Add Link To A Custom WordPress Footer

Posted by Jeff

on February 8, 2010

One of the easiest ways to customize WordPress is to add links to the footer of the themes template. You could add the link to any website you want and if your blog is part of your website adding a link to the homepage of your site will help your search engine rankings as well. This is a little WordPress Guide that will help interlink your website.

First make sure you can edit your theme’s footer.php file by making in writable in your hosting account. Login to your hosting account, browse to your blogs folder, the wp-content folder and then the themes folder. Look for your current theme and open that folder. Change the file permissions to at least the footer.php file to 777 or 666.

Login to your blog, click Presentation, then Theme Editor, look for the Footer file on the right and click it to open it in the editor. First copy all the content in this file and save it as a text file in Notepad on your computer. That way if you mess things up you can just paste the original code back in to start over.

Now look for the links that are already in place, for the default theme that will look like this:

<?php bloginfo(‘name’); ?> is proudly powered by
<a href=”http://wordpress.org/”>WordPress</a>

We want to add a link right after this code, Place your mouse right after the original code and hit the space bar once and add your new link code. Or you could just copy the original code and paste it right after it and then edit the URL, the anchor text and even place some text in front of it like this:

<a href=”http://wordpress.org/”>WordPress</a> More Optional Text <a href=”http://YourWebsite.com”>Anchor Text</a>

Now Click Update File, open your site and marvel at your handy work!

If you are using a free theme that someone wrote and it has a link to their website in it please leave the link intact. After all that is a small price to pay for what they have provided you.

This post and the below video are almost two years old but you should still get the gist of how to accomplish this.

Sorry but I will not address your questions about specific issues regarding your theme.

If you liked this post, feel free to leave a comment that is relevant to the post or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Sorry but due to the spamming of a few all comments are moderated and will appear when approved and all drive-by comments will be deleted!

Comments

Comment by Rose on July 22, 2007 @ 4:03 pm

Thanks for the excellent tutorial. I gave it a thumbs up at Bumbzee and I digg it.

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Comment by Kathy on August 21, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

Thank you for a clear and easy-to-follow explanation!

Comment by fooksea on September 16, 2007 @ 9:17 pm

Thanks for the excellent tutorial.

Comment by Gaje Master on February 21, 2008 @ 4:23 pm

Thank you so much. I have been wondering how to do this. I am still searching for a way to add stuff like mybloglog and such to the footer of the page instead of on my sidebar, any tips?

Comment by Jeff on February 21, 2008 @ 5:24 pm

Gene, you could probably add the script or code or anything directly into the footer.php file.

However you may need to resize the footer area to accommodate the size of the items you want to place in it. And also format the items you add to be in the position you want.

Theme modifications like this are hard to explain in a post let alone a comment because of all the different themes and how they are coded.

Comment by Naj on March 8, 2008 @ 4:24 am

Thanks for the excellent tutorial.

Comment by Matthew Jones on March 27, 2008 @ 11:09 pm

Thank’s I never could do this before

Comment by kwietnik on May 15, 2008 @ 4:08 pm

Thanks

Comment by Erik Rexach on June 20, 2008 @ 10:54 pm

Great Tutorial! Even a newbie could follow!

Comment by Drew on July 13, 2008 @ 10:15 pm

my footer code looks like this… how do I change it?

Comment by Fiat 500 India on July 21, 2008 @ 3:10 am

Hello, Thank you for great tutorial.. I have a question..

I want the ‘title’ of each single post to appear in the page’s footer.

For this, i pasted the code:

” rel=”bookmark” title=”">

in the footer..

The following happens: I get a link to my sixth post (in every footer).

The same code is present for the (title) and just before the comments block – but it works fine there.

I am unable to find/solve the problem – could you please help me out.

Thanks & Regards.

Comment by Fiat 500 India on July 21, 2008 @ 3:12 am

I Pasted this code:

(it did not appear correct in the earlier message above).

