Footers can be a great way to send people to key areas of your site without requiring them to navigate through the existing navigation. Additionally and from a search engine optimization perspective, many believe that internal links such as the ones in footers can contribute to things like Google Sitelinks.
Google Sitelinks are regular listings in the Search Engines with additionally listed locations such as this search brings up for JetBlue;
Footers could have any of the follow areas, which in turn lists out content underneath;
- Featured Recipes
- Latest Recipes
- Latest Blogs
- Interesting Links
- Most Popular Articles
- Must Read Articles
- Latest Links
- Most Popular Tags
- Tag Cloud
If you’re looking for some ideas on Footer designs, here is a Footer Showcase worth looking at http://www.smileycat.com/design_elements/footers/