Add a static block into Footer In Magento

Step 1: Add a new static block for this Go to the Admin panel CMS -> Static Blocks here you can create the static block Suppose the static block identifier is custom_footer_block.
Step 2: Now Open the page.xml file it will be in app/design/frontend/default/[your_theme]/layout/, search for the code block

<block type="page/html_footer" name="footer" as="footer" template="page/html/footer.phtml">

and add this code block here

<block type="cms/block" name="custom_footer_block">
<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>custom_footer_block</block_id></action>
</block> 

Then this code block will look like as

<block type="page/html_footer" name="footer" as="footer" template="page/html/footer.phtml">
<block type="page/switch" name="store_switcher" as="store_switcher" template="page/switch/stores.phtml"/>
<block type="page/template_links" name="footer_links" as="footer_links" template="page/template/links.phtml"/>
<block type="cms/block" name="custom_footer_block">
<action method="setBlockId">
<block_id>custom_footer_block</block_id>
</action>
</block>
</block> 

Step 3: Now open your footer.phtml file it will be in app/design/frontend/default/[your_theme]/template/page/html/

<div>
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('custom_footer_block') ?> //our custom block
</div>

for adding a link to your footer links you can always use this construction

<reference name="footer_links">
<action method="addLink" translate="label title">
<label>Your Path</label>
<url>your/path/</url>
<title>Your Path</title>
</action>
</reference>

Hope this will help to someone else.