Footer Styles & Options
Your footer is the section at the very bottom of every page. It's where visitors look for the practical stuff: links to key pages, your contact details, legal links, and often a last nudge to get in touch or sign up. A well-built footer makes your site feel complete and trustworthy. StoutStack offers three footer styles plus a set of options to tailor each one. Everything lives on the Layout tab of Branding.
Find these settings in Site Settings → Branding → Layout → Footer. Branding and Site Settings are available to Site Admins; Site Editors won't see them. The Layout tab includes a live preview with a Desktop / Mobile toggle so you can check both views before saving.
Choosing a footer style
| Style | Layout | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-column Pro | Up to three link columns (Footer Column 1, 2, 3), plus a brand area, a Connect column, and a bottom bar | Sites with lots of pages: services, resources, company info all organized into tidy columns |
| Centered Minimal | A centered logo with a single row of navigation links | Simpler sites that want a clean, uncluttered ending |
| Split CTA | A big "get in touch" call-to-action (small label, heading, supporting text and a button) on the left, with your link columns and contact details on the right | Lead-focused sites that want the footer to actively invite contact |
Footer options
- Theme, the footer's overall color scheme: Dark or Light. Dark footers are popular because they visually "close" the page; light footers keep things airy.
- Pre-footer ribbon: an optional attention strip that appears just above the main footer. Choose one of:
- None: no ribbon.
- CTA ribbon: a call-to-action band (with editable copy) making one last ask, like "Ready to get started?"
- Stat strip: a row of 3 or 4 headline numbers you enter yourself, such as "500+ projects" or "15 years in business," to build credibility. It starts empty and shows nothing on your site until you add them.
- Bottom micro-bar: the thin line at the very bottom for your copyright and legal links. The copyright text supports two handy placeholders:
{year}automatically fills in the current year, and{siteName}fills in your business name, so your copyright line always stays up to date without you editing it each January. - Button style: the appearance of any button shown in the footer (for example on a Split CTA or a ribbon), so it matches the rest of your site.
- Link text size / weight: control the size and weight (boldness) of your footer links for the right balance of readability and subtlety.
- Description (Multi-column Pro and Centered Minimal only): a short brand line that sits under your logo in the footer, usually a sentence or two on what you do and who you serve. Leave it blank and nothing shows. The field is hidden when Split CTA is selected. This is the setting to edit if you're wondering where the sentence under your footer logo comes from.
- Collapsible menus on mobile (Multi-column Pro only): on phones, footer link columns can collapse into tidy expandable sections so the footer doesn't become an endlessly long list. Turn this on for a cleaner mobile footer.
- Show review rating (Multi-column Pro only): display your star rating in the footer as a final piece of social proof.
- Split CTA copy (Split CTA only): the wording of that style's big call-to-action. You set the small label above the heading, the heading itself, the supporting text, and the button text and link. Each one starts with plain wording you could publish as is, but check it before you switch: a site set up a while ago may still hold older sample text here, including a promise to reply within 24 hours, so replace anything that isn't true for your business.
Where the footer's links come from
The link columns in your footer aren't typed in here. They're drawn from your Site Menus. You build menus and assign each one a location, and the footer displays whichever menus are assigned to the footer locations:
- Footer Column 1, Footer Column 2, and Footer Column 3: the grouped link columns (used most by Multi-column Pro).
- Footer Bottom: the small links in the bottom micro-bar, typically legal links like Privacy Policy and Terms.
So if you want to change what links appear in the footer, you edit the corresponding menu. See Logo, Contact Details & Navigation Menus. The Footer settings here control the look and structure; the menus provide the content.
The floating button
Below the Footer settings, on the same Layout tab, is a group called Floating button. It's a small call-to-action that stays on screen while visitors scroll, on every page of your site. It isn't part of the footer, but it does a similar job (catching people at the point where they're ready to act) and it lives right next to the footer settings, so it's worth setting up at the same time.
- Show a sticky CTA on every page: the on/off switch. The rest of the fields appear once it's on.
- Heading: the main line, for example "Ready to start your project?" Don't leave this one blank. If the switch is on and the heading is empty, nothing appears on your site at all and you get no warning when you save, which is the usual reason people report that the floating button isn't working.
- Style: Bottom Bar (a full-width strip pinned to the bottom edge), Bottom Pill (a small rounded button floating at the bottom), or Slide-in Card (a card that slides in at the bottom right).
- Supporting text and Badge: both optional, and how much of them you get depends on the style. Supporting text is a short second line, shown on Bottom Bar and Slide-in Card but not on Bottom Pill, which only has room for the heading. The badge is a tiny label like "Free estimate," and it shows on Slide-in Card only. You can type either one on any style; it just won't appear if the style has no place for it.
- Button: the button text and where it links, usually your contact page.
- Let visitors dismiss it: on by default. It adds a close button, and once someone closes it, it stays closed for them on that device.
There's also a Sticky CTA Bar section you can add to an individual page in the page builder, with the same three styles. Use one or the other. If you run both, a visitor on that page sees two floating call-to-actions stacked over each other.
Setting up your footer
- Go to Site Settings → Branding → Layout → Footer.
- Pick a footer style: Multi-column Pro, Centered Minimal, or Split CTA.
- Choose the Theme (Dark or Light).
- Optionally add a Pre-footer ribbon and edit its copy or stats.
- Set your Bottom micro-bar copyright text (use
{year}and{siteName}) and confirm your legal links. - Turn on Collapsible menus on mobile and Show review rating if you want them.
- Make sure your Site Menus are assigned to the footer locations so the columns fill in.
- Check the Desktop / Mobile toggle in the live preview, then save.
Good to know
- Placeholders keep your copyright fresh. Using
{year}means you never have to remember to update the year, and{siteName}keeps the name correct if your business name ever changes. - Empty footer columns? If a footer column looks blank, it usually means no menu is assigned to that footer location yet. Head to your Site Menus to fix it.
- Match the theme to your page. A dark footer pairs nicely with most sites; if your pages are very dark already, a light footer can provide a clean visual break.
- Related reading: Header Styles & Options and Logo, Contact Details & Navigation Menus.
Want to collect email addresses? None of the three footer styles includes a signup form, Split CTA included. Its button simply links wherever you point it, usually your contact page. To collect addresses, add the Newsletter section to any page from the page builder. It saves signups to your Subscribers list.