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5 Easy Ways to Edit the Footer in WordPress

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If you’re looking for step-by-step instructions on editing the footer in your WordPress website, this article is for you.

What Is A WordPress Footer?

A footer is an area that appears at the bottom of a website after the main body content. Just like a site’s header, the footer also usually appears on every page of a site.

Here’s the footer of the CrazyEgg blog.

Crazy Egg footer menu

Most sites use their footer area to house important links like disclaimers, a privacy policy, and other key pages of your site.

In WordPress, the footer exists as a separate file named footer.php, which loads with every page of your site. So any changes that you make to footer.php will reflect across your site.

5 Ways To Edit the Footer in WordPress

1. Edit the Footer With WordPress Theme Customizer

The WordPress Theme Customizer is an option in your WordPress dashboard that allows you to customize your site’s appearance, edit its header and footer, change its titles, and other universal settings.

This is the most secure and user-friendly way to edit the footer in WordPress.

Note: We’re using a popular WordPress theme named Astra, which has additional customization options. But you’ll find the footer editing options in every theme.

First, sign in to your WordPress dashboard.

Go to Appearance → Customize.

WordPress dashboard with red arrow pointing to Customize button

In the website customization menu, click on Footer.

WordPress website customization menu with red arrow pointing to Footer

You can edit the footer by using widgets to add new sections or by editing the content and style of the footer bar. Click on Footer Bar to continue.

WordPress Footer customization menu with red arrow pointing to Footer bar

In this section, you can edit the footer layout and text. Use the text box to change the default text of your site’s theme.

WordPress footer bar customization menu with red arrow pointing to Section 1 Custom Text box

Scroll down this page to get different styling options for your site’s footer.

WordPress footer customization menu with red box around border settings

When you make the desired changes, click Publish to save your footer settings.

WordPress footer bar customization menu with red arrow pointing to Publish button

You’ve successfully edited your WordPress site’s footer with the WordPress Theme Customizer. 

You can always come back to this section if you want to add or remove something from your site’s footer in the future.

2. Add Widgets To Your WordPress Footer

Widgets are small content blocks that you can drag & drop in different sections of your site to insert text, videos, images, HTML code, etc.

Many WordPress themes give you the option to edit the footer with widgets.

Log in to your WordPress site’s dashboard.

Go to Appearance → Widgets.

WordPress dashboard with red arrow pointing to Widgets

On this page, you’ll see multiple footer sections. These are the different blocks within your site’s footer that you can edit using widgets. Click on Footer Widget Area 1 to open it.

WordPress widgets menu with red boxes around Footer Bar sections and Footer Widget sections

On the left side of the Widgets page, you can see different widgets that you can drag and drop to the different footer bar sections. Click and drag the Custom HTML widget to Footer Bar Section 1.

WordPress widgets page with red box around text and title box

You can copy any script or code to this footer widget. Once you’re done, click Save.

The text widget is also quite popular and comes with the standard WordPress editor and full formatting options, including adding media. Drag it to Footer Bar Section 2.

WordPress Footer Bar Section 2 with red box around text and title box

After entering your text, click Save to publish the widget in your footer.

As you can see, editing the footer in WordPress using widgets is even easier than the previous method.

3. Add a Menu to WordPress Footer 

You can edit the footer in WordPress by adding a menu to it. Whether or not you can edit the footer through a WordPress menu depends on the theme you’re using. Some will allow you to add a menu to the primary navigation bar and the footer, while others will only let you do one or the other. And some won’t have menus in use at all.

Here’s how it works if you can add menus to your footer. 

Sign in to your WordPress site’s dashboard.

Go to Appearance → Menus.

WordPress dashboard with red arrow pointing to Menus

Click on create a new menu.

WordPress edit menus dashboard with red arrow pointing to Create a new menu link

Give your footer menu a unique name that’s easily identifiable.

WordPress Add menu items menu with red box around Menu Name

In Menu Settings under Display Location, select the checkbox next to Footer Menu. If “Footer Menu” isn’t under Display Location, your theme doesn’t allow you to add menus to your footer. 

WordPress menu structure menu with red box around Footer Menu checkbox

Click Create Menu to finish the basic setup of your menu and move to the next step.

WordPress Menu Structure menu with red arrow pointing to Create Menu

Now, you need to choose the links that will appear in your menu. Select all the relevant pages from Add menu items.

