Placing social media links on your website is crucial for engaging with your audience and extending your brand’s reach. However, the placement of these links can significantly impact user experience and the effectiveness of your website. This article will explore the importance of placement, typical locations, and recommendations for where to place (and not place) social media links on your website.
The Importance of Placement
The strategic placement of social media links can enhance user experience, increase engagement, and drive traffic to your social profiles. Conversely, poor placement can clutter your site, distract visitors, and even drive them away from your primary content.
Typical Places Where You See Them
Below are the most common locations where you would see social media links on a website.
The Header of the Website
Social media links in the header offer immediate visibility and consistent access across all pages, making it easy for visitors to find and engage with your social media profiles.
In a Floating Bar
A floating bar keeps social media links always accessible as users scroll, ensuring high visibility without requiring visitors to navigate away from the main content.
In the Sidebar
Social media links in the sidebar complement other quick links or essential information, making them easily accessible. This placement ensures that the links are always visible as users browse different sections of your site.
The Footer of the Website
The footer offers universal access across all pages. It provides a non-intrusive placement for social media links, allowing visitors to find and engage with your profiles without distraction.
My Recommendations for Where NOT to place Social Media Icons
The Header or Near the Top of the Page
Placing social media links in the header is actually not a great idea. You might be thinking “Why? So many websites do it.” Often times they do it because it feels cool, or looks nice. The reality is they are not considering the impact of having those links at the top of the site does.
Social media links at the top of your website can actually drive users away from your webiste.
This can work against you because getting the traffic to your website is challenging. Once you have a person on your website, you want to keep them. Most of your business is conducted on your website, and probably not on social media channels. Those channels work more for your brand awareness. The job of brand awareness is to drive traffic to your site, so don’t give them a reason to leave your site.
Social media links in your header are counterproductive to your website goals.
Another reason to avoid this is that placing too many links in the header can clutter this crucial area and distract from primary navigation elements, potentially leading to a less streamlined user experience.
Sales or Landing Pages
These pages are designed with a simple goal in mind, converting visitors to leads or customers. You most likely spent money driving traffic to these pages, with the intention of converting them through a signup or purchase. Don’t give them a reason to go somewhere else.
Sales pages and Landing pages need to be focused, and not distracting with too many options for the user. Please, don’t place your social media links on these types of pages.
My recommendations where you Could place Social Media Links
The following are locations where you could place social media icons, but aren’t necessary.
There’s no guarantee that users will visit all of the pages for your website, nor should they. A user is focused on getting the information they need. Here are pages that you could consider, but I’m going to give you some ideas on how to improve it. The key point with this is that placing social media links on specific individual pages, are secondary or in addition to where you should have social media links.
Placing Social Media links on the The Contact Us Page
You could place social media links on the Contact Us page. Why? well, think about the purpose of the contact page, it’s for the user to contact you. Typically a user will want to communicate with you in some way, whether it’s via email, a phone call, or maybe an online chat. Having the social media links here fine, but think of them as purely supplemental information. A user may decide to follow you after sending you a message or having a quick call or chat.
If you do decide to add it here, make it more impactful by doing the following:
- If you contact page has a listing for a physical address, email address, and/or phone number, I would place near that area, and add a title of “Follow Us”, or something.
- Another thing you can do is, if you have a Thank You page, after a user submits a contact form, add social media links there, and encourage them to follow you on the various platforms.
Social Media links on the About Us Page
This is similar to the Contact Us Page. It may be nice to have, but not critical. I would honestly skip this. If you do, place it in a secondary content area like a sidebar if you must place it on this page.
My Top Three Recommendations for Social Media Links Placements
Below are my top recommendations
#3: Blog Posts
Blog posts are a good area for showing your social media links. Blogs by design, are supplemental information for most businesses. They don’t have as much of an impact on your overall content if you’re a service based or ecommerce company.
How can you improve on this placement?
Give users the ability to share your content through their social media accounts. Create links, or use plugins to add functionality to your pages, to allow users to share your blog posts. It’s a great way to expand your reach with people willing to share content. Users can share on their own pages, which gets in front of their followers, which could help to drive more traffic.
I would place the sharable links this at the top or near the top of a blog post.
#2: The Sidebar (only if you can’t place it in the Footer)
My second choice placement for social media links is in the sidebar.
Including social media links in the side navigation complements other quick links or essential information, making them easily accessible. Careful with placement for this because you don’t want to drive away the user to your social accounts.
#1: The Footer of the Website
The footer of a website is, by far, my first choice placement for social media links.
The footer offers universal access across all pages of your website, so the links will show up on all pages. Since the footer is at the bottom of the page, users aren’t distracted by them, which is great because you want to keep website visitors on your site to complete a purchase, or signup for more information.
Conclusion
Placing social media links on your website is a significant benefit, but their placement is crucial.
Balancing visibility with user experience is key.
- Avoid cluttering primary navigation areas and driving traffic away from your site.
- Ensure social media links are easily accessible without overwhelming the visitor.
This approach will help you maximize the benefits of social media engagement while maintaining a positive user experience.
