Biggest Benefit for Footer Links "Created by ___?"

[MonsterWeb28]

Greetings Mozzers,

I wanted to see how I can get the most bang for my buck in regards to footer links back to my site.  I understand that the footer is one of the weakest areas for links, however, I have many sites that I have done and want to get the most benefit from the footer area where I say created by etc.

First Question: Is there a chance to get some value at of this area?

Second Question: What is the best structure to use to get the most benefit from this opportunity?

If there is zero value within this region and I can't get any benefit, would the following penalize me?

Current Structure Used: Powered by MonsterWeb (On hover the title tag reveals a small 10 word sentence about us.)

Additional clarification would be greatly apprecaited.

[MonsterWeb28]

Interesting, I like this.

I see how this could be beneficial because the content would be similar just changes gears a bit. I'm interested in if this would be better for my overall domain authority or having just one link on each site (home page more likely then not) in the footer with different anchor text and title tags to our home page.

[hard]

How about adding a link at the footer "site creation by xyz" and that takes to a page which is dedicated page meant to describe the work done by designer.

This way the page we create will get the authority from homepage and thus becomes more credible source of information for google.

[Chris.Menke]

Vary your anchor text, link out from only from only a few pages (their strongest pages, preferably) and make sure each of those outbound links point different pages on your site.

[sprynewmedia]

Another tactic one client used was a website credits page.  It had full priority content dedicated to the authors/designers and developers of the site.  This link could be treated as higher priority over small footer text.  Bonus, the page would likely be more topical to your business.  Not for everyone however.

[MonsterWeb28]

Fantastic response, thank you.

[OrionGroup]

There is a chance to get some value from footer links, but there is danger too. I would recommend only adding the "Site Created By ___" on the home page, and not on the sub pages. If there are too many site-wide links coming to your site, it might trigger something in the search engine's algo.

Regarding structure, I'd say, make sure to vary your anchor text from site to site. Use your company name sometimes, use partial-match anchor text another, etc. Mix up the title tag too. Try to make it as unique as you can across each site.

Scott O.