Comment by Jeff on July 21, 2008 @ 8:11 am

The reason you can’t find any info about putting the title of the post in the footer is because it is probably very difficult to do.

You would have to set it up for different “What If” situations. Remember this one footer.php file is used an all pages and posts on the blog so what if it is a page with multiple posts on it. There is more code needed to make this work the way you want, of which I don’t know I suggest looking at http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page.

Comment by Free Wordpress Themes on August 18, 2008 @ 7:12 pm

The post was very informative, but the video made it so much easier to learn. Thanks!

Comment by David Young Jr on December 8, 2008 @ 12:23 pm

This information is useful. My blog is very difficult to customize fully as it is in xml. If anyone knows any resources on editing pages in xml code I would love to hear from you.

Comment by Cash gifting on December 14, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

great video and post!!! Thanks!

Comment by lowongan kerja on March 7, 2009 @ 12:51 am

Good video….i like it

Comment by Roger | Save Money Tips on March 14, 2009 @ 3:13 am

Although this is very basic thing which we should know but is it allowed to delete wordpress link at the footer and to include our own? Isn’t counted as illegal thing?

Jeff Replied:
March 14th, 2009 at 7:59 am

Roger you could remove the link to WordPress.org but should keep any links to themes author intact on the footer of a free WordPress theme. Keeping the authors links is considered the price of using the theme.

Comment by Vanessa on March 17, 2009 @ 3:22 pm

I have been reading some snippet on SEO and came to know that we should place our links and keywords in proper structure i.e something on header and footer etc. I was looking for updating footer in wordpress and here your handy blog is on my screen. Thanks for sharing. It is good to read actual post and comments here.

Comment by Write And Get Paid Today on April 9, 2009 @ 5:08 am

Comment by Cool Travel Blogs on May 7, 2009 @ 1:35 am

Thanks for great post! It really made it easy and quick to learn! Just in time for me! Cheers

Comment by Bostn Web Design on May 12, 2009 @ 7:08 am

Great tutorial. I think this is great for SEO too. Big G is starting to recognize links down the side and not pay much attention to them anymore. Footer links can be an asset to SEO. Thanks again! Dan

Comment by Graco Car Seats on May 20, 2009 @ 2:35 am

This is great. Nicely explained. Just the thing I was looking for. Wanted to add link to my footer too. Thanks for sharing the information. This is very useful.

Comment by Vanessa on May 21, 2009 @ 5:20 pm

@Boston web design, Are you sure? Do these footer links help in SEO? How can we use them to support SEO? I’ll be very grateful if you can send me information on this.

Comment by Internet Marketing Site on May 23, 2009 @ 12:26 pm

Hi
What a great info. I think that footer is hard to be edited. However,It is not hard anymore after I read this post.
Have a nice blogging.

Comment by Chandra Wijaya on May 27, 2009 @ 1:27 am

Its really clear and to the point explanation. Really good for beginner to understand it. Thanks for sharing.

Comment by Outsourcing Software Company on May 27, 2009 @ 10:38 pm

Nice post. One of the best tutorials I’ve seen lately. Your explanation is very good. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Keep up the good work.

Comment by Inland Empire Web Design on May 28, 2009 @ 3:07 am

I really want to add a footer on my wordpress blog. thank you very much for this!

Comment by Felix on May 30, 2009 @ 10:51 am

Is it possible that the placement of footer links be part of the option of WP? Is there any plug-in to do this thing? or shall we stick on footer.php editing methods?

Jeff Replied:
May 30th, 2009 at 1:46 pm

The footer links are theme specific so no way to control them from within the WP dashboard, unless the specific themes footer was “widgetized” like a sidebar.

I know of no plugins but really editing the theme is not really that hard and how often does it need done anyway?

Comment by Allan on June 22, 2009 @ 2:36 pm

Nice information. I am about to relaunch my site with blog and forums and I think it is a cool way to interlink them.

Comment by Costello on June 28, 2009 @ 1:14 pm

Thanks for sharing the post because I forgot the exact place where I should edit it. There are many files in the theme and I was checking others.

