Let’s face it, 404 pages aren’t fun or sexy, but boy are they important.  When someone visits your site and the page they’re trying to find is no longer around, the difference between them leaving your site or sticking around can be your 404 page.  If you’re still using the stock, “Sorry This Page Cannot Be Found” message, you are giving people no option but to bail from your site and look elsewhere for the infomation.

You can solve this problem with about 5 minutes of work, and have a pretty cool 404 page as the result. First off, find out where your 404 page is so you can do some work to it.  It’s most likely in your root directory, but it may also be at your cpanel or hosting service, so go track it down.

Get rid of that stock 404 text.  Write something fun or witty that will at least make your visitor laugh, and not focus on the fact that the page they wanted doesn’t exist anymore.

Include a link back to your homepage or to your contact form, so they can make you aware that you have a problem with that page.  A cool widget you can add to your 404 pages is readily available at your Google Webmaster Tools account. Google provides you the script for a search tool that will allow your visitors who land on your 404 page to do a search of your site for more information, thus keeping them at your site.  Log into your account page and click on the “Tools” tab in the lower left.  Now click on “Enhance 404 Pages”.  Copy the script on that page and paste it into your the code of your 404 page template.

Now you’re all set.  You have a custom 404 page, with search capability, that will keep visitors on your site and hopefully help them find the information they wanted in the first place.