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- GoHighLevel Partners Editorial
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- GoHighLevel Automation
The two blocks that appear on every page and change least often are the two that most reliably drift out of sync.
Reusable header and footer: one source, many pages
The header and the footer are the two pieces of a site that appear on every page and change least often — which is exactly why they are the two that most reliably drift out of sync. A phone number updated on the contact page and not on the others, a menu item added to four pages out of nine, a copyright year that is correct in one place and two years stale in another. None of it is hard to fix. All of it is embarrassing in front of a client, and all of it comes from the same cause: the header exists as several copies rather than as one thing.
Building them once and reusing that build is the fix, and it is worth doing on the first page rather than the ninth, because retrofitting means visiting every page you have already built.
Reuse comes in two strengths, and they are not the same
| Approach | How an edit propagates | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| A saved section pasted into each page | It does not — each page holds its own copy | Consistent starting point, pages that will diverge |
| A shared header or footer applied at site level | Everywhere at once | Anything that must never disagree with itself |
The first is a template. The second is a single source. A template gives you consistency on the day you paste it and nothing afterwards, which is fine for a hero section that each page will customise and wrong for a navigation menu. Where a genuine site-level header and footer are available, use them for the navigation and the legal block, and keep saved sections for the parts that are meant to vary.
saving a section to the library is the mechanism for the first and worth understanding even if you use the second, because a great deal of a site is neither header nor footer and still repeats.
What belongs in each
A header carries the smallest set of things that get someone to the next useful place: the identity mark, a short menu, and one action. Menus grow by accretion, and a header with everything in it is one nobody reads. If a link is only relevant to a fraction of visitors, it belongs in the footer or on the page it concerns.
A footer is the opposite: it is where the long tail goes. Contact details, opening hours, service areas, the legal and policy links, a secondary menu, and whatever a visitor scrolls to the bottom looking for. It is also the block most often left with placeholder text from a template, which is worth a deliberate check before any handover.
Where funnels differ from a website, on purpose
A funnel step usually wants less chrome, not more. A landing page whose job is one decision is undermined by a full navigation menu offering nine ways to leave, and a checkout step with a footer full of policy links invites a visitor to go and read them instead of buying. This is the normal reason to depart from a site-wide header, and it is a decision rather than an oversight.
The mechanism for that is showing a footer only on chosen pages, which lets a site keep one footer and still suppress it where it hurts. When a set of pages is moving between containers, the header and footer question is one of the things that has to be re-answered — moving pages into a website container covers what else changes.
Building it so it survives a small screen
Headers and footers are where responsive problems concentrate, because both are horizontal arrangements of several items in a narrow space. Settle row and column width settings for the header row before styling it, since a menu that fits at one width wraps at another. Then check how a phone stacks columns, because a footer built as four columns becomes four stacked blocks on a phone and the order they stack in is rarely the order you would choose.
hiding an element on mobile has a legitimate place here — a long secondary menu is often genuinely better collapsed on a phone — but resist using it to make a crowded header fit. If something must be hidden to fit, the header has too much in it. And decide a sticky header’s height and trade-offs deliberately: a sticky header costs vertical space on every screen, which is most expensive on the devices with least of it.
The cost side, which is easy to forget
Whatever sits in the header loads on every page. A large logo file, a background image, an icon set, a font loaded solely for the menu: each is multiplied by every page view on the site. This is the least glamorous place to find a speed improvement and often the largest, because the saving applies everywhere at once. a page speed score will show it, and lazy loading images does not help here since the header is at the top of the page by definition.
The same applies to scripts. code placed in the page header is genuinely site-wide when it lives in a shared header, which is convenient and also means an unused tag pasted there months ago is still costing every visitor something.
Handing it over without leaving traps
Two things reliably go wrong after a site is handed to a client. The first is that the footer still contains something from the template it started as — a placeholder address, a link to a page that was never built. Read the footer word by word before handover, including the parts nobody looks at, and check the legal links resolve. consent wording and records belongs to the same category of detail that is only noticed when it is wrong.
The second is that a client edits one page’s header and creates the divergence the shared build existed to prevent. If the platform allows a page to override the shared header, say so in the handover notes, because the person who discovers it by accident will not know they have broken the pattern.
Reusing across sites, not just across pages
An agency building similar sites repeatedly gets more from this than a single business does. A header and footer pattern that has already survived a handover is worth keeping as part of a starting template, along with the row structures behind it — a funnel template import is how that travels to the next build. Keep the structure and the spacing; replace the identity, the menu items and the contact block.
One last check that costs a minute: after the header is finalised, confirm the links in it point where you think, and that any page reachable only from the footer is also present in what belongs in a sitemap. A page that exists, is linked once, and is missing from the sitemap tends to stay unfound.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a saved section and a shared header?
A saved section is a template: pasting it gives every page the same starting point, but each page then owns its copy and an edit does not propagate. A shared header is a single source applied at site level, so one edit changes every page. Use the shared version for navigation and legal links.
Should a funnel step use the site header?
Usually not. A landing page or checkout step exists for one decision, and a full navigation menu offers many ways to leave it. Keeping the identity mark and dropping the menu is the common pattern, and suppressing the footer on those steps is a deliberate choice rather than an omission.
How many items should a header menu have?
Few enough that a visitor can read them at a glance. Menus grow by accretion, and every additional item reduces the chance any single one is noticed. If a link matters to only a fraction of visitors, put it in the footer or on the page it relates to.
Why does my footer stack in the wrong order on a phone?
Because a multi-column footer becomes a vertical sequence at narrow widths, and the order is determined by the column order rather than by importance. Check it on a real phone and reorder the columns so the most useful block, usually contact details, arrives first.
Does the header affect page speed?
More than almost anything else, because it loads on every page. A large logo file, a decorative background, an icon set or a font loaded only for the menu is multiplied by every page view. It is the one place where a single improvement applies site-wide.
What should I check in the footer before handing a site over?
Read it word by word. Placeholder addresses and phone numbers from the starting template survive there more often than anywhere else, links to pages that were never built are common, and the legal and policy links need to actually resolve rather than merely exist.
Can a client break the shared header by editing one page?
On platforms that allow a page to override the shared version, yes, and they will not realise they have. Say so explicitly in the handover notes. The divergence is easy to create, invisible until someone compares two pages, and tedious to unwind afterwards.
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