Comment by Link Building Services on June 30, 2009 @ 5:56 am

I am about to relaunch my site with blog and forums and I think it is a cool way to interlink them.

Comment by Autopilot on July 1, 2009 @ 4:32 pm

great tutorial, now i know a little bit more about worldpress, cool

Comment by Max Gates on July 4, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

Great tutorial, reading your blogs has made wordpress easy to manage for me, earlier it was like hell to manage my blog.

Comment by SEO on July 5, 2009 @ 7:09 am

Jeff, Thanks for the excellent tutorial!

Comment by raymond parker on July 5, 2009 @ 3:35 pm

does this violate any trademarks of the original theme owner?

Jeff Replied:
July 5th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

Depends on the particular theme, but usually adding to a footer is an acceptable practice as long as you keep the original links intact.

Comment by webuildlink.com on July 7, 2009 @ 3:35 am

thanks . How Can I add links in wordpress footer encrypted?

Comment by Jane Says on July 15, 2009 @ 1:03 am

Thanks, this was a great commentary, I am always looking for better ways to improve my WP blogs.

Comment by Scarface on July 15, 2009 @ 3:59 am

I thought that footer is hard to be edited, but now clear explanation mades it easy to learn!
Thank you for great tutoria!

Comment by Harsh Agrawal on September 13, 2009 @ 5:34 pm

Thanks man that is super easy to do.

Comment by Helen on October 24, 2009 @ 6:39 pm

Hello Jeff,
Thanks for your informative video.
I would like to add a right-justified “Disclaimer” link to my footer.php, that would open up a dialog box with the disclaimer’s content. What would be the HTML code to do this?

Thanks.

Helen

Jeff Replied:
October 24th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

Sorry I am not sure how to do that. I suggest to Google pop up HTML code. The code doesn’t need to be WordPress specific as any HTML that does it should work.

Comment by Helen on October 24, 2009 @ 7:40 pm

Okay. Thanks.

Comment by mette on February 3, 2010 @ 2:53 pm

Thank you, thank you… Jeff. This has been most helpful. I don’t usually have such a problem with the technical stuff, but I have spent over a week of way too many hours trying to figure this out. What you did differently is explain WHERE EXACTLY to write the new URL in the footer.php. That little tidbit helps me to move on to the next thing I want to do to make a better blog. I will search your site first in the future.
Thank again,
Mette

Comment by Michelle | LargeFormatPosters.com on February 8, 2010 @ 9:25 pm

This is very helpful. Wordpress can be such a handful, so having a step by step process is extremely helpful and convenient.

Comment by Andrew@BloggingGuide on February 8, 2010 @ 10:18 pm

This is really a very useful post especially to the newbies. Thanks for sharing!

Comment by Jerin on February 9, 2010 @ 5:31 am

Thank You Jeff, for the wonderful and simple step-by-step guide and the video. I have been looking for something like this for our Dedicated Servers site.

Comment by Nottingham Locksmith on February 9, 2010 @ 9:57 am

Great tip loved the video will ad a link to my blog later today – cheers

Comment by Web Hosting Unlimited on February 9, 2010 @ 8:00 pm

Simple but helpful tip, Jeff. And the presentation is always clear and precise. Have learned a lot of wordpress tricks from your blog. Thanks a lot.

Comment by cal on February 10, 2010 @ 10:28 pm

I appreciate the comprehensive walkthrough even though its not working for me i’m thankful for the other things i was able to pull from it.

-C

Comment by Data Centers India on February 11, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

Thanks for the information. I always knew about the footer.php file edit, but was not able to change it because of the file permissions you mentioned after reading this I changed my footer comfortably.

Thanks once more

Comment by Wedding in Italy on February 12, 2010 @ 6:11 am

Nice post.

Now i have a quesation

Is better to have a link in the footer and then all pages of the site or is it better to have a single link on a page?

Thanks in advantage for your reply.

Excuse me for my english. I am italian.

Jeff Replied:
February 12th, 2010 at 9:11 am

I think the more the better.

Comment by Raleigh fences on February 12, 2010 @ 4:25 pm

Thanks for the heads up on this. I am implementing it as we speak. Well as soon as I log off here

Comment by Stu @ UVC Air Purifiers on February 15, 2010 @ 8:41 pm

Whilst you’re digging around in that thar footer file, you might want to change the “xxxx is proudly powered by wordpress” to something like “xxx runs on the awesome wordpress platform”

That “powered by wordpress” line is what most spammers use top find your blog, without it there, you’ll find your spam rate drops dramatically.

Comment by Arya on February 16, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

I see.., that’s why i can’t update the footer file. Thanks a bunch!

Comment by Chuck on February 17, 2010 @ 7:23 pm

Very well written. Wordpress as a CMS has become much more than a blogging platform. The open source community format with sites like this make this software very versatile.

Comment by funny t shirts on February 17, 2010 @ 7:45 pm

I was happy when I found this as it was exactly what I wanted to do…. and then was even happier that you created a video tutorial! You should post this on eHow.

Comment by Dominos Pizza Coupons on February 18, 2010 @ 4:29 pm

I’ve learned quite a bit about working with WP over the last two years and I’ve just added this to my arsenal. I have a handful of sites, and must admit I go for templates that have as many built in seo features as possble (makes it easier in the long run), including great-looking and highly functional ones with footers which can include the tip you have given all of us. Thanks.

Comment by Comment devenir riche on February 19, 2010 @ 1:23 pm

Really good tutorial video I gooing to make this link on all my blog wordpress, thank’s a lot for info !

Comment by des moines moving companies on February 19, 2010 @ 3:27 pm

Nice little guide, it’s really pretty easy and straight forward to modify things like this in Wordpress, which is why I agree with you about the people who don’t take what they’ve learned here and apply it / modify it in order to get it to work on their specific theme or situation. Most Wordpress themes use a footer file or have a way to edit it, and if they don’t, you could FTP into your site and the file is clearly labeled. So anyone who takes the time – like 10 minutes max, probably – should be able to figure it out. -Josh

Comment by Self Service SEO on February 20, 2010 @ 3:33 am

I’ve been working with WP for a while but enjoyed your clear tutorial. Thanks

Comment by get back your ex girlfriend on February 23, 2010 @ 1:43 am

I spent a great deal on the footer before I found this competent tutorial. but i also like to add “www” within the href link

Comment by system restore on February 23, 2010 @ 5:01 am

Most Wordpress themes use a footer file or have a way to edit it, and if they don’t, you could FTP into your site and the file is clearly labeled. So anyone who takes the time – like 10 minutes max, probably – should be able to figure it out

Comment by robin on February 24, 2010 @ 5:12 am

Thanks a lot, I’ve just built a blog with wordpress,and I even don’t know how to insert a new theme!!?

Comment by Georg on February 24, 2010 @ 1:13 pm

Thanks Jeff,
I’m just starting out with my first local WP installation for an article blog and I have to say so far I’m very pleased: It’s a great system not just for newbies but for anyone who quickly wants to get some self-published stuff online.

I don’t like HTML coding but I enjoy PHP – so I’m looking forward to many customizations of my WP installation 8-).

Thanks again.

Greetings,
Georg

Comment by blackberry themes on February 26, 2010 @ 3:16 am

I am about to relaunch my site with blog and forums and I think it is a cool way to interlink them.

Comment by business voip news on February 26, 2010 @ 11:58 am

Thanks for this , the video really helps. I have been looking for tips on how to do this for a while now.

Comment by salt lake city movers on March 2, 2010 @ 11:27 am

I’ve been looking for a way to do this. Thanks for breaking the process down for us.

Comment by Doris on March 2, 2010 @ 2:52 pm

Wordpress is getting more and more customized with each passing day, and this is the reason why I like the wordpress and prefer it over the blogger, thanks for sharing the footer plugin!

