Building a Strong Footer for your Theme
- Posted On: April 9th, 2007
- Filed Under: Web Design
- Tagged As:
As part of the theme design series I'll be starting this week I wanted to talk a bit about what we look for when viewing other people's themes. The idea here is that by reflecting on those things that we most often hunt for on other sites we can more easily diagnose what we want to include in our own custom theme.
While your out and browsing around your favorite blogs and websites take a moment to check out the footer on each site. Think about what things that you might expect there and what things you have actively sought out in footers before.
Personally I almost always look to the footer as a go to spot for finding the following:
- Contact Information (or a contact page link)
- FAQ or Help links
- a link to the About page
When you look at a footer what are some of the things you expect to see or hope to see?
In a couple days, when we start work on the group theme we'll return to the things here to start putting together our footer.
4 Responses to “Building a Strong Footer for your Theme”
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April 9th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
One thing you may wish to put in your footer is a Disclosure agreement. This is useful if you write any sponsored posts (like ReviewMe, PayPerPost etc.)
- Jon Lee
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April 9th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Both great suggestions. I know that a lot of negative press has been bouncing around concerning sponsored themes and, to be honest, I’m not quite sure where I stand on them yet.
As long as the theme’s license allows you to remove the links I can understand wanting to do so.
I think Jon is spot on as well. A disclosure is a good way of keeping transparent with your readers and can also be a good way to put an extra referral link somewhere on your blog.
- WildBil
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April 10th, 2007 at 12:57 am
I created my disclosure with http://www.disclosurepolicy.org
- Jon Lee
It’s fairly easy to use, just cut and paste :D
The first thing to do when you use a theme is to remove the sponsored links on it :-)
The sponsored themes are becoming a real menace these days!
- Jayson Joseph