A typical WordPress website has three components – Header, Main Body and Footer. While the Main body usually changes for any selected page or post, the Header and Footer remain the same. Whether it’s about the listed Menus, the Font style or the Background, these two sections usually stay the same (Unless you want to change them).
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While most visitors reaching a website look at its header area, the footer is also crucial in many ways. For instance, a site visitor who scrolls down the whole homepage of a site will reach the footer to find out more about the site owner, specific menus for the inner pages and even social media links.
If you have just installed a theme to build a WordPress website, you must have noticed WordPress branded copy in the footer. These texts come in all sites by default. To the audience you want to target through your website, unnecessary elements in the footer may seem unprofessional, and may not match your brand. So you need to edit the footer in WordPress before making your website live.
It does not make sense to display default styling and text on your WordPress website that does not fit well altogether. Similarly, you may want to make changes to your site’s footer later in time while rebranding your business or products.
Is it OK to Change / Remove the Footer Credits?
Generally, WordPress beginners have this question –
Am I legally authorized to remove the branded text that highlights WordPress powers the site such as Proudly Powered by WordPress
Well, you can do that. WordPress being an open-source CMS, means that you have the right to modify any of the default templates as required. You won’t break any law doing so. Also, you must make sure you take the backup of your website before you start the modification process. By doing this, you will be able to restore your site back to normal in case you make a mistake.
To be able to edit the footer in a WordPress website, you need to know about how you can select and edit diverse footer elements. You can do this in several ways such as,
- Changing the theme setting
- In the footer widget, Using a plugin or
- By editing the code in the footer.php file
Let’s talk about this in detail in this article.
Pro Tip: Its easy to create a responsive table in WordPress for free with Tablesome plugin.
How to Modify Footer Content Using Theme Customizer?
The theme customizer of your WordPress website is a part of its back-end from where you can make changes to your site’s footer easily. This process is the same for many popular WordPress themes, so if you’re searing for ‘how to edit footer in WordPress OceanWP’ or for Astra theme, this is how you do it. If you’re using a WordPress theme such as Avada that comes with an exclusive page builder, then you have to search in Avada Docs.
Follow these steps to modify your site’s footer content:
- Log in to the WordPress Dashboard
- Click Appearance -> Customize
After these two steps, you will reach the customizer of the theme installed and activated on your site. Here, you can easily find a section named ‘Footer’ or ‘Footer Settings’, among many others. The editable elements in this section may vary from one theme to the other. For example, in the Astra theme, you get both ‘Footer Bar’ and ‘Footer Widgets’.
In general, you can edit footer Layout, Background color, any Content without the need to have coding skills. If your theme allows you can customize footers for different devices such as Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet, viewing.
How to Change Copyright in WordPress?
WordPress themes add a Copyright text with the Site Title and Year. If you’ew searching ‘how to change copyright in WordPress’, you can do so using the WordPress Theme Customizer. You can Add, Edit, or Delete this Copyright text, footer credits such as Proudly Powered by WordPress, Theme name, and Year using the Theme Customizer, in the Footer Bar just as mentioned above.
Also See: the best WordPress Multipurpose themes
How to Change Credits in WordPress?
So, you have created an engaging website with a unique header and business-relevant content in its body. Before you could think of revealing your website to the users, you saw the text, “Proudly Powered by WordPress” in your site’s footer. If you find it unappealing, you can either disable it from displaying in the footer or change the text to represent your business instead of WordPress.org.
It’s quite easy to do this. Start with the 2 steps mentioned above and reach the ‘Footer Settings’ section. There, you will find the ‘Footer –> Footer Bar’ section to make the required edits. Simply disable footer credits to prevent the copyright text from appearing in the footer.
If your theme doesn’t give you the option to remove footer credit or you want to review the footer credit and insert your own with the help of a plugin, you can use the Remove Footer Credit WordPress plugin to do so.
How to Edit Footer Widget in WordPress?
Unlike using theme customizer, some developers use widgets in WordPress themes to define and edit footer content. It means that you can change your site’s footer and its content through widgets. The steps to do this are as follows:
- Log into your website’s WordPress Admin Dashboard
- In the dashboard menus on the left, click Appearance –> Widgets
- Here, you will find widget sections as provided by the theme you are using
- You can edit the footer using the footer widgets such as Footer Bar 1, 2,3,… and Footer Widget Area 1, 2, 3…
- Click on the down arrow in the top right corner of the sections to expand them vertically
- Here, you can add Text, HTML, Images, Videos and more using the available widgets provided by various plugins and theme you are using
- Make the changes in the footer and then click ‘Save’
Using the text widget you can get newsletter subcribers by adding a form using a free WordPress form plugin such as Contact Form 7.
Once the changes are saved, make sure you check that they are visible in the front-end of the website. Other than editing the existing content in these widgets, you can even add sub-sections using the easy drag-and-drop method, if available.
How to Edit Footer in WordPress using Elementor?
Footers can be created with the Template Builder that comes with Elementor Pro page builder with which you can create and apply custom Headers and Footers. Especially, if you want to use different Headers and Footers for various pages in your site, you could use this Elementor’s Template Builder. Normally, WordPress themes don’t allow you to change footers for different pages and posts.
