Why Your WordPress Website Needs a Custom 404 (Not Found) Error Page
Reading Time: 4 minutes 
I know this has happened to you. You land on a website and see “404 Page Not Found”. The basic vanilla server error page shows that the link you followed is no longer accurate.
Then what? When I run into this, I’ll look for a primary menu to guide me, or I manually remove the last part of the URL in the location bar down to just the dot com portion, which will take me to the site’s home page.
Then, I’ll do a quick scan. Then, if I am motivated, I may stick around and find something similar on the site.
Most times, I do not.
Nor can you count on your site visitors to hunt and peck, either. (This is where having simple, intuitive navigation comes into play.)
Opportunity Lost
404s happen. Especially if you’ve had your site for a while, it becomes even more challenging to track all your posts, pages, and deletions.
404s are produced for several reasons. The most common are:
Let’s be honest. Getting site visitors is not easy. So when they do land on our site, we want to give them the best experience possible. And keep them there for as long as we can.
If we have deleted, moved, or modified a page or post to cause a 404, that is not a user-friendly experience. So we want to ensure we minimize the potential of site visitors ditching out because they cannot find what they clicked through.
WordPress Plugins Make 404s & 301 Redirects Easy
Using 301 redirects is a way to avoid this. A 301 redirect is when you point the deleted page’s URL to another on your site that is applicable and similar. I use the Yoast Premium plugin to help keep up with this when I take a page offline or change the file name. There is also the Redirection plugin, a free option you can check out.
But what if you don’t have a similar article or one worth pointing the old URL to? You certainly don’t want to send visitors to an article with no synergy or isn’t what they are looking for, again causing a poor user experience.
Enter the 404 to 301 plugin. This plugin will let you point any 404s to a specific page you create to look how you like with the info and guidance your site visitors will appreciate.
404 to 301 will redirect all 404s and automatically create a 301 redirect to your custom page. The plugin will also log every 404 error for you to address individually.
Turn Your 404 Page into a Conversion Tool
While we can control 404 pages when we delete a page or change a URL by immediately putting in place a 301 redirect, what if you forget to do the redirect? Or what if you deleted a page a while ago that is still displaying in search engines?
Don’t forget about outside links to your site that are out of your control. Links to those deleted pages or posts can also produce 404 error pages.
Enter your custom crafted 404 page.
With your custom 404 page, you can reflect your personality, be creative, and offer a valuable resource to site visitors. This approach allows them to choose their next click instead of just leaving your site and hitting the back button.
404 pages are an opportunity to guide visitors on what you know they are most likely looking for (or may not know what they are looking for). While custom 404 pages can also be humorous and fun, I prefer a site guide approach.
For example, here are two of my website’s custom 404 pages:
On each, you can see how I used graphics and content to guide visitors on what they may be looking for. You can include bulleted lists to graphics to the top 5 articles that visitors may find helpful.
Being I use the Kadence theme*, spiffy 404 pages like mine are easy to create.
Use your imagination!
You know what folks seek out most. Look at your stats to see what pages are the most visited. Here’s what you can include on your custom 404 page:
Put your personality on display with matching content and creatives. Then, make your custom 404 page to anticipate how you can best help site visitors who land there.
Once you get your custom 404 page in place, any missing pages, or if site visitors have a typo after your domain name, they will land at your site guide. That’s what I call user-friendly!
At your service,
*Some of the links on this page are to companies I have a professional affiliation with.
Read my full affiliate statement here.
