Oh no, “404, Page not found”. A 404 page is an error page which is returned when the page can’t be found on your server. 404 pages are normally caused when developer or users make mistakes; Good examples of which are: Links to dead pages (developers) and misspelling (User and Developer). Whatever the cause of a 404 page, it’s no use crying over split milk, these things happen to the best of us but you can work on damage control. What do I mean, well when most user get a horrible page say 404 they will exit your site probably back to the search engines. This is why you need a bespoke 404 page in a last effort to retain the user on your site; especially since organic bounce rate is set to become an important of search.

Ideas for creating a bespoke 404 page

So you know why now let look at how. Well you always want to keep the line “404 Page not found” so your user can understand it an error but also you what to give them option to find what there looking or were they when wrong. Some skeleton examples of which are as follows:

Click the back button
Click here to go to the home page
Please Use navigation at the top of the page
Check my sitemap.

One thing I’ve missed from the list above list is to have a search box, if they have come to that page look for some thing give them another opportunity to find it!

Finally incorporating tasteful humor into the page is a good idea. Everyone like to laugh and it gives your users a break before they get back to trying to find what they were after in the first place and if not, at least you have put a smile on there face, some 404 pages even use video for this. Want more ideas check this URL:  http://blogof.francescomugnai.com/2008/08/the-100-most-funny-and-unusual-404-error-pages/ and if you’ve come across a good 404 pages recently put them in the comments so we can all check them out.