Follow these steps to edit footer in WordPress using Elementor:
- Go to your site Admin Dashboard
- Under the Elementor settings, go to Templates –> Theme Builder
- Here you have to click the ‘Footer’ tab and ‘Add New Footer’
- In the New Template page select the type of template as ‘Footer’, give the template a name and click ‘Create Template’
- You can choose from the range of Footers in Elementor Template Library and click ‘Insert’ the footer template of our choice
- Then we can modify the footer template to add our Content, Links, Logo, and Colors to match our brand
- After making the changes go to the arrow button near ‘Publish’ and click ‘Display Conditions’. Here you can apply your footer that you have just designed to any or all pages in your site
Also See: the best Elementor Themes and Templates
How to Edit Footer in WordPress with Divi?
If you’re a Divi page builder user you can create and edit the custom footers using the Divi’s Theme Builder. You can design custom footers for viewing in various devices such as PC, Tablets, and Mobiles.
- To create a custom footer with Divi, go to Divi → Theme Builder → Add Global Footer
- You can insert a Footer template from Divi library or start building one from scratch
- With the Footer builder, you can add Rows and Columns to the Footer, Add Buttons, Change Colors, Alignment, Spacing, and everything you do with Divi Builder
How to Edit Footer in WordPress with WPBakery (Visual Composer)?
You can create a custom footer template with WP Bakery.
- Go to WPBakery → Footers
- Here you can Create New Template or choose from the list of Footer templates
- Then select the footer template of your choice and customize it for your WordPress site.
If you feel that WPBakery comes with minimal options for Footer you can get the Ultimate Footer Builder – Addon for WPBakery Page Builder. This add-on gives you unlimited layouts and styles to create and edit footers.
Also See: the best Fast-loading WordPress themes
Best WordPress Footer Plugins
If you’re not using any WordPress page builders and you want additional Footer design elements and features, then you have to use the WordPress Footer Plugins. We give you some of the best WordPress Footer plugins here.
Insert Headers and Footers 
Insert Headers and Footers is a free WordPress Footer plugin to easily insert any code such as Google Analytics tracking code, Facebook Pixel code, custom CSS, and others into the Header and Footer of your WordPress website. The changes made using this plugin applies to the whole site.
Download Insert Headers and Footers plugin Now!
Head, Footer and Post Injections
Head, Footer and Post Injections is another WordPress plugin to add code into Header and Footer but it comes with more options. You can choose where the code is injected such as top, bottom, or middle of posts and pages with options for mobile and desktop views.
Download Head, Footer and Post Injections plugin Now!
Header Footer Code Manager
Header Footer Code Manager is yet another WordPress plugin to add codes into Header and Footer but you can insert codes into specific posts and pages including custom post types. You can insert code snippets using shortcodes and control where it is placed such as in header, footer, before content, or after content.
Download Header Footer Code Manager plugin Now!
Pro-tip: Any WordPress website would require an FAQ page or section to answers user questions about your site or you business. You can also create a knowlegde base to give answers to users.
How to Edit the footer.php Code?
In terms of code, the footer is defined in the template file as footer.php. You can edit this file to change to the footer in your WordPress website with the following steps:
- Go to Appearance –> Editor
- Click on Editor, and you will see a list of theme files on the right-hand side
- Select Theme Footer or footer.php, that will display the coding lines next to it
- Find the PHP Code: get_template_part using CTRL+F
- Update text in the double quotes next to ‘echo
Expert Tips:
- Don’t make any edits in the footer.php code if you lack enough experience in PHP coding.
- Comment any line of code in the footer.php file instead of removing it.
- Create a child theme first and make changes in it before making it live.
How to Add Custom CSS in WordPress Footer?
Another way to remove the branded content in the WordPress site is to add custom CSS to your theme. The steps are as follows:
- Go to Appearance –> Customize –> Additional CSS
- Within the theme customizer, you will find a dedicated section for ‘Additional CSS’ or subsection in ‘General Settings’, depending on the theme you have chosen
- You need to fill the blank space in the ‘Additional CSS’ section with the code: site-info {display: none}
- Click the ‘Publish Button’ to save the changes
You can then check the changes by visiting your website’s footer or refreshing the webpage if the site is already open in the browser.
More Modifications in WordPress Footers
You can also change some other things in the footer to make it more professional and stylish.
Edit Footer Content
If your WordPress website has considerable content in the footer, be it a brief ‘About Us’ section and contact information, you can edit it all by following the ways mentioned above.
Change Footer Color
Since footer is also a significant part of your website, you do not want it to look odd in comparison to the overall website theme color combinations. Unless you want the footer section to have images or apply the color gradient, it is quite easy to change the default color as per your choice. Make sure you pick an appropriate color that complements your overall website’s design.
Edit Footer Links
Are you wondering, How to edit footer links in WordPress?
Using the theme customizer, you can also reach out to the link settings and can update them as required. In the footer, you might be having links like that of other website pages or social media accounts is represented in the form of small icons.
Adjust Footer Height
Not all websites have the same kind of content or links in their footer section. It depends on the website admin’s preferences and needs. If you want to insert more elements into the footer, you need to increase its height accordingly. This can be best done by making changes in the footer.php file.
Hope you have learned how to edit footer in WordPress from this article. Please subscribe to our newsletter to be notified regularly on WordPress Guides and Tutorial for Beginners. If you have any questions, please post it in the comments section.
Great content with good tips, now I’ll see if I can put it into practice … Thanks !!!
Great article ! This is the article I was looking for all this time
great