Do you manage your company’s website? Do you upload content to your site? Do you sometimes delete a website page and create a new one?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to any of these questions then here are some quick tips to improve one of the most common website problems – the dreaded 404 results page!
Firstly, what is a 404? A 404 is a results page that your website delivers if someone clicks on a website url and that page no longer exists.
404s are fundamentally a bad customer experience. The user is looking for something specific and believes the url (website page) they have clicked on will give them the answers to their query. By serving up a 404 to a user it’s a bit like sending them down a dead-end road and forcing the user to turn around. Not great.
Another negative of a 404 is that is stops search engines crawling your website properly – in essence they inhibit search engines in discovering easily what your website is about. For example, if one website has zero 404s and another has multiple 404s it will be much easier for the former website to be crawled by a search engine than the site with multiple 404s.
Then there is also the dreaded loss in ‘link equity’ – or what is also known as ‘link juice’. ‘Link equity’ or ‘link juice’ is a level of authority or value that is passed from a linking page on one website to a page on another website. If your website is therefore the receiving site and the page on your site disappears and a 404 result is shown then your ‘link equity’ is impacted – thereby reducing your site’s value and authority – two key factors search engines use in ranking sites.
So what can you do about 404s?
- Use Google Search Console – Google Search Console is free to use and crawls your website for errors and identifies all those annoying 404s. There are plenty of blogs on the internet to learn how to do this. Once you’ve done this, most website CMS systems, like WordPress, allow you to manually redirect urls to a new page using their redirection tool.
- Redirect properly – Try and actually redirect those pesky 404 errors to a relevant website page on your site and not to the homepage. The homepage is usually just too generic for the user as they are generally looking for a specific page, like a product or service page. So think carefully and send them to a ‘near-as-you-can’ relevant page.
- Give a little bit of love – Vamp up your generic 404 page – every site needs a 404 page but it doesn’t have to be dull and boring. The generic ‘404’ page your site produces is usually pretty dull – though there are some great examples of 404 pages out there! Adding extra content to your 404 page like a link to your most popular products, services, and blogs at the very least or even a few suggested pages can help visitors still get what they are after without having to reverse!
And remember if you need help, or you’re still not sure then speak to someone who can help. We’re also here for any questions or if you want to discuss how we can directly help get in touch today.
