Where Do You Add Your Social Media Icons On Your Website?
Is adding social media links to your website a strategic move? Well, it depends!
Today, we're diving into the optimal placement of social media links on your website.
Your Website: The Prime Real Estate of Your Online Presence
Your website serves as your digital headquarters where you can fully control the visitor experience. People might discover your site through various channels like search engines, social shares, personal encounters, or direct communications. The crucial aspect here is not just attracting visitors to your website but keeping them engaged and navigating through your content to find what they need.
The Common Misstep: Social Media Links at the Forefront
A growing trend among web designers and businesses is to prominently display social media links at the top of their websites. This approach can unfortunately direct visitors away from your site prematurely, back to the unpredictable environment of social media where content isn't always presented sequentially. Placing social media icons in your website’s header or menu bar is a strategic misstep, as it can detract from the user's engagement with your site.
Why This Matters:
Visitor Retention: When visitors land on your website, guiding them to further content within your site enhances their engagement and interest.
Content Consumption: You want visitors to digest your content thoroughly before considering other platforms, ensuring they receive the maximum value from your site.
Contact Intent: If someone wants to contact you, transitioning them from your website to a direct conversation is beneficial. However, pushing them to social media might lead to missed communications or a disjointed experience.
The Optimal Placement of Social Media Links
So, where should you place these links? The footer of your website is the prime location! Here’s why:
End-of-Visit Engagement: By the time visitors reach the footer, they have likely consumed the page content and can choose to connect on social media without being distracted from your primary information.
Natural Conclusion: Placing social media links at the bottom acts as a non-intrusive option for continued engagement, suitable for visitors who have satisfied their initial reason for visiting your website but wish to stay connected.
Alternative Considerations:
Contact Page: While it’s less advised, including social media links on your contact page is acceptable if they are also present in the global footer—available on every page.
Final Thoughts on Placement Strategy
Remember, if your web designer insists on placing social media links in the header or menu bar, challenge them for a solid rationale. Often, there isn’t one that justifies sacrificing user engagement on your website. Aim to position social media links where they support, rather than detract from, the goals of your website and the needs of your visitors.
The placement of social media links on your website should be strategic and considerate of how visitors interact with your content. By favouring the footer for these links, you ensure that visitors have fully engaged with your site before offering them other ways to connect. This approach respects their journey through your website and enhances the overall user experience.
Now, if you found this topic intriguing and want to ensure your website maximises visitor engagement, check out the video where I dive deeper into this subject.
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It's a great idea to add social media links to your website.or
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is it?
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My name is Kevin from 99Quid websites.Co.uk
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and the Online Visibility Agency.
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And today we're going to talk about where you should have your
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social media links on your website.
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Now, remember, our website is our home online.
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It's the one area that we get where we can completely customise the experience
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for people that we're lucky enough to have come along and find our
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content, whether that be through search engines, whether it be through social
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shares, whether it be through people that we meet in person,
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or links that we send out via email.
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There's a multitude of reasons people come to our site.
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However, What we want to do when we get someone come along to our website
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is we want to hold on to them.
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We want to navigate them around so they can find the information
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they're looking for.
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And this is absolutely critical because often when people land,
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they may have seen an article that you've written a blog post.
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They've thought, Oh, that's really interesting.
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They have a read.
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Do we guide them somewhere else?
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Do we make them go around and find more relevant information
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to what they've found?
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Maybe they've landed on your homepage.
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They've heard of your name, they've seen you out in a van, or whatever it is,
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remembered it, they've typed it in, they've landed on your homepage.
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Are we giving them the opportunity to navigate around their site
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to find what they're looking for?
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Or are we bouncing them straight off off of our website back into social media?
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It's a massive mistake that for some reason is becoming a growing trend
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with web designers and businesses that are creating websites that they're putting
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front and center social media links to get that valued visitor from our website and
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smash them back over to social media where they may or may not find anything
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that they're looking for.
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Remember, on social media, we have a timeline.
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So the timeline, we can feature stuff and all of that, but we have a timeline.
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So the timeline may not be in the order that they're looking for the content.
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Where as on our website, we can guide them around really seamlessly
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and effortlessly so they find exactly what they're looking for.
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So it's a massive mistake to have your social media icons in your header,
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in your menu bar along the top where we have our contact details.
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Contact detail is fine, because at that point, they want to talk to you.
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We take them from web to conversation.
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Absolutely, perfectly the right thing to do.
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Taking them from your Our website to social media, absolutely, don't do it.
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It's a disaster for you, and it means that they're just not happy
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with what is going on.
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It almost feels like we're devaluing their effort to come to us because we're
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saying, Well, we're not quite good enough for you on our website.
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Here, bounce over to LinkedIn or to Facebook or to Insta or wherever it
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is you may take them, Threads These Days or TikTok or one of those things.
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So putting them in your menu bar at the top, it's a real big no, because
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they're not even likely to have digested any of your content at that point
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before we're showing them a way out.
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We're showing them the door in effect, and that's not a great experience for them.
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So if your webdesigner says, put it in the top bar, unless they can come up
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with a plausible reason that I've not yet heard, and I haven't heard one at all
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for this, then put it somewhere else.
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Where else can you put it?
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I hear you all cry.
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Well, here's the thing.
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You can put it in the social footer at the bottom of the website, because
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at that point, they've read the page.
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They've scrolled through your content to get to that point.
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So that's okay if you take it down to the bottom there.
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Absolutely fine.
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Maybe they've read a blog post, they've had enough, that's all they wanted to do.
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They don't really want to go anywhere else.
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They're just interested in that article, but they've found you through search.
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So haven't connected with you on socials.
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Yeah, lovely article. Really like it.
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Not ready for anything else right now, but I'd like to bookmark this website
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and follow you on social media.
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Absolutely perfectly fine.
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So in the bottom, in the footer, the bottom bar so very last bit
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of your website, put them in there.
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Put them as little icons so people recognise instantly what they are.
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You can put them on your contact page if you wish.
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I'm less fond of that because, again, if they want to contact you,
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really, you want phone call first or WhatsApp message or fill out a form or
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email You don't really want them bouncing back to social again and sending you
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a Facebook message that may or may not come through or it's filtered,
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or they've crashed, or whatever's gone on, and it becomes a bit of a headache.
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So on the contact page, we need to keep it on really just the footer of each page.
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And even on the contact page, it will be on the footer anyway.
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So if you do a global footer, which you should be doing, it's going
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to be on the bottom of every page anyway.
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You don't need it anywhere else.
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You don't need to ram it down their throats.
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Don't be loud and proud.
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I'll look at my Facebook thing, I'm going to send you over there.
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It really isn't relevant to them when they're coming and visiting your
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glorious website that you've had built.
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So remember, if your web designer wants it in the header and they want it
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in the menu bar, ask them why.
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They can't come up for good reason.
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Say, I've seen this guy online and he's telling me, stick it in the footer
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why can't I have it there?
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Because I'll tell you, it'll serve your business better.
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My name is Kevin from 99quidwebsites. Co.uk
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and founder Online Visibility Agency. I hope this has been useful.
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I'll see you in the next video.
