There is a time in every online marketer’s life when a simple fact realizes that is 404 error page. Driving traffic to your website is not an easy job. It takes time and needs more effort to get every visitor to hook up with your site. Every visitor is an opportunity to transform into a real customer.

You can’t ignore your visitors; that’s why you have to understand what custom 404 page is? If your visitors face this problem while visiting your site, then they will leave your webpage instantly.

So, what you would do if you didn’t set up a custom 404 page for your website? Well, let’s talk about this in brief.

What is a custom 404 page?

In technical terms, a custom 404 page is the error number when a visitor tries to access a page that is not present on your site.

The two most common reasons for a custom 404 pages are:

• The web address (URL) of the page they’re trying to reach is in missing; or
• They are following a link to a page that has no longer exists on your site.

The purpose of this page is to destruct your audience with technical jargon. Many of them will leave when they are unable to access a link. If it happens, then what will be the result? It is meaning that you are missing the opportunity to convert a visitor into a customer. The money and effort you spent on getting them to your site will be wasting. The best solution would be to create a custom 404 page.

Why you need a custom 404 page?

You need to create a custom 404 page for your website so that your visitors don’t go back from your website. Once the 404 pages are creating, then the disastrous default 404 pages will never see on your page. Creating a custom 404 page can help turn an unfortunate event into an opportunity.

Let’s look at four ways to why need a custom 404 page:

Branding:

Many businesses use their custom 404 pages to reinforce their branding. GitHub serves as an example is the Geek community, and their custom 404 page reflects that fact. To create your company branding, you have to make a custom 404 pages to protect your visitors not to leave your webpages.

Search Engines:

Search engines crawl every webpage of your website by following links on different pages. It won’t be able to continue when a search engine is indexing your site and hits a custom 404 page without a link. All of your visitors’ may leave without checking your website.

If your pages are not indexed, then search engines will not help to visible your page in the search results. A custom 404 page ensures that the page error will not occur next time by providing links to all relevant page of your site.

Goodwill:

To be successful in online marketing, you have to build trust with your client. One of the best ways to do this is to have a useful and helpful link on your website. Valuable links will promote goodwill and trust for your website.

In this case, if your visitors click on the wrong URL that is showing 404 error page, then your visitors might leave. If visitors do not find the correct page, and if they click on the “No Thanks” link then the site’s archive list will appear. It would be a helpful way for your visitors to find accurate information.

 Lead generation:

The custom 404 page emphasizes the branding of lead pages. It has links for search engines to follow and builds goodwill by offering a free give-away. This custom 404 page helps convert their website visitors to lead. It would be a high return on the money and effort you spend to bring your site first position on the search engine.

Make a custom 404 page:

It may be a mistypes URL or a broken link that’s the reason to face a 404 page. It is the server’s response to a page that does not exist.

Let’s start to learn how to make a custom 404 page:-

Step 1: Use Squarespace or Weebly website builder?

If you use one of these website builders you will find a custom 404-page setting. You can use that function directly to upload images and can add a button. You’re pretty done here. In my case, I had to run a local website in this way. If you like this function, then go ahead.

Step 2: Find the “.htaccess” file in the root directory of your server

Locate this file in the FTP and root directory on your server. It will help if you edit this option. If you can’t find it directly then search it on the search bar. Name it “.htaccess.” Remember, there is nothing before and after Just “.htaccess.”

Step 3: Edit the .htaccess file

Open it and add the following line:

 errordocument 404 /not-found-page.html

Where “/not-found-page.html” is the entire path to create new custom 404 page. Along this line, we’re just telling the server that in the case of a custom 404 pages scenarios, return this file to the browser. Got it?

Step 4: Make sure the path is correct and check it

Try to find a page that is not on your website. It would be best if you got your custom 404 pages mentioned in the .htaccess file.

Step 5: If it doesn’t work, update your server settings

In my case, since I’m running my website locally on Mac, Apache doesn’t allow for custom .htaccess files. I had to go to the Apache configuration and edit the settings.

Voilah! It is enough to create a custom 404 page. It should be running correctly for your website. If you are still into problems, make noise about how you can change your server’s configuration to allow for custom 404 pages.

The conclusion:

Creating a custom 404 page helps to replace the error page by the default to staying your visitors. You can take advantage of the opportunities for visitors to a permanent client. You have to emphasize on your company branding, supporting search engine indexes, creating goodwill, and to build trust to your visitors.

You can contact us for any query or getting this service at an affordable price. Please check our services.