How to Customize WordPress 404 Error Page For Maximum Benifit

August 18, 2009 | Ghengis | Comments 0

How to Customize WordPress 404 Error Page For Maximum Benifit

In an ideal picture perfect scenario there would be no run time error for your website. Whatever page your visitors want to get access will be right there even though you have redesigned/updated your website thousand times. Of course, in reality errors are inevitable. Things go wrong always, links will break, posts will be moved and never will be redirected etc. A 404 page gets displayed when a user request to access a web page that doesn’t exist. And when they do, unless you change it, they’re going to get a default 404 page.

Assuming that you have been already blogging, you already know that it’s much easier to engage an existing reader than it is to go out and find a new reader. And that’s why creating a custom 404 page for your site is so important. And if you have redesigned or reworked you website then chances are that you will have some 404 error page. If you just google it you will find five gazillion ways to customize your word press 404 error page. I will not reinvent the wheel, rather I will through in some Engineering thoughts into it and will show you how to develop a systematic approach to create a custom word press 404 error page.
Step 1: Design Layout

The first step is creating the custom error page is to layout a conceptual custom 404 error page design keeping reader usability, SEO and reader retention in mind.

Usability should the first and most important functionality that you need to integrate into your custom 404 error page design. The goal is to format the navigation such a way that it will provide a smooth transition from an error page (a negative thing for yours website since you don’t have what the reader wants) to some other pages that you would like you readers to go.
Second functionality is SEO. Assuming you know the importance of anchor text with back links for your website, you can implement breadcrumb method to optimize your website content for both the readers and search engine bots inside your custom 404 error page. From your 404 error page use anchor text to link to the major categories that you want your visitors to go and then followed by some of your other most visited blog posts (I would do at least 10). Keep in mind that if you use a software to generate the top 10 posts then you will not generate any backlinks. So, if I would be you then I would do it myself so that you can generate 10 great backlinks for my blog and/or site.
Monetizing should be another functionality while you will design your custom word press 404 error page. Depending on your blogs topic if you want then you can also replace your most visited blogs with something that will make you monkey. You can also replace the top 3/4 posts links with some other posts links where your have some kind of affiliate link embedded into it. Why not making some extra $$ while you can without bothering others. Take a look at Darren’s bio page from where he refers reader and make money. You can always create that bio page into your customs 404 error page for your word press blog and generate cash flow.
Personality matters. Be yourself by bringing your own personality into the page. Replace the typical ” page cannot be found” with something that you would feel when you cant find something. Feel free to add a picture or some crazy comment that will make you stand out.

Step 2: Conceptual Design:

Being an Engineer, I have developed a habit of visualizing everything’s before I go into execution. So, I have sketch the following two different types of customs 404 error page that should give an understanding what I have explained above.

Example 1: