Customize & Monetize Your 404 Page

Aug 6th, 2007 by Leonid Shalimov | Scroll down for comments

What? Why would you need a custom 404 page? Why should I worry about a user mistyping something and hitting a page that doesn’t exist on my site? Who cares?

A good chunk of hits from the web come mistyped and incorrect, humans are fallible. Turn that 404 into increased traffic and readership through some easy steps. Check out my 404 page by typing in something that doesn’t exist, for example: http://cashbulge.com/weofnwef.

You’ll see that I put in a Google search of my site and a custom message implemented and embedded into my site theme (template). Why is this important?

Most 404 pages lead you to a custom page made by your server or host. Sometimes they just lead to blank pages using black and white text that just say “ERROR 404″. Most likely, if a reader hits a page with that, they won’t return to your site and they won’t bother fixing their mistake.

You can take advantage of this by customizing the page. Most blogging platforms come with a themed 404 page which is great and easy for customizing. You can also find your hosts 404 page by browsing through your FTP and finding it manually. For a more technical overview of how to do this check this site out.

Not only should you add a search toolbar, you should add a link to your top articles, hell, maybe even an AdSense ad placement ;). Another important thing to note is that some people linking to you may have made the mistake, either that or your article doesn’t exist anymore.

Don’t lose reader’s because of this. I think that putting in a “Related Articles” section to your 404 page might help, as long as you integrate it properly into whatever theme your running. At least this way, even if the reader doesn’t get what he or she was looking for, they will be able to search for the article or browse other articles you have written, its way better than seeing the dreaded 404 landing page.

Bookmark This!

Leonid Shalimov posted this article under Monetization Strategies, Blog Improvement on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 11:21 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. View Technorati Linkbacks.