Split the Genesis footer Credits in two or more widget-areas

This tutorial provides the steps to register and display two widgets in Genesis site footer by removing the default genesis_footer.

Idea:
1. Register two widget areas and display them (default) in site footer.
2. Use is_active_sidebar as a conditional tag to make sure particular widget is active otherwise return early.
3. Removing the default site footer markup.
4. Add support for SHORTCODES.

Step 1

Registering the two widget areas: i) Footer Left and ii) Footer Right. Paste the following in your child-theme/functions.php

//* Register 'footer-left' and 'footer-right' widget areas.
genesis_register_sidebar(
    array(
    'id'          => 'footer-left',
    'name'        => __('Footer Left', 'theme-prefix'),
    'description' => __('This is a footer left widget area and will show at left side.', 'themeprefix'),
    ) 
);

genesis_register_sidebar(
    array(
    'id'          => 'footer-right',
    'name'        => __('Footer Right', 'theme-prefix'),
    'description' => __('This is a footer right widget area and will show at right side.', 'themeprefix'),
    ) 
);

Step 2

Adding this two widget areas inside site footer markup. Again add the following in your child-theme/functions.php

//* Add these two widget areas at site footer area.
add_action('genesis_footer', 'themeprefix_do_footer', 9);
function themeprefix_do_footer() {
    if(! is_active_sidebar('footer-left') && ! is_active_sidebar('footer-right') ) {
        return;
    }
     
    //* Remove default copyright text area .
    remove_action('genesis_footer', 'genesis_do_footer');
  
    //* Add a filter in Text widget. So shortcode will work in Text widget.
    add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
  
    if(is_active_sidebar('footer-left') ) {
        genesis_widget_area(
            'footer-left', array(
            'before' => '<div class="footer-widget-area footer-left" id="footer-left">',
            'after'  => '</div>',
            ) 
        );
    }
  
    if(is_active_sidebar('footer-right') ) {
        genesis_widget_area(
            'footer-right', array(
            'before' => '<div class="footer-widget-area footer-right" id="footer-right">',
            'after'  => '</div>',
            ) 
        );
    }
}

OR use this if you not want footer widgets on Landing page.

//* Add these two widget areas at site footer area.
add_action('genesis_footer', 'themeprefix_do_footer', 9);
function themeprefix_do_footer() {
	
	if(! is_active_sidebar('footer-left') && ! is_active_sidebar('footer-right') || is_page_template('page_landing.php') ) {
        return;
    }
     
    //* Remove default copyright text area .
    remove_action('genesis_footer', 'genesis_do_footer');
  
    //* Add a filter in Text widget. So shortcode will work in Text widget.
    add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode');
  
    if(is_active_sidebar('footer-left') ) {
        genesis_widget_area(
            'footer-left', array(
            'before' => '<div class="footer-widget-area footer-left" id="footer-left">',
            'after'  => '</div>',
            ) 
        );
    }
  
    if(is_active_sidebar('footer-right') ) {
        genesis_widget_area(
            'footer-right', array(
            'before' => '<div class="footer-widget-area footer-right" id="footer-right">',
            'after'  => '</div>',
            ) 
        );
    }
}

Here, we added additional condition to not output the function of pages where landing page is assigned.

|| is_page_template('page_landing.php')

OR You can remove this function by just changing add_action() to remove_action()

in page_landing.php before genesis(); ADD

//*  Remove these two widget areas at site footer area.
remove_action('genesis_footer', 'themeprefix_do_footer', 9);

here themeprefix_do_footer() is the function we are removing.

Step 3

Add the following CSS in your style.css file.

.site-footer,
.site-footer .wrap {
    display: -webkit-flex;
    display: flex;
    -webkit-flex-wrap: wrap;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    vertical-align: top;
    width: 100%
}

.site-footer .footer-widget-area {
    margin: 0 !important;
    padding: 0 !important;
}

.site-footer .widget {
    margin-bottom: 0 !important;
}

.footer-right {
    -webkit-order: -1;
    order: -1;
    margin-bottom: 10px;
}

.footer-left,
.footer-right {
    flex: 0 0 100%;
    text-align: center;
}

.site-footer .widget_text {
    padding-top: 5px;
    font-size: 1.8rem;
}

.site-footer .simple-social-icons {
    /* vertical-align:  middle; */
    display: inline-block;
}

@media only screen and (min-width: 960px) {
    .footer-widget-area {
        -webkit-flex: 1;
        flex: 1;
        line-height: 1.4;
    }
    .footer-left {
        text-align: left;
    }
    .footer-right {
        text-align: right;
        -webkit-order: 1;
        order: 1;
    }
    .footer-widget-area .widget {
        display: inline-block;
        margin-bottom: 0;
        margin-left: 10px;
        vertical-align: middle;
    }
    .footer-widget-area .widget_nav_menu li {
        display: inline-block;
        margin: 0 0 0 10px;
        padding-bottom: 0;
    }
    .footer-widget-area .widget:first-child,
    .footer-widget-area .widget_nav_menu li:first-child {
        margin-left: 0;
    }
    .footer-widget-area .simple-social-icons ul li {
        margin-bottom: 0 !important;
    }
}

Step 4

Login to WordPress dashboard and navigate to Appearance > Widgets. Drag Your preferred widget i.e Simple Social Icons or HTML widget in each of footer left and right widget area.

Done!