Design elements are vital for providing exceptional user experiences and shaping user journeys. Generic 404 pages with no clear exit route will frustrate website visitors, increase bounce rates and compromise brand credibility.
GitHub takes an innovative and playful approach to their 404 page that makes navigating back to content easily and encourages visitors to continue exploring the website. Their page encourages them to do just that!
1. Embrace Your Brand
As with every page on your site, a 404 error page should remain true to its brand. By including logos or other visual elements that visitors recognize, they’ll feel more at ease knowing they aren’t lost – creating a seamless user experience and building trust among site visitors.
Based on why your 404 page appears, you can tailor its content accordingly. For instance, if a visitor clicked on an invalid link and is taken back to another relevant page for their needs. Ultimately, keeping visitors engaged on your website and engaging them more will ultimately increase conversions.
At other times, using humor or creative elements to make the 404 experience more entertaining can help make things less frustrating for visitors. Airbnb uses an engaging GIF to keep its guests amused while offering multiple navigational paths back to its main pages. Southwest takes full responsibility for the error by providing an easy-to-use navigation menu for users; Wendys even goes further by creating an enjoyable game to keep users busy and entertained!
Your 404 page should provide users with an easy way to quickly find what they need – such as including a search box with “Find It” button or more advanced approaches such as GitHub’s custom 404 page which offers customizable search interface. By including this feature on your site’s 404 page, it may help reduce bounce rate and increase user conversion on an ecommerce website; furthermore offering product recommendations can increase sales further still.
2. Use Humor or Creative Elements
Humor can go a long way toward lightening up a 404 page and keeping visitors engaged while they wait to locate what they were searching for. Witty or lighthearted messaging, playful illustrations, and interactive elements are great ways to engage visitors while alleviating frustration – just make sure your jokes are not offensive or off-color; doing so could infuriate rather than soothe users!
If your company features a brand mascot, include them on your 404 page as a way to reassure users they’re still on the correct website and not being taken somewhere malicious. Doing this may also add an element of personalization that makes the page more relatable and user friendly.
Add creative elements to your 404 page in order to set it apart from its competition and increase visitor appreciation. This page features gorgeous photography of mouthwatering foods to give it an upbeat vibe and showcase creativity and attention to detail, both qualities many will find appreciated by site visitors.
Another creative element on this page is its use of movement. By cutting shapes from text and overlaying them, this creates an eye-catching effect which adds visual interest while not detracting from its overall message.
Create an eye-catching 404 page by using different textures or colors on it. This page makes use of multiple textures to achieve a distinct aesthetic, with colors adding an eye-catching element. Furthermore, its use underscores the importance of keeping your 404 page simple so as not to distract from other parts of your website.
3. Redirect to Your Home Page
Your 404 page should provide visitors with multiple routes back to your website, in order to prevent them from getting frustrated and clicking back into Google in search of another more helpful page. Furthermore, it’s crucial that there is an explicit error message telling visitors exactly where they went wrong and how to fix it.
Keep visitors engaged by adding a scrollable animation to your 404 page that jiggles and bounces every few seconds. This works especially well in hotel builds as it will give the impression of being inside one!
Include a search bar to keep visitors on your site by giving them another way of finding what they were originally searching for, only this time it will come from within your website instead of elsewhere on the Internet. It could make the difference in turning an uninterested 404 into an engaged customer.
Finally, your 404 page can also help promote your brand’s social media channels or blog. This will allow more people to learn about and appreciate what makes your business unique and values-driven; plus it gives hotels an opportunity to show off amenities or upcoming events!
Building an effective 404 page can be tricky, but with creativity and patience you can design a gorgeous one that keeps customers coming back for more. So feel free to experiment with different design elements until you find one that resonates with your target customers – or reach out for our expert advice on creating effective 404 pages!
4. Include a Search Bar
Your 404 page isn’t just an opportunity for creativity; it can also serve as an aid in helping visitors locate the information they’re searching for and remain engaged during their visit, rather than simply leaving as an error that they forget about later.
Installing a search bar on your 404 page can make it much simpler for visitors to locate what they’re searching for – particularly useful if you’re running an SEO campaign and aim to increase visitors.
Additionally, search bars allow you to highlight content on your website that may be of interest to visitors – this can be used as an excellent opportunity to promote products or services you might not have mentioned elsewhere on your website.
As an eCommerce business, if you offer links to popular products or product categories that may interest visitors; as an agency, offer incentives like free consultations or consultation discounts to draw in potential clients.
Create a user contact form or other method so they can reach out quickly if they have any inquiries or are unhappy about something on your website, so you can address their inquiries quickly and ensure they do not leave disappointed.
Establishing an efficient error 404 page is crucial if you wish to retain visitors and reduce bounce rate on your website. By following these simple tips, you can craft an appealing error 404 page which makes visitors feel at home when accidentally clicking a broken link.
5. Offer a Discount
While maintaining your brand’s voice is of course vitally important, 404 pages provide an ideal opportunity for increasing conversions. When designed properly and including relevant content or CTAs that entice conversions, well-crafted 404 pages may help prevent visitors from abandoning your website upon clicking an incorrect link.
Apartment Home Living’s error page depicts an amusing image of a sheep in a bathroom, creating a humorous response among their target audience. Their message accepts their search did not work but provides links back to the homepage or other frequently visited pages on their site.
Audible utilizes their error page to promote audiobooks by including a quote and slideshow of recommended listens, both of which serve to on-brand and usefully encourage visitors to explore titles before signing up for subscription services from Audible.
Tripadvisor takes an alternative approach with their 404 page, emphasizing how visitors are still welcome to use the site. They explain that links may have become outdated or changed over time and provide an easy link back to their homepage.
Waterstones’ error 404 page is both user-friendly and visually engaging, featuring an open book as a subtle nod to its core product and offering inspirational quotes for book-lovers. Furthermore, this error page features a form to contact their technical support team – adding another engaging layer for visitors who encounter issues while engaging with Waterstones as a brand.
Although it can be tempting to include too much information on your 404 page, overburdening visitors with too much can become overwhelming and lead them down an unnecessary rabbit hole. Instead, select one key action you want visitors to take and provide clear call to actions for visitors to get back on track quickly – offering discounts is one excellent way of increasing user engagement, encouraging conversions and driving up revenue; in one experiment conducted by Which Test Won this proved that including discounts in custom 404 pages resulted in higher total purchases and new customer purchases than when regular product recommendations were used instead