#151 Move your non-essential pages to the footer menu

Your site’s web pages are generally divided into three parts:

• The header –  It contains your logo, site navigation, contact information, search bar, and links to support pages such as the account page.
• The body – This is home to the main content of your website; mostly product, category, cart, checkout, and support pages
• The footer – This should serve as a location for links to all support pages as cramming them all into header will be a visual catastrophe.

 

The footer serves as the final point of reference to everyone scrolling down your website. Anything missing from the header should be easy to find from the footer. Customers who hit the bottom of your page without finding what they are looking for are more likely to bounce.

It has also become a convention to add certain page links to your footer and customers will specifically go there to find that information so don’t disappoint them.

 

What page links can you add to your footer?

• Contact information
• About Us
• Shipping information 
• Return policy
• Blog
• Social media links
• The physical address of your business
• Copyright
• Sitemap
• Awards, certifications, and industry association memberships
• Payment options
• Privacy policy
• A return to top button
• A final call to action 

 

Group your footer links in a logical fashion

Your footer links shouldn’t just be haphazardly dumped onto the page as it makes it hard for customers to find specific information. Related links should be grouped together in a logical fashion and unrelated ones need to be separated by columns. Shipping information and the return policy links, for instance, should always be grouped together.

 

 

Avoid infinite scrolling

Customers should always be able to find your footer at the bottom of the page no matter how long the scroll length is. For product lists, I suggest using a “Load More” button instead of infinite scrolling. On product pages, you can use tabs or a sticky table of contents to organize the various elements such as the product description, Q&A, spec sheet, and reviews.