Best practice for footer in ecommerce - Shall I add Top Category links?

[lcourse]

What would you recommend regarding links to "Top Products" and "Top Categories" in footer?

1. Would you add them to give extra link juice to top categories?
2. would you try to avoid category links in footer that are already in the header navigationor in the main content area to avoid linking twice from all pages?
3. would you vary these top category links in footer according to main category

[TakeshiYoung]

Links in the footer carry very little link value, so I wouldn't add top category links to the footer just for SEO purposes. Looks at it more from a design/user experience perspective. If having the links in the footer makes navigation easier, then go for it.

As with anything else, the best thing to do is to test it. Install a click tracker such a CrazyEgg or ClickTale and see how people actually navigate the site. Test having the links in the footer vs removing them, and see if it affects usability, conversions rates, or SEO performance. Then keep the links that work the best.

[kirube]

I agree with Takeshi. You should put more emphasis on what users want.

However based on my experience, if you limit the URLs to say 4-5 you would see some benefits. However if you plan to put much more, I wouldn't so much advice it.

K

[TakeshiYoung]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of mega menus or mega footers. Every link on a page dilutes the value of every other link on the page, so keep the number of links per page as low as possible, while optimizing for usability.

[Everett]

Takeshi gave some great advise, and I agree.

I do like the idea of varying the footer navigation by category though. For example, you might interlink Men's Shoes with Women's Shoes, but you wouldn't want to link to Women's Shoes from Men's Shirts. Keeping the footer from being site-wide and making the links more relevant to the page their on will, I think, allow those footer links to carry more weight than they would otherwise.

Whatever you choose, make sure it's best for your users. Do that and it's difficult to go wrong.

[lcourse]

thanks for the feedback. Will stick to few dynamic footer category links and test it.