Placing or Adding Sitemap in footer is one of the best ways to increase the overall visibility of your site in the eye of search engine. Almost every website Owner use Sitemap in footer, where they list all the relevant page of the site like company detail, About Us Page, Contact Us page, etc.
Search Engine + Sitemap in Footer = FasterIndexing
The primary purpose of the Sitemap In Footer is to help the visitors and search engine spiders to find the valuable piece of content and information easily.
But now in modern days, company use footer space very cleverly to increase the usability of their site.
Look at Google developer website,
How they cleverly use their Footer Space to guide his user to reach out all the relevant page on the site.
Google Footer Sitemap
let we first check, the journey of the user on a website.
A visitor visits a website…but he/she doesn’t see what she’s looking for,,, He/she scrolls down a bit… but he/she still doesn’t find,,,,,, scrolls a bit more,,,,,,still not the,,,,, then he/she goes all the way down to the bottom of the page,,,,,, and there it is, in the website footer. The link he/she was looking for!
On the world of internet, 48.5% visitor find, what they are finding with the help of footer.
So ignoring the importance of footer means you are ignoring your audience attention.
In this article, I will help you to learn, How you can add Sitemap in footer and things that you can do in the footer section.
Introduction To Footer
A WordPress theme consists of a lot of template file; each file has its own function and code.
Maximum themes have a template file called footer.php, which defines how the footer is displayed, created, and stored all the information in it.
Traditional Vs Mini Sitemap Footer
Footer consider as important part of the usability element. The study shows that maximum site uses traditional footer. It contains a short line of administrative links, Privacy policy, and copyright information.
Traditional Vs Mini Sitemap
Now with time, Traditional Footer convert into Mini sitemap Footer.
Mini Sitemap footers are not only gaining the more click, use attraction but also more effective than traditional footers.
Whenever user not able to find the information on the header as well as in the sidebar. They try it to find in the footer, so footer is your last option, to grab the attention of the user.
It also saves the time of the user, to find the content by type the keyword in the website search box.
How To Use Menus In WordPress
Before adding a Sitemap in footer, you should have the concept of the Menu In WordPress. How you can edit and use it to place any type of link in the footer.
- Login Your website as an Admin and Open your Dashboard.
- Click on Menus Under Appearance Section. You will see a window like below.
Menu Option
Note: – Don’t worry if you see a different window. This depends on the theme you are using, but the procedure remains same in all the theme.
- In Menu, you can Create a New Menu (a group to add a different-different page, custom link, post, category).
- Give a Name to the footer and Click on create a new menu.
Create New Menu
- Now you have a Menu, Add what every you want to add in it. For example, here I’m adding “About and my Sitemap Page ” in the Menu.
- Select the page that you want to add in the Menu, and Hit Add to Menu Button.
Create New Menu
- Now you will see, Your selected page is moved in the Menu.
Note: – In Menu Setting, you can add New or Top level page (When every you publish a new post Automatically add in it) and also set the location of the Menu where you want to show it.
Now you have the concept of Menu, how to create it. Now lets we move to our topic “how to add sitemap in footer.
- Click on Widgets Under Appearance, If your site has a footer function you will see it here. For example. In my case, my theme has a three footer option.
Footer In theme
-
Click on Custom Menu and Darg and Drop it on the footer.
- Select the Menu you created (or want to add in the footer).
Adding Custom Menu In footer
- Give the Title which you want to show on your site and hit the save button.
- Now check your website footer, You will see your Created Menu added in Footer with the Tittle You write.
Sitemap In footer
In this way, You can add what ever you want to add in the footer.
Just create a page, add this page to the menu and place this menu in the footer, that all.
How To Place HyperLink Or Text In Footer
You can do this with the help Custom link option in the Menu under Appearance.
But the question is, How can I do this?
- Click on Menu under Appearance and then click on Custom link.
- Here you can add URL (where you want to link) and Text name.
- After adding name and URL link Click on Add to Menu button,
Custom Link
Note: – Make sure you create a new menu or add it to the old menu by selecting it in the Menu name.
If you add it relevant the existing Menu, then it will show on your site where this menu place.
But if you add it, In the new menu then you have to put this menu in the footer.
How To Customize The Footer
You can also Customize the footer like Color, Size, Font by Click on Customize under Appearance.
- Now Select Footer and the select Footer Menu.
customization setting
Here You will see all the Customization Option available for you to edit the footer.
footer customizer
Set the font size, font family, and color according to your choice.
How To Make Sitemap For Footer
The Sitemap file, Which we place in the footer is totally different from XML sitemap file that we submit in the webmaster tool.
We already discuss XML sitemap in detail. But for the new user, here is a little description again.
The XML sitemap is a file that contains your article detail for Search engine Bot so that bots can easily index your website.
But the Sitemap that we place in a Footer is consist of all the link of your article and important page on your site.
- Log in your WordPress as admin and Go to Add Page.
- Make a list of your all article and wrap them into a link so that visitor can easily go to theirs.
Creating Footer Sitemap
- Now You very well know, how to create Menu and Add it into the footer.
Note: – Update your footer sitemap time to time (When you update a new post by placing the link in the sitemap)
Benefits Of Sitemap in Footer
Placing a sitemap in your footer gives you the opportunity to present every part of your website in front of the visitor. This could have some key advantages:
- New visitors, visiting the site for the first time will be able to find what they want much faster, without having to use navigation menus.
- As we know, online readers don’t read everything on the website page, they scroll and scan. Footer is probably the last place they look at before exiting. So well optimize sitemap in the footer may attract readers’ attention and increase page Click Through Ratio (CTR).
- It helps to reduce the bounce rate of your site and increase the average time (dwell time) of your site.
- When Search engine Bot comes to your site, It first checks the Header and footer section of your site. So it is a better way to help search engine for indexing your site faster and easier.
- You don’t really have to use the footer to list out everything, you can use it as an alternative location to promote important pages.
Things That Can Do In Footers
How should you design your website footer? Here are an idea and examples,
Best practices for what to include in a footer layout.
- Major content categories
- Copyright, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Contact.
- Sitemap, Navigation, Testimonials.
- Phone and Fax numbers.
- Site Search Tool, Your Mission, Branding.
- Social Icons, Social Media Widgets.
- Help and support
- Contact information
- Current promotions
- Donation or volunteer information, for nonprofits
- Information about the site or organization
- Awards and Certifications, Association Memberships.
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Harvinder Singh Sharry
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very informative!
thanks a lot!
Your welcome,,,,
Spot oon with this write-up, I seriously feel this web site needs far more attention.
I’ll probably be returning to read more,
thanks for the info!
thanks for the advice,,,,I’m working on it