Prior to taking this class, I had never thought twice about why the contents of an error page are so important. Ending up on an error page was always frustrating, but the rise of funny and engaging error pages is a great way to differentiate yourself- that is a custom 404 page! I was able to investigate this topic more by reading the article 404 Error Pages: The Ultimate Guide for SEOs by Seo Sherpa. You can read the article here.
Let’s start with the basics- what even is a 404 page?
A 404 page is a landing page that tells the visitors that the page they requested is either currently unavailable or doesn’t exist. The article mentioned 2 main consequences of not creating a 404 page- users won’t know the URL they’re trying to visit isn’t working and Googlebot won’t get the correct status code to know it’s not there. Both of these options negatively impact your rank on Google’s SERP.
There are many reasons why you might be sent to a 404 page. Some of the reasons are that the page got deleted from the website, the page got moved, the URL was simply typed incorrectly, the domain name doesn’t exist anymore, etc.
In order to evaluate your site, you can run a crawl to identify your website’s 404’s. You can fix the broken link by redirecting the error, restoring the page, or correcting the link.
Now to the main point of this blog post: “How to find new opportunities from lost traffic”…
There are multiple ways of doing this. One way is to create a generic 404 page, but let’s focus on creating a custom 404 page. The main point here is how to minimize the frustration caused by not finding your search intent and returning to a 404 page. If you are able to lighten the mood by using games, humor, and exciting visuals, you are much more likely to keep the user engaged. Some specific elements of an engaging 404 page are the following: a simple error message, a consistent feel to the rest of the site, links from the 404 page to your best content, a search box, contact details, and by implementing a little humor!
What are some of your favorite custom 404 pages that you’ve come across?
2 Responses
Hello, I liked everything that you had to say. This was a great addition to everything that Dr.Sweet had to say in class.
I agree, prior to this class I had never considered the importance of a custom 404 page. Keeping users engaged is very important, and if a site can do that even when it is not necessarily working then all the better. Plus the humor that many sites use on 404 pages does help improve the mood while dealing with something that can be frustrating. Great post.