Tips for writing a good 404 page

Firas is a staff writer on Mike’s Life, and you can find out more about him here.

I hope you’ve been enjoying the 404 pages that I have been posting – there are more to come! As part of “Firas' 404s” I will be sharing with you various tips/points that should be considered when working on a customized 404 page.

Before I start mentioning the points, I know a lot of you are now wondering “Why should I work on  customizing a 404 page?”

It’s because a conventional 404 page is likely to lose you readers, and you don’t want that do you? That’s because people will often simply navigate away from a site when they encounter one.

So what you should do is create a more friendly page, that give them options:

1- Try to change the regular messages such as: Page not found, 404 error, the URL requested couldn't be found, etc...

2- Have some sort of an art work that will attract the reader and gain his attention to read the rest of the message.

3- Include a search form on the page, where the user can search for what interests her/him.

4- List 5 or 10 of your most viewed or commented articles, there is a very high chance that the users will be interested to have a look at such articles.

5- Include the categories available in your blog to the page so the users can navigate your blog properly.

What else would you add to create the perfect 404 page?

As well as being a staff writer on Mike’s Life, you find Firas at his own blog Steitblog and on Twitter @steityeh

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