WordPress menu settings with red box around Most Recent pages

Click Add to Menu to move these pages to your newly created menu.

WordPress Add menu items menu with red arrow pointing to Add to Menu button

You can also add any posts, custom links, and categories to your menu from the “add menu items” section.

WordPress Add menu items menu with red boxes around Posts, Custom Links, Categories, and WooCommerce endpoints dropdowns

Once you add all the pages to your menu, you can drag them into any order you like.

WordPress Menu stucture menu with red arrows next to menu items to reorder

Click Save Menu to publish your menu, and it will be on display in your site’s footer.

WordPress Menu structure menu with red arrow pointing to Save Menu button

That was the process for creating a new menu and adding it to your WordPress site’s footer. 

If you want to add an existing menu to your footer, follow these steps. Remember, you can only add menus to your footer if your theme allows it. 

Click on Manage Location on the Menus page.

WordPress Edit Menus page with red arrow pointing to Manage Locations

Click on the dropdown next to Footer Menu and choose an existing menu from the list. If you don’t see “Footer Menu,” your theme doesn’t allow you to add menus to the footer. 

WordPress Manage Locations menu with red arrow pointing to Footer Menu dropdown

Click Save Changes to publish the menu in your site’s footer.

WordPress Manage Locations menu with red arrow pointing to Save Changes

4. Add An HTML Code Or Script To The Footer

You can edit the footer in WordPress by placing different scripts or any kind of code in it.  

Here’s the process you need to follow.

Log in to your WordPress dashboard.

Go to Plugins → Add New

WordPress dashboard with red box around Plugins and red arrow pointing to Add New

Search for the plugin “Insert Headers and Footers” in the search bar.

Locate the Insert Headers and Footers plugin and click Install.

WordPress Add Plugins page with red arrow pointing to Install Now on the Insert Headers and Footers plugin

Click Activate.

WordPress Insert headers and Footers plugin with red arrow pointing to Activate button

Now go to Settings → Insert Headers and Footers on your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress dashboard with red box around Settings and red arrow pointing to Insert Headers and Footers

On the plugin’s page, scroll down to Scripts in Footer.

Copy your code/script in this text box.

WordPress Scripts in footer page with red arrow pointing to text that says Copy your script/code here

Click Save to publish the changes.

WordPress Scripts in Footer page with red arrow pointing to Save button

You’ve successfully added your code/script above the closing </body> tag. This isn’t a mistake. Your scripts get added just above the closing body tag even though you’re editing the footer. Go to a preview of your site to confirm your footer edits were successful. 

5. Remove “Powered By WordPress” From The Footer

A quick edit most people like to do to their footer in WordPress is to remove “Powered by WordPress.”

You can do this through Appearance → Customizer in your WordPress dashboard in some themes, as previously shown in this post.

But if your theme’s customization options don’t allow editing the footer, you’ll need to remove it by editing the code of your site’s footer.php file.

We don’t usually recommend editing the code directly, but this one’s simple.

Here’s how to do it.

Note: We’ve used the TwentySixteen WordPress theme for this example.

Sign in to your site’s WordPress dashboard.

Go to Appearance → Theme Editor.

WordPress dashboard with red square around Appearance and red arrow pointing to Theme Editor

In the Theme Files list on the right of your screen, find and click on footer.php.

WordPress theme files with red arrow pointing to Theme Footer

Before editing the code of this file, press CTRL+A to select the code and press CTRL+C to copy it.

Now, open a new Notepad file on your computer. Paste the code in the blank Notepad file. This is your code’s backup in case anything goes wrong.

Back in the footer.php window, press CTRL+F to open the text search box. Type “powered by” into the search box.

WordPress footer.php window with red box around Search: powered by

Select and remove the highlighted line from your code.

WordPress footer.php window with red box around line of code to remove

Click Update File.

WordPress footer.php window with red arrow pointing to Update File

You’ve successfully removed “Powered by WordPress” from your site’s footer.


Mikki Akins is a writer and content creator for B2B and B2C audiences. She writes on various subjects, including business communications, marketing, and technology. She also enjoys writing poetry, short stories, and personal narratives. Aside from writing and content creation, she enjoys spending time with loved ones, immersing herself in nature, and exploring all the wonders of the world.

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