Understanding Your Website's Footer

The footer of your website is actually pretty important! It is designed to work for you in multiple ways.

1. Improved content discovery: Links to content hubs, category pages, or blogs in the footer can help both users and search engines discover more of your site's content. This can lead to better indexation and potentially more diverse keyword rankings.
2. Mobile optimization: A well-designed footer can contribute to a better mobile user experience. Mobile-friendliness is a known ranking factor for search engines.
3. Enhanced internal linking structure: Footers typically contain links to important pages across the site, creating a web of internal links. This helps distribute link equity (or "link juice") throughout the site, potentially boosting the SEO value of linked pages. Improved internal linking can help search engines better understand your site's structure and hierarchy.
4. Local SEO boost: This helps search engines associate your site with specific geographic locations, potentially improving local search rankings.
5. Trust and authority signals: Footers often contain links to privacy policies, terms of service, and other trust-building pages. The presence of these elements can contribute to the overall perceived trustworthiness and authority of your site.

The ChurchSpring footer is system-generated into 4 columns. 

Since this area draws info from different areas of the website, you will want to understand how each section functions.

1. Contact Info - This is a listing of the church/ministry name. phone number and address. Our system draws this info from the Settings>Profile section of your website, but you can also edit it within the footer area. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information in the footer of every webpage can support local SEO efforts. Some search engines, like Google, may use this information to populate knowledge panels or local business listings.
2. Site Map - This information is gathered by the system and listed for easy access for your visitors. This area can lead to more efficient crawling and potentially better indexation of your site's pages by website browsers such as Google or Bing. For large sites, it can help ensure more comprehensive indexing by providing a clear path to all important pages.
3. Blog (or Updates) - The Update section of your site is created with the Blog Template. The system is designed/coded to look for your blog posts and to add the titles automatically into the footer. Anytime you add a new Update to your site (using the Blog template), the latest post will show the footer list. An active Blog is helpful for great SEO. Note: If you have removed your Blog/Updates section from your navigational bar, this area will be blank in your footer.
4. Events - As you add Events to your website (and note that any calendar item is considered an event), the most recent upcoming events will appear in the footer. Once again, this setup follows website best practices and makes it easy for your website visitors to find information and navigate your website. Since your website is designed to remove past events, only the most recent/current happenings at your church will be reflected in the footer column of events.

A well-designed footer can greatly improve user experience, which indirectly benefits SEO. 

It often serves as a mini sitemap, helping users quickly find important information or navigate to key sections of your site. This can lead to:

• Increased time on site: Users who can easily find what they're looking for tend to stay longer.
• Reduced bounce rates: Easy navigation can prevent users from leaving immediately if they don't find what they want on the landing page.
• Improved engagement: Quick access to important pages can increase overall user interaction. These user behavior metrics are thought to be considered by search engines as indicators of site quality and relevance.

These elements combined make the footer a powerful tool for both user experience and search engine optimization.