The Difference Between a WordPress Footer and a WordPress Footer Widget Area

A footer is the bottom section of a website, usually appearing on all pages throughout the site.

The most common use of a footer is a bar across the bottom of the page that includes the copyright information, and links to the privacy policy and disclaimer pages. Depending on the focus and design of your website, this area may also include your contact information and links to pages such as an affiliate page, a sponsors page, an advertising page, or even the contact page.

A footer widget area is the section above the footer that includes widgets (also referred by users as “boxes”) for content.

Typically the footer widget area is set apart from the rest of the content, either with a colored background, or a line or divider of some type. And, in many cases, they appear on almost every page of the website.

The number of widgets or content “boxes” in a footer widget area is determined by the design of the theme. Theme footer widget areas can contain one, two, three, or even four widget areas (or more) — and while many themes use three or four widgets that are all the same size, they don’t have to be the same size in width or height.

What should go in a footer widget?

Everyone likes the idea of footer widgets because they provide an opportunity to add more value to visitors, provide another way visitors can access your most important content, and an opportunity to add keyword-rich internal links to your key conversion pages — But everyone also gets stumped when trying to figure out what to put in them!

Here are some examples of what you could include in your footer widgets:

• Contact information (if not in your footer)
• Legal jargon and links to legal pages (if not in your footer)
• Menu of links to sales pages
• Recent blog posts
• Promo and link to speaking page
• Short testimonial and link to testimonials page
• Social media icons/links
• Promo and link to services page
• Upcoming event promo and link to event page
• Short bio and link to about page

Don’t Make Your Footer Too Big!

Be careful when adding content to your footer widgets that you don’t add too much content!

Creating a giant, overpowering footer that is longer than some of the actual page content on your site is just silly — seriously! Remember the principles of content hierarchy — the footer should contain important content as it’s on every page of the site, but it should have the lowest visual priority of the page.

What About You?

Do you use footer widgets or just a footer or both? If you use footer widgets, what type of content have you found works best in them? Have you seen sites with giant footers that seem too big for the site? Did you learn something new in this post that will help you improve your site?

We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!