The 404 error code is one that will unavoidably appear on your site from time to time. It happens to the best of us, whether it’s through a broken link, a user mistyping an address, or a server going down. The page you want to appear will fail to load, instead showing a stark 404: Not Found error notice.

In recent years, companies have coped with the inevitability of 404 Not found pages by customising them. This doesn’t work for all servers or sites, but it takes little time and is a good idea. Any time you can take control of that blank page and provide a more user-friendly message is a time you potentially save a user being put off your site.

Some companies have got into trouble with their 404 pages. Any over-excitement with your language on a customised 404 Not Found page can lead to it being indexed or recoded by the search engine spiders. As the 404 Not Found page provides no valuable content, filling it with SEO strategies really is counter-productive. Having it recoded by a search engine spider also means that the error is not logged so you can’t go about fixing it.

Making use of your error pages and accidentally turning them into indexed pages is a fine line, and many companies approach their SEO firms for help. You can discuss this kind of customisation with our consultants at SEO Consult.

A custom 404 error page should be a part of your search engine optimisation plan, but not for its content itself. The aim of a customised 404 Not Found page should be to explain the situation to your site users and steer them back to a working page.

When approaching the design of your custom 404 error pages, you need to have these elements:

1. An apology. Every site owner knows that 404 Not Found pages usually come up because of user error. This doesn’t matter. Users generally assume errors are the site’s fault. Accept this, apologise for the error, and try to move them on.

2. Links. The links on your custom 404 Not Found page need to be carefully selected. A 404 Not Found page can appear in any area of your site, so having too-specific links will not be helpful. At the same time, you need to provide the closest thing to a solution to your user, or risk having them give up on your site.

3. Personality. Many internet users are put off by 404 error pages. To keep them in, make your page compelling and interesting. A lot of sites use humour on their customised 404s, to great effect. If humour doesn’t suit the tone of your site, a friendly tone is also good.

Your customised 404 pages should aim to simply address the situation in the best way they can. It can be easy to trip up and have them recoded due to over-eagerness. If done correctly, however, customised 404 error pages can be virtually invisible to users, resulting in better user retention.

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