Comments on: Free Optimization Test Recommendation: The SEO Footer

By: Tanie Bilety lotnicze

Tanie Bilety lotnicze — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:23:23 +0000

Great topic.
Its really hard to test though what type of footer works. Id suggest makeing one that doesnt have too many links in it, most are permanent (ie dont change each time you get on the page) and dont look too spammy so as not to pass a manual review. Remember that a good footer helps in indexing which is very important.

By: healthcare

healthcare — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:23:57 +0000

I’ll probably just ‘do it’.

By: Oes Tsetnoc

Oes Tsetnoc — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:06 +0000

I think that SEO footers should be designed with the user in mind. It is becoming blatantly obvious that some sites are geared just for the search engines when you have a nice graphic design up top, but then this gob of text near the bottom, text that would be much more useful for visitors if it were at the top instead.

It seems to be a controversy now though, as I have read lots of things recently saying that footers are now starting to lose their value in SEO.

~ Kristi

By: Molly Smith

Molly Smith — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:39:29 +0000

It is a fine balance between user experience and SEO optimization. Having the footers for the sake of optimizing those keywords is fine, but there is a fine line when it becomes a truly bad experience with the clutter.

By: Quinton Hoover

Quinton Hoover — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:47:14 +0000

Having SEO footers is an old tactic.Search engines count them as spamming if over done..But this tachnique works like a magic for when you are targetting for low competitive or long tail keywords..

By: Maltese SEO

Maltese SEO — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:44:01 +0000

Creating a flat architecture, so that internal urls are reached easily by users and search engines is very important. However this should not be done in exchange of cluttering any web design. There are ways and means to implement this and by having loads of footer links, it’s not the ideal way.

By: Leadership

Leadership — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 14:24:19 +0000

I’ve been making minimal use of my footer, but think I’ll be giving this ’seo’ footer a try. I’m currently on a big link building campaign, so I won’t be able to test it properly – I’ll probably just ‘do it’.

By: Henry Philllips

Henry Philllips — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:12:03 +0000

Since this article was published no less a site than the BBC (on its sports pages) has introduced a new link-heavy footer, although whether it would count as an SEO footer or a UX-approved “fat footer” is probably in the eye of the beholder (isn’t it all just down to a bit of styling anyhow?)

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport – look for the A-Z of sport at the bottom of the page.

By: Brendan Regan

Brendan Regan — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 00:10:48 +0000

@all: i love that this has turned into a lively, multi-faceted discussion. One point of clarification is that I see a strong distinction between what I call an “SEO Footer” and what the UX community might call a “Fat Footer.” SEO Footers are just there for link juice, with little/no forethought given to the customer experience. Fat Footers (http://ui-patterns.com/pattern/FatFooter) are footers that have a lot of useful links in them. Take your pick, but I favor a “fat footer” or a standard footer approach, and if you can build in some link juice without damaging the customer experience, congrats!

By: Larissa Reynolds

Larissa Reynolds — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:33:53 +0000

Here’s another link that I came across right after I commented above. Seems like everyone is interested in footers! More testing ideas:

http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/6-things-to-include-for-a-user-friendly-footer/

By: Larissa Reynolds

Larissa Reynolds — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:52:21 +0000

Hi Brendan,

WebDesignerWall had a post recently about the usability benefits of putting a sitemap (and sometimes company description) in the footer. That might be another variation to test, to see if you can maintain/improve SEO and still create a better user experience. Look forward to hearing the results from any tests you might run!

Here’s the link to the post:

http://www.webdesignerwall.com/trends/modern-sitemap-and-footer/

By: John

John — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:42:31 +0000

Thanks, great job guys! What’s hot today? SEO is basically eye candy for search engines, too much time and effort for little return. A/B split testing it’s the surest results oriented way to turn even a mediocre site into money machine. If you’re marketing online, you can make much more money simply by improving your landing pages to incrementally increase your conversion rates. Even a small boost can mean a big return on your bottom line.

By: Brendan Regan

Brendan Regan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:59:18 +0000

@City Smart, you are correct that split-testing would be messy and/or impossible. I’m recommending serial testing, not split testing.

By: City Smart

City Smart — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:35:37 +0000

hmm…split testing your SEO efforts can be extremely difficult & I’ve yet to find someone who can accurately do it consistently.

I might be missing something but with the example you’ve given above to split test this, the search engines wouldn’t have 2 indexed versions of your 1 page. If I remember correctly Google Website Optimizer is using Javascript, so I’m not sure you could test this?

Any real test couldn’t be run side by side, they would need to be 3 months vs. 3 months (which has additional factors that mess with the test).

As I mentioned I could be missing something, and would love to be corrected. If there is a split test idea for SEO – I’d love to see it!

By: florida web design

florida web design — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:06:22 +0000

I know for a fact that footer works, cause we had a site without any SEO opti at all, except for a footer like that, and it ranked well for all the footer links almost.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:47:23 +0000

I often use the footer to get in some text and to add any tags if my page is missing them. Also you need not wait moths to see results. Any time after your site is crawled you will immediately be able to see if your SERP’s have been affected.

By: roblogger

roblogger — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:31:05 +0000

nice tips. thanks an ciao from romania.

By: Seattle Website Design

Seattle Website Design — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:50:42 +0000

Like this line, “No website element, no matter how pretty and well-designed, should be excused from an occasional test to make sure it’s giving you ROI”. All that glitters isn’t pretty.

By: Scarves Shop

Scarves Shop — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:00:14 +0000

Thanks for heads up. I think its worth testing for 1 page on your website that if you remove footer, how it affect SEO rankings.

By: Brendan Regan

Brendan Regan — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:40:57 +0000

@Chris: yes, you would “serial test” for SEO value. Since GWO and other tools don’t handle serial testing, you might have to do it as two separate tests, 1 to validate conversion impact, and 1 to validate SEO impact. On any serial test, you want to minimize other changes to your site to reduce the chances of “noise” in the data.

By: SEO News | Search Engine Optimzation Program Review

SEO News | Search Engine Optimzation Program Review — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:43:41 +0000

[...] Free Optimization Test Recommendation: The SEO Footer … [...]

By: florida web design

florida web design — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:35:49 +0000

I know for a fact that footer works, cause we had a site without any SEO opti at all, except for a footer like that, and it ranked well for all the footer links almost.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:04:17 +0000

It is easy to test for conversions, but how do you test for the SEO value of the footer links? Change it and wait 3 months to see if your ranking changed? Even if you had that kind of patience, how would you know it was *that* change that caused your rank change and not just a change in your competitors sites?

By: Linda Bustos

Linda Bustos — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:10:49 +0000

Personally I don’t mind footers with links – but I do believe footer links have long been devalued by search engines but as a user they don’t irk me much. I have seen retailers that will remain nameless but are HUGE with great search rankings using footers to link to their brands in low contrast to their backgrounds so these are DEFINITELY not there for navigation purposes

Personally it’s not something I would test, I’d rather find the best practice for SEO and do it. Suggestions are “page rank sculpting” – adding nofollow attributes to various links
http://www.getelastic.com/killer-seo-trick-only-1-of-online-retailers-use/
and fixing duplicate content problems like http://www.getelastic.com/too-many-urls-spoil-the-seo-fixing-a-common-ecommerce-duplicate-content-problem/
and creating SEO optimized category pages like http://www.getelastic.com/karmaloop-seo/

~Linda

By: J.F. Houpert

J.F. Houpert — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:17:18 +0000

I couldn’t agree more and with tools such as Google website optimizer it’s easier then ever to test site elements and gather precise data on what works and what doesn’t.