Your Website Footer: The Power Move Many Businesses Miss
When it comes to website footers — the collection of links and other elements that signal a visitor has reached the bottom of the page — here’s the bad news.
Nielsen Norman Group reports that only 4% of the time spent viewing a webpage is devoted to the footer.
But there’s good news, too!
As Telerik’s blog teases from the above study, visitors spend more time looking at the footer than they do at the bottom third to half of the page.
(Source)
Why the spike in viewership for the footer versus a decent chunk of scrollable content above it? As Jetpack’s blog explains, “There are certain things that site visitors will actively look for in your footer — privacy policies, account information, and social media links to name a few.”
In fact, the footer is such an important piece of your website design that studies have shown that one that’s super customer or client centric can meaningfully increase sales conversions as well as revenue per visitor. This past August, for example, Jon MacDonald covered the impact of a footer redesign A/B test involving a luxury handbag seller.
Here’s the power move to put you in the top 24%.
According to Orbit Media Studios’ website standards study, 24% of top marketing sites have an email signup box in the footer.
Even if you have an email signup form prominently at the top of your homepage — and/or on other pages where you provide value as a teaser for even more value that visitors can get by signing up for your updates — you will benefit by including an email signup in your footer. Think of it as your last chance to encourage your target audience to take an action that will help them before they consider leaving your site.
Do’s and don’ts for your footer-based email signup form
Do: Reduce friction for your visitor by having the only form field be for Email Address. If needed, you can later use software to parse out name or first name from the email address, so that in email campaigns you can use a “Name” value to personalize your outreach. (In addition to the least amount of friction, there are other advantages to not asking for your new signup’s name, as GetResponse’s blog addresses.)
Do: As Orbit Media Studios advises in the above link, it’s smart to offer social proof (list how many folks have already signed up), and/or set expectations regarding what your subscribers will receive and how often, next to your signup box to increase the likelihood of a conversion.
Do: Test the signup workflow once your new form is live in your footer. In addition to making sure that your new contact shows in your email marketing solution, spend some time to create the best, most memorable experience for your target audience. This includes a compelling “thanks for signing up” page or message after your visitor enters their email address and clicks “Submit.”
Don’t: If it all possible, avoid a form design that “fights” with the design of the rest of your page. For example, I’ve seen some MailChimp signup forms lately that show a font, size, and even color that are much different than what’s used for the pages they’re on. This mismatch can lead a visitor to think that your website’s not ready for prime time yet.
Don’t: Automatically run with “Submit” as the default label for your “take action” button. “Submit” can read as cold and machine-like, versus “Sign Up”. Some of the best forms I’ve seen really subvert visitors’ expectation for this button — ie, “Join 15,000 Entrepreneurs” or even simply “I’m in”.
Other website conversions
What’s the easiest way to count — in one place — the number of email signups as well as contact form submissions, appointment bookers, and lead magnet downloads? And where can you track clicks of your highest-revenue calls to action?
The answer to both questions is Google Analytics 4. It’s free to set up, if you’re not already using it. We help with that as well as with custom website visitor event tracking, such as the events mentioned just above. Learn more here.
