Why don’t you customize your 404 error page?
Yesterday my world was rocked. Another marketer and I were discussing optimization, and the topic came to 404 error pages. My blank stare produced a chuckle from, then a serious dialog. I don’t know what he though was so funny. Tragically, I have been completely ignoring this page on every one of my sites, and knew how much this oversight was costing me. A quick search produced a few case studies revealing 10-20% increase in sales as result of optimized 404 error pages. If I could kick my own butt, it would be sporting a big footprint, size 12.
I spent several hours that day seeking a viable solution to the problem. So many people only focus on optimize landing pages. They tinker with the color of buttons, add audio or video, and change images to help convert traffic. A quick google search revealed some great articles, and free code to make drastic improvements to the typical 404 error page.
How many times does a visitor click on a broken link? When that happens, what do they see? A white page with some text telling them the page is missing? Until yesterday thats where my broken links went to die, along with any sale I had hoped for from that customer.
The first 404 error page I completed was for this blog. Among the many blogs I reviewed, many similarities emerged on how their 404 page was set up. With doing further research, one can assume that these methods must be somewhat effective. If a blog with over 1000 visitors does it, maybe I should try it out.
The first item every 404 error page contained was a message. Any mixture of words to let the customer know the link is broken. Here are some messages I liked:
“File Not Found. Click Here if You Don’t Know What Else to Do”
“This Page has disappeared like a surplus in Washington.”
“OMG You Broke Teh Interwebs!”
“Holy 404 Error, Batman!”
Next, an image or video is used to help emphasize the message. These ranged from animals, to people, to cartoons and funny videos of lost people. The media also helped to funnel people into the third part of the 404 error page tri-fecta.
Providing the visitor with an alternate page or content is vital. If they are not told where they should go, they may just leave. Suggesting other related pages, blog posts, or content is easy to do. For my blog, I decided to provide a list of my most popular blog posts. My search for some easy code to display my popular blog posts to my 404 error page yielded this:
————————————
<h2>Popular Posts</h2>
<ul>
<?php $result = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_count,ID,post_title FROM $wpdb->posts ORDER BY comment_count DESC LIMIT 0 , 5");
foreach ($result as $post) {
setup_postdata($post);
$postid = $post->ID;
$title = $post->post_title;
$commentcount = $post->comment_count;
if ($commentcount != 0) { ?>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($postid); ?>" title="<?php echo $title ?>">
<?php echo $title ?></a> {<?php echo $commentcount ?>}</li>
<?php } } ?></ul>
——————————–
This code will display you top 5 blog posts by highest comment count. If you would like to see my current 404 error page for this blog, click here. Warning, it is funny!