Comment by Provo Chiropractor on March 3, 2010 @ 2:32 pm

I’ve heard that search engines seem to look more at the header than the footer in determining what weight to give the link. It’s only speculation, but if you want to edit that file instead of the footer, look in your theme folder for “header.php”.

Jeff Replied:
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:34 pm

The post doesn’t mention a thing about SEO or search engines, it has absolutely nothing to do with it. It is simply a way to edit the footer of most WP themes and nothing more.

Comment by Gamer on March 3, 2010 @ 8:17 pm

wow thanks ive just started using wordpress and for this usefull.

Jeff Replied:
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:46 pm

Glad you found it useful for that Blogspot.com blog you left that I removed the link from. Try spamming another blog “Gamer”

You might want to try a little harder when blog spamming for links and I might suggest using proper punctuation too.

Comment by Paul@make money online on March 3, 2010 @ 9:12 pm

Thanks for the tip on how to add a link to a custom WP footer.
Would this trick work for any WP themes?

Jeff Replied:
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:31 pm

The time you took to ask me the question could have been used to try for yourself on your theme.

Comment by sole f80 treadmill on March 6, 2010 @ 6:40 am

Thanks a lot for the tutorial. I watched your video and added some links in my blog footer. I don’t have PHP knowledge but I did it easily.

Have a Great Time

Comment by vbulletin 4 styles on March 8, 2010 @ 2:48 am

Good to see a “SIMPLE” instructional method of achieving these footer links, i first thought you needed a plugin or a premium theme to manage footer links.. ive now got some work to do lol, ive got 3 different blogs so you have made my boring day much more fun now.

Cheers

Comment by lose weight on March 9, 2010 @ 3:02 am

Theme modifications like this are hard to explain in a post let alone a comment because of all the different themes and how they are coded.

Comment by S Leung on March 9, 2010 @ 12:20 pm

Does this runs site wide or footer is only on per page?

Jeff Replied:
March 9th, 2010 at 5:24 pm

Sorry I didn’t mention it but most themes show the footer.php file, which this guide is about, on all pages/posts.

Comment by Andy on March 9, 2010 @ 8:23 pm

Unfortunately this is also how you can delete links from the footer and many people who download a theme remove links from the footer to delete credits(baclinks) to the designer. Happened to me

Jeff Replied:
March 10th, 2010 at 8:08 am

I addressed that issue in the post telling them to leave the theme’s author link intact.

Comment by Gino @ Gulf Jobs on March 10, 2010 @ 4:15 am

Some themes are using encoded footer, I found it is quiet difficult to decode. Your post will definitely useful in this kind of situations. Thanks a lot for sharing.

Comment by LISA TORRES on March 13, 2010 @ 11:44 am

I forgot the exact place where I should edit it. There are many files in the theme and I was checking others. Thanks for the nice sharing.

Comment by Adam on March 13, 2010 @ 2:21 pm

Great tutorial. I it was so easy to understand with the attached video. Thanks for all the great ideas you gave me.

Comment by Jeff on February 14, 2011 @ 1:55 pm

Please don’t cop an attitude with me if your theme can’t be modified or if it has no footer file. Nothing is worse than trying to provide free useful information and getting bitched at when it isn’t exactly what some are looking for. Or if you are too stupid to use what you can here and move on to solve your own problems. Gosh I just hate the way some people think they are “owed” everything.

I will not answer any theme specific questions especially from rude people asking about their Artisteer theme, whose comments will just be deleted.

Drive-By comments will be deleted! Like "Thanks for sharing", "Nice post", or any other text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. If you ask a very specific question about your particular WordPress theme, it will probably be deleted. I can fix your WordPress site but for a price. If you ask a question like "Why don't my blog work right", it will be deleted. If you ask a question about your WordPress site without a leaving a link to it, it will be deleted. The point is to ask questions and or comment on the the actual content of the post, and to please use some common sense. All comments are moderated and will appear when approved. Thank you.