Web page footer is the most underutilized part of a webpage. At least, it was for some time. Over the last few years, creative brains all around the world revamped this tiny space into something that holds a lot of importance today. And, not just from the point of view of a web designer but also search engine optimization.

Generally, Web page Footers contain the privacy policy, credit links and a lot of data which the webmaster doesn’t think worthy of putting at the top of a web page. Well, times have changed and we are in an era of well designed, classy and feel good footers which are used for a score of things.

What can be done with a web page Footer after all? How will it affect the web site optimization?

You’ll be surprised. Let’s have a look.

1. A Great User Experience. There is nothing like a bad looking footer to put off a visitor. A good footer is like a desert, it should complete the web page on a good note. A drab looking footer is the sign of a bad web designer who doesn’t consider the footer to be important enough to work on. With the people being more net savvy now and browsing the Internet for hours together, a footer which is great looking and well put together enhances the user experience. And, what is SEO/SEM, if it doesn’t impact the visitor?
   
   
   
2. Increase Web Page Interlinking. Add a lot of links to the footer in a categorized manner; for e.g., if your blog contains banner advertisement space on the left sidebar and adding more data underneath it gets messy, you can add categories like, popular articles, recent comments, latest articles, archives etc in the footer. This increases interlinking of the web pages. The biggest advantage of this interlinking is, it helps the searchbots in getting deep into the website and index all the web pages. Also, user navigation becomes easy; a visitor doesn’t have to go to the next page for checking the previous entries.
   
   
   
3. Footer Menu- An Alternative to JavaScript Menu. If your website’s top menu is coded from JavaScript, chances of it being indexed by the search engines are nil. Adding menu links to the footer help search engines access and index all the important pages of a website. Also, a visitor who is at the bottom of a web page doesn’t have to scroll all the way up to access the menu and its sub categories. Ease of navigation, website indexing and interlinking. All in one.
   
   
4. Connect Visitors with Your Social Media Avatar. Let your visitors and consumers know that despite being a high profile organization, you want to connect with them. Give them your Facebook fan page, LinkedIn, Twitter or MySpace ID. The online industry is high on social media and you have to leverage this tool to get the best for your business and products. Connect with visitors, converse with them, take their feedback, suggestions and implement them. All these are signs of an organization which is on its way up the ladder. Create an attractive social media links and place them in the footer for that added effect.
   
   
   
5. Introduce Yourself To The Visitors. Have you ever wondered as to how many visitors check out the “about” page on your website? Visitors or rather consumers hardly have any time to research a website for the author’s biodata. All they do is quickly scan the page from top to bottom for relevant information. If your website manages to grab their attention, they stay back for a minute more and read the content till they reach the bottom of the webpage. The Footer gives you an opportunity to provide the visitors a glimpse of your profile by saving them an extra click. If your web page footer is underutilized, a small about me section is a must.
   
   
   
6. RSS Feeds / Links of Your Favorite Websites. If you own more than one website, then instead of placing one link in a ‘Blogroll’ category as many do, you can insert the RSS Feeds from your other websites on to the footer. This serves a dual purpose. One, your other websites get a backlink from this website. Second, As the RSS Feeds keep getting updated, the searchbots visit the RSS displaying website often. An alternative is to include the RSS Feeds or simply links of your favorite websites. It can be from twitter or from Google webmaster blog. However, always ensure that you are using the RSS Feeds / Links of authoritative and quality websites.
   
   
   
7. Contact Form. Last but not the least; add a contact form in the footer. This option is great if your website / blog displays information about a product but is not an e-commerce website. A simple and elegantly designed contact form should persuade the visitor to enter his details. A long form, which requires a lot of details from the visitors, ends up dissuading the visitors from filling it.
   
   

The footer can be turned from the most boring part of the website to the most beneficial one using more such tips. If anybody has ideas which can help the footer help with making the website more productive, please feel free to share them.