Welcome to Day 21 of the Internet Marketing Makeover (#31DIMM for short)!
It’s true – visitors can get lost on our sites! Whether it’s a out-of-date bookmark or simply a broken.mistyped link, 404 errors (”Page Not Found”) lead many site visitors to simply abandon their quest and try finding what they want somewhere else.
In today’s #31DIMM assignment, you’ll give visitors who reach a 404 error page alternatives, so they stay on your site!
DAY 21 OBJECTIVE
Implement a custom 404 Error page for your sites.
DAY 21 ASSIGNMENT
The most useful 404 pages give visitors options to find the information they’re looking for. Here are some ideas you may want to implement into your custom 404 error pages:
- A search box so they can search your site for the information they need
- Links to popular posts or pages
- Links to your navigation structure – categories, tags, etc.
- A link to your homepage, of course!
Using a custom 404 error page with Wordpress is, like most things, pretty simple.
Most themes come with a file called 404.php. This is your custom error page. You can replace whatever text is currently displayed in your 404.php with whatever you would like it to say and to include the items suggested above, if your theme does not do this already for you. For instructions on how to do this, go here.
There are also several Wordpress plugins that will customize the 404 page.
- 404 Plugin – Displays related pages/posts on your site. If none are available, it displays related search results.
- Useful 404’s – The benefit of this plugin is that it automatically emails you when a user reaches your 404 page, so you can figure out what the problem is and fix it.
- Smart 404 – Actually redirects a visitor from the broken page they requested to a related page on your site, so they never experience the 404 in the first place. It can also be customized to give the visitor suggestions of related pages rather than just redirecting them.
If you’re not on Wordpress, all is not lost – you just need to create your HTML error page (make it look like the rest of your site). Google also offers a 404 Widget that will allow users to search your site and will also suggest alternative URL’s on your site that may be correct, or related.
Then you tell your server to use your custom page rather than the default page. To do this, edit your .htaccess to include:
ErrorDocument 404 /notfound.html
Replace the /notfound.html with the name of the custom 404 error page you created.
Now your visitors will have an alternative to leaving your site when they reach a 404 error page!
ABOUT THE 31 DAY INTERNET MARKETING MAKEOVER
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