According to User Brain, it only takes one second for your website visitors to make a first impression on your site. While keeping that thought in mind, you can see the importance of making sure everything on your site works properly, but what do you do if something goes wrong and a page doesn’t work anymore?
A custom 404 page is a custom error page that appears when someone enters an incorrect page address on your website. Most custom 404 pages will include a message to the effect of “Sorry, this page does not exist!”. They are customarily designed so as to be more aesthetically appealing or informative than the other standard web server 404 messages.
Essentially it provides your website with professionalism and is a lot better of a first impression to the alterative. So today we are going to talk about custom 404 pages and why you need them for your website.
Let’s get started!
#1 Branding and Professionalism
When you have a custom 404 page, it shows your website visitors that you take their experience on your site seriously. It also gives your web design a more professional appearance, which can make a good first impression on potential customers or clients.
In addition, custom 404 pages can help to reinforce your social branding and identity. A branded 404 page has the potential to further your business’ reputation if done correctly. It can do this by following suit with your branding or advertising campaigns, or it can act as a standalone piece that captures attention and provides an insight into what your company is about.
It can also help with throwing in some humor when something isn’t working perfectly. Saying things such as
- Oops! You weren’t supposed to see this… how embarrassing
- These are uncharted waters. Please turn back now
- Uh oh… we can’t find whatever it was you were you’re looking for
- Well this is awkward…. but what you’re looking for seems to be lost
- Woah! We think you blew up the internet. This is no longer working
This is a great example of web marketing tactics that work. They’ll keep your visitors smiling and laughing when they could have gotten frustrated or upset about the link not working.
#2 404 Pages are Good for SEO
404 pages are also great for SEO. When a search engine crawls your website, it follows links to all the different pages on your site. If a search engine encounters a 404 page with no links, it’s not going to be able to continue crawling your website.
The result? Complete parts of your site might remain unindexed. If your pages remain unindexed, then the search engines won’t be able to locate them.
A custom 404 page will provide links to all the relevant parts of your site so that search engines will be able to locate and provide it in results pages.
This is an easy way to improve your search engine optimization.
#3 Lead Generation
A custom 404 page has the potential to generate leads. Simply by having a form on your 404 page, you could be collecting emails from visitors who are interested in your products or services. This is a perfect example of good website marketing.
It also stands to reason that prospective customers are more likely to fill out a form if they feel punished for making an error. They’re much less likely to do so if they instead feel like it’s just an inconvenience and the issue is their fault.
This is the perfect opportunity to direct them to exactly what you and possibly turn them into your next client. This only will give you a good ROI on such a small investment.
#4 Improved User Experience
Custom 404 pages provide a much better user experience than traditional 404 pages. They reassure website visitors that they are not lost on the website and that only a specific page is not working. This can help to prevent frustration and a high bounce rate.
In addition, custom 404 pages can be designed to be more aesthetically appealing or informative in your website design than traditional 404 pages. This can provide visitors with a better overall experience on your website.
Custom 404 pages can also help to improve the user experience by providing links to all the relevant parts of your site (or possibly even a site map). This ensures that website visitors have access to all the different parts of your website.
#5 Attracts More Attention and Traffic
Finally, custom 404 pages have the potential to attract more attention to your website. It can do this by getting people to talk about your company. When there is a clever 404 page, people tend to talk about it and share it.
Attracting external attention for your brand if you do a good enough job can help improve search engine rankings and it will also benefit your business’ reputation.
Creative marketing tactics such as this account for a 47% sales uplift, which is a huge increase to your ROI by simply adding a creative custom 404 page.
Attracting external attention is always great because it increases visibility, which in turn brings more visitors. Those visitors could become clients or customers.
Get Your Custom 404 Page
If your website does not have a custom 404 page, you may be missing out on an opportunity to generate additional leads, improve your SEO, build your brand and traffic, and improve user experience.
There are many benefits of having one so don’t miss out! Think about it this way, if you don’t set up a proper custom 404 page, then you’re letting your competitors get a hand up on you!
With so many benefits, your return on investment will be well worth it. What are you waiting for?
If you need help getting started with a custom 404 page for your business, our team is here to assist. We can create a custom 404 page tailored specifically to your needs at an affordable price. Let us know what we can do for you today!
