Picture this: Your prospect is happily surfing your website when suddenly, he or she comes across the dreaded error message, “404 not found.”
Finding a bad link can cause frustration and anger…and ultimately cause site abandonment. Though there are tools available to help you fix bad links, it’s impossible to guarantee that errors will never happen. On average, 7% of your site visitors will get an ugly error message as the result of a bad link.
To save customers from clicking away from your site, never to return again, put some personality into your error message. Here is what I do for websites, microsites and landing pages we create:
There are 3 categories to choose from:
- Apologetic. Prospects have clicked this bad link because of an error. Therefore it’s a smart move to apologize for it. Here are examples from the Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) and Amazon.com:
- Helpful. Instead of just telling the prospect that the page wasn’t found, many sites direct them to a page of useful search tools. HP.com’s error page takes the apologetic approach one step further by adding a new search box and other navigation options. Take a look:
- Engaging. Snopes.com takes an interesting approach. Previous error pages contained audio of two men talking about why the page hasn’t loaded. Their conclusion is that someone must have jammed meatballs in the pages. A more recent example is shown below: Upon arriving on the page, the site begins to type out the message shown below.
No matter which approach you choose, site visitors will appreciate that you haven’t left them at a dead end. As a result, fewer of them will click away.
