Introduction
The WordPress footer is one of the main features of any WordPress paste or post. However, it isn’t always utilized, especially by those new to WordPress. But more than a visual feature, did you know that the footer can be used for different functions as well? It can be used to store widgets, it can even contain scripts, and even a mixture of both. Knowing this is essential, since it may come in handy one day. You may for instance, decide to add links to the footer or maybe embed a video. Both of these are possible, and the good thing is that this isn’t difficult to do.
In this article, we will be learning how to edit the WordPress footer. We will learn how to add content, add scripts, and where and how to edit the footer source code.
Let’s start!
Adding Content to the WordPress Footer
“Does my Theme allow me to add content to my footer?”
Whether you can add items on your WordPress site’s footer will depend on your theme. To check if your active theme allows you to edit the footer, navigate to the Widgets page from the WordPress admin dashboard.
Once you’ve been redirected look for a widget area which has a footer title similar to what can be seen below for our current theme. If you can see that, you can add and edit the content on your footer.
Adding Widgets to the Footer
If your WordPress theme allows you to add widgets, then you can add widgets to your footer easily. To do this, navigate to the Widgets page. Once there select the widget you want to add. In our example below, we will be adding a Navigation Menu widget to the foot.
We then fill in the necessary fields for the widget. Then Save the widget.
On our WordPress site, this is what a page/post looks like without the widget.
And this is what it looks like once the widget is added:
Adding Scripts to the WordPress Footer.
Aside from adding widgets to the footer, you may need to add scripts as well. To do this, use the Insert Headers and Footers plugin. This plugin allows us to add code on the footer of our WordPress site. Once installed, scripts can be added through the admin dashboard. All you need to do is place the script in the Scripts in Footer then click Save.
For instance, we will place the following snippet in footer. This snippet just shows a “Hello World” when any page on the site is visited
<script type="application/javascript">alert("Hello World") </script>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)
And when we visit a page we get the following result:
Copy and paste a snippet through the plugin’s interface and the script will be loaded on your footer. That’s all you need to do.
Manually Editing footer.php
In case you need more to do on your footer than adding widgets on it, you can edit your active theme’s footer.php file. To do that, navigate to the Theme Editor from the WordPress dashboard.
Once there, search for the Theme Footer file.
Then edit the file as necessary then save your updates
Conclusion
You now know how to edit your WordPress footer. You can now add content – widgets or even scripts in it. You can even edit its code when needed. That’s one more for your WordPress toolbox!
Thank you for reading, and we hope you learned a lot.
