are indexing it?
Now I know how important a footer is… I better spend some time on stuffs at my footer…
Frankly, I don’t concern much about footer, haha~ It is not easy to manage a nice footer, but I see Deimos doing very well, I like that~
Anyway, thanks for the guideline
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@Zath:
Yeah, at the moment, your footer is not heavy, lite is the word?
By the way, your site is about Games too?
A fellow gamer!???!!
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@yung .:
Better late than never!
Get started in whipping your footer into shape!
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@Sean:
Har? Footer that hard to manage?
I think blogs are hard to manage!
So many to do, not enough time to do ‘em all yarghhhh!
Thanks for the compliment about my footer, mate.
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Deimos Tel`Arin the Cyber Demon hath spoken
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GREAT post, Wayne Liew! You’ve really made me think a lot about how I can take advantage of my footer, because right now it’s completely empty. This is something I’ll be giving some thought.
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@Tay:
Yeah your footer does looks rather empty.
Now that you mentioned it, so does Wayne Liew’s footer!
Wayne Liew!
Explain why you have an empty footer!
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Deimos Tel`Arin the Cyber Demon hath spoken
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@ Deimos
WOW! 
First, thanks for doing a great job replying to ALL my commentators.
MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog falls under “various widgets” and Adsense referral boxes falls under affiliate links or ads.
Can’t you see my footer? It is featured in this post. A consolidated recent post with excerpts. I don’t want to tire my readers for scrolling all the way down, this is why I have this little feature.
@ Ruchir
Yes, those can be placed under the footer. As for MyBlogLog widgets, maybe they are useful when you are competing for the Top Communities rank.
@ Zath
Placing a link at the footer won’t devalue a link. Take Page Rank for example, Wayne Liew Dot Com’s homepage has a PR4 and that value will be spread equally over all the outgoing links on the homepage unless nofollowed.
I remain unsure on this as there is no final word whether placement of links do matters.
@ yung .
Stuff it with stuffs but don’t clutter them up.
@ Sean
An easy way that don’t require you much work is to get a theme with a nice footer.
@ Tay
I am glad that it can give you some thoughts over it.
Aye, Wayne Liew, I see that your foot only appears in your main page, but does not appear in individual posts such as this one.
Is this working as intended?
My footer appears in every pages wor.
I don’t think putting anything in the footer is a good idea….. no one really bothers to scroll down so much……. or something like that…..
[...] Blog Footer - Space for Blog Improvement Items by Wayne Liew Dot Com. [...]
I usually only read the footer if I like the theme and wanna know where it’s from. Other than that, I am not too interested.
@ Deimos
!
Ok, you win. Anyway, blog redesign is progress. New life on Wayne Liew Dot Com soon (maybe one year’s time)
@ kljs
There are still some. Items in the footer are just to stop readers from clicking the X button on top immediately. Why not make them exit through ways that benefit us rather than the X button, right?
@ pablopabla
LOL. Anyway, I think I will nudge you a mail soon to seek for your advice regarding some the issue that “pops up between us” recently.
It is necessary to squeeze out a maximum from blog
Great links in footer also usefull in search engine i think. So if you have links that need to be indexes by search engine, you maybe consider add them in footer.
FindAsianJobs.com
Both internal and external links are listed in my article. I have to agree that a blog which is frequently crawled by search engines can reduce the time needed for them to index a new site by having a link from the established blog.