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!

Browsing through clickbank today, I decided to see just how many vendors have cobwebs in their shopping carts. If you are familiar with Clickbank, one of the most important ratings of a product offering is a number called gravity. This number represents how many affiliates have made atleast one sale of that product within the last 8 weeks. If there were 100 sales in the past two months from 18 unique affiliates, the gravity for the product is 18. Products in the highest tier (100+ rating) usually show up on the very first page. It is assumed that the higher the gravity, the better the product is, increasing your chances of making money promoting it.

But how many products have grown stale or never taken off? I took a quick look at the category “Home and Family” which has 1880 different products in the Clickbank database. Here are the results:

• 697 products have a zero gravity rating(37.1%)
• 1062 rated from .01 to 9.9 gravity(56.4%)
• 82 rated from 10-29 gravity(4.4%)
• 30 rated from 30-99 gravity(1.6%)
• 9 rated from 100 to 577 gravity(0.5%)

What do all these numbers mean? First, if you are promoting a product on Clickbank, it would do you good to research both your niche and your product. There are many opinions on where you should draw the line in selecting your Clickbank product. I have been told to only choose products with a gravity of over 100. But I also know “guru’s” who suggest anything over a gravity rating of 20 is a successful product. With many things in Internet Marketing, the best advise I can give you is to test several offers in each niche and discover what works best for you. Maybe a low gravity product is really just an undiscovered gem. Or maybe the sales page really does suck at converting. Take you hints from the crowds, but check everything out yourself and test the heck out of them.

So what do you think? Do Clickbank Products go to heaven? Over 90% of them are either dead or on life support!

#6 – Blogging. I use to blog several times a day. Blogging is not evil, but it was keeping me from working at things that made me actually money. I now only blog a couple times a week, is more of a journal. I try to avoid sounding commercial or heavily promoting anything.

#5 – Forums. Again, I use to visit a handful of forums multiple times each day. Great resources when used in moderation. But be careful as they can consume hours of your day without leaving any money in your pocket.

#4 – Social Sites. Arg, the time wasted looking through tweets, Facebook posts, and Myspace pages. If I had spent that same time on my sites, I’d probably be relaxing on a beach somewhere.

#3 – Email. I use Outlook, and had it set to download new mail every 5 minutes. I found myself checking it and reading new mail every time it came. Hours and hours wasted on email. I have now check my email twice each day, if that. Once at lunch, and once about one hour before I stop working for the day.

#2 – Environment – It took me a while to realize that what I allowed to surround me and my desk was keeping me from working efficiently. I usually had a TV on while I worked. Gone. Then I moved the desk to a room with a door. I bought a more comfortable chair, a bigger monitor, and a wireless mouse.

#1 – Myself – I am lazy, and it took a long time for me to realize there is no such thing as overnight success(or Get Rich Quick). It takes alot of time and effort to make money online. It is still the easiest job in the world, but you don’t get compensated unless you TAKE ACTION!