Hidden opportunities on your error pages
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Every healthy site has an error page that users are shown when they arrive at a broken page. While a malformed or broken URL could technically redirect users to the homepage or any other page on a website, it is a bad experience for users and search engines.
The UX need for error pages
Users need to be informed that the URL they were seeking is unavailable, so they need to find another way. Users will be confused if they expect to see a particular page and land on a homepage. A page with an error message is how they find out that something went wrong.
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Digital PR is not the cure-all solution to all your SEO problems.
But if combined with a killer SEO strategy, it can be the extra fuel you need to boost your rankings to the next level.
We secured over 100 links in massive publications, such as The Sun, Grazia Magazine, Popsugar, Daily Mail, and lots more.
These are the three types of PR activities our team ran, throughout the year:
The same applies to search engines. Search engines encounter many URLs while discovering and crawling the web. Error pages tell the crawler not to consume any additional bandwidth on the queued URL. While they could accrue internal link equity for broken URLs if they are redirected to another page, they will more than likely discover by seeing the same redirect multiple times that it was a misuse of an error and simply discount any accrued value.
Since pages with errors are never anyone’s focus - it is an error, after all- this page is often neglected, and herein lies the opportunity.
The 404 opportunity
When I was at SurveyMonkey, we had a standard error page (which are called 404 pages because that is the header response) that indicated that a user was looking at an error page. As I recall, there was probably a fun monkey on it, too. (Unfortunately, 404 pages aren’t cached on archive.org, so I can’t show you how it used to look.)
As an early employee, I was digging through our crawl and access logs to discover SEO insights, and I discovered that we had a substantial amount of 404 page views by both users and bots. Given that a core part of SurveyMonkey’s product required people to share links, it was a natural result that many links might have broken.
I came up with the idea of testing links on the 404 page to see if Google would use that page to discover new pages. At the same time, I suggested that we redesign our 404 page with calls to action so we might grab some additional sign-ups. The latter was just an afterthought, while the former was the actual test.
Here is how it looked on that first test and how it still looks today.
Not surprisingly, the first test was a huge success, which, in retrospect, made a lot of sense. Googlebot will use all sources to find new pages to crawl, including links posted on social media, pages visited via the Chrome browser, and, of course, a 404 page.
Conversions on 404’s
The big surprise was the call to action on the 404 page. As a result of that single call to action on a page that users weren’t even supposed to see, we saw many account signups, some of which even became paid accounts. In hindsight, this result was logical. Users were landing on this page because they were given a link by someone they trusted, which ultimately ended up being broken. The users were confused and just followed the call to action to sign up.
If this were all that happened, these would have been wasted free sign-ups; however, these users were now introduced to the brand and were sent welcome emails and the rest of the onboarding sequence of emails. A non-insignificant number of these users liked what they learned and decided to become paying customers.
This is something that can be replicated by any website by just designing a useful error page that has more than a “sorry, this page is broken” message.
The Benefits of Building a Useful 404 Page
A well-designed 404 page can help you:
Reduce frustration and improve user experience. When a user sees a 404 page, they may become confused. A well-designed 404 page can help to reduce this confusion by explaining what happened and providing the user with options for how to proceed. A dead end is just frustrating.
Minimize the impact of a 404 error on your SEO. When Google crawls your website, it looks for pages that are linked to other pages. Every broken page it sees, in theory, takes some of the resources allocated to your site and, therefore, will impact the remaining allocation available to good pages.
Drive traffic to other pages on your website. Your 404 page can be an opportunity to drive traffic to other pages on your website. For example, you can include links to your most popular pages, your latest blog posts, your contact information, or even a product page.
Build trust and credibility with your users. When a user sees a 404 page, they may be concerned about the quality of your website. A well-designed 404 page can help build trust and credibility with your users by explaining what happened and providing options for how to proceed.
Things to keep in mind when you build the page
When building a 404 page, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
Make sure the page is clear and easy to understand. The 404 page should explain what happened and provide the user with options for how to proceed.
Use humor or personality to make the page more engaging. A 404 page can be an opportunity to show off your brand's personality. Use humor or personality to make the page more engaging and memorable.
Include relevant links to other pages on your website. Your 404 page can be an opportunity to drive traffic to other pages on your website. Include links to your most popular pages, your latest blog posts, or your contact information.
For inspiration, here are some non-maximized 404 pages from Amazon, Target and Walmart
Here are some examples of 404 pages that help people instead of confusing them from Verve Coffee, Calm, and Adobe
If you are struggling with ideas to grab some easy growth on your 2024 roadmap, spend a couple of design cycles on your error pages, and you just might be surprised.
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If your site is not performing and there are clear opportunities to apply best practices, stop wasting time looking at other sites and take an honest look in the mirror.
We have seen this repeatedly and have never seen a site that's not benefited from consistently applying best practices.
A recent example after losing traffic through 2022 algo updates and HCU.
Now:
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