Nonprofit website design - what should my website footer include?
One of the more overlooked aspects of nonprofit website design and web development is the website footer. For many designers, it's an afterthought - a place to hold your copyright information and maybe random links that didn't quite fit in the main navigation.
This approach is detrimental to both the website visitor and the nonprofit - it misses a key opportunity to optimize the site for local SEO and means you're likely wasting the footer section of your website.
So, what should your website footer for a nonprofit website include? Let's look at seven key areas:
Contact Information
Your website's footer is prime real estate to include your contact information, beginning with your physical address, phone number, and email address. Website visitors often scroll to the footer of your website to quickly find your contact info, so making it easy on them helps give them a positive user experience (also known as UX design).
Use a sub-heading like "Contact Us" and list your contact information under the heading.
Pro tip: Be sure to link your physical address to Google Map for SEO purposes -- this sends a signal to search engines and Google Analytics that your location matches and helps enhance local SEO efforts if someone is searching for how to find you.
Internal Links
Your website footer is the perfect place to give site visitors quick links to visit - popular pages on your website that you want to make sure each visitor sees.
These might include your online giving page, how to volunteer, staff listing, your top two or three programs, and your primary contact page. Or, if your nonprofit has multiple locations, you can use your website footer to list (and link) those locations.
Example: This AKRS Equipment website uses a pre-footer to list their multiple locations and provides links to each location page.
Social Media Buttons
A good footer makes excellent use of the space and includes social media icons that directly link to your social media sites.
One of the biggest mistakes people make is including your social media links in the header of their website. By including these social networks at the top of the website, visitors are more likely to leave the website and visit the social media pages instead of remaining on the site, reading the content, and taking action (like making a gift or signing up to volunteer).
Pro-Tip: Did you know you customize your social icons in Canva to better match your brand?
Email Newsletter Opt-In
At any time while a visitor is browsing your website, they might be motivated to join your email list. But, if it's only an option on the home page, it's a big missed opportunity.
Since your website footer appears on every single page of your website, including your email newsletter opt-in in the footer is a great move.
External Footer Links
Depending on your specific nonprofit affiliation, you may want to display some external footer links in your footer's navigation menu to enhance your credibility and build trust with your audience.
For example, if you're affiliated with a national organization (like United Ways or the American Red Cross), you can display links to your national organization.
Or, if a specific organization or company accredits you, an external link to the accredited institution helps your visitor (and the search engine) understand the relationship between your organization and theirs.
One-sentence brand summary
If your footer design allows, including a one-sentence brand summary is an excellent way to enhance your SEO with Google and serve your reader.
For instance, when someone scrolls to the bottom of your website and sees that your website footer includes a statement like "Renew Transformation is a safe-haven for women and children refugees and provides stable and secure housing in the greater XYZ area," they'll know immediately who you are and what you do.
Plus, by using those keywords in your website's footer, Google will directly correlate your website with those words on every single page. So it's not only great UX design but good for the website user and great for SEO.
Example: The National Council of Nonprofits includes a concise statement of purpose in their website footer and a link to donate.
Other important information
Every website footer should include a copyright statement, a current year for the copyright, and links to your privacy policy, terms and conditions, or other financial transparency statements.
Other optional footer content includes social proof (a brief testimonial, for instance), a link to your Google My Business (now Google Business Profile) page, a short contact form, or additional website navigation.
Example: The Bernard McDonough Foundation has a quick links section for handy links and a search bar in their website footer.
Key Takeaways About Your Website Footer
Great web design for nonprofits doesn't overlook the website footer design. Instead, it optimizes the footer space and provides an entire section of the page designed to help users find what they need and stay on the site longer.
Take some time to evaluate your own website footer and see if it could use some improvement.
Until next time,
Andrea
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