You click a link expecting to find a page on a website and instead you’re greeted with something along the lines of:
404: Page Not Found
Well, that’s helpful.
If you’ve spent any amount of time online, you’ve probably run into a 404 page before. Most of the time, you hit the back button and move on without giving it much thought.
But if you’re a small business owner, there’s another side of that equation worth thinking about for a minute.
What happens when someone runs into one on your website?
First, What Exactly Is a 404 Page?
Without getting too technical, a 404 page appears when someone tries to visit a page on your website that can’t be found.
Maybe you used to offer a service that you no longer provide and the old page was removed. Maybe the address of a page changed. Someone else may have linked to your website incorrectly. Or perhaps a potential customer found an old link in a Facebook post or email from several years ago.
There are all kinds of ways someone can end up there.
And importantly, encountering an occasional 404 doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with your website. Websites change over time, and old links have a funny way of hanging around the internet long after we’ve forgotten about them.
The question is what your visitor sees when they get there.
Think of It as a Wrong Turn
Imagine someone is driving through town looking for a local business.
They turn onto the street where they think the business is located, only to discover they’ve taken a wrong turn.
Now imagine there are two signs waiting for them.
The first says:
WRONG WAY.
That’s it.
The second says:
Looks like you took a wrong turn. No worries. Here’s how to get where you’re going.
Which business experience would you rather provide?
That’s essentially what a good 404 page does.
Your visitor didn’t intend to end up there. They’re probably looking for something you offer, and you already did the hard part of getting them to your website. A good 404 page simply helps them recover from the wrong turn instead of leaving them at a dead end.
This Is Where a Little Personality Helps
This is also one of my favorite places to have a little fun when I’m building a website.
Rather than using the generic 404 page that comes with WordPress or a website theme, I like creating custom 404 pages that actually fit the business.
A good example is one I created for Bitterroot Disaster Solutions, a local disaster mitigation and restoration company.
If someone lands on a page that doesn’t exist, they’ll see the usual 404, but underneath it I added:
Looks Like Disaster Struck This Page.
Followed by:
Let’s help you get back to safety. Return to the homepage below.
Then there’s a simple button that takes them right back to the homepage.
It’s a tiny detail, but it fits the business. Someone who was expecting a boring error message instead gets something that’s actually connected to the company they were trying to visit.
And most importantly, we haven’t left them stranded. We’ve given them an obvious way to get back to where they need to go.
You can see the actual page here:
https://bitterrootdisastersolutions.com/404
That’s what I mean when I talk about adding personality to a 404 page. It doesn’t need to be elaborate or overly clever. It just needs to feel like it belongs to your business instead of being something your website spit out automatically.
A Good 404 Page Doesn’t Fix a Broken Website
There’s an important distinction here.
A custom 404 page isn’t an excuse to have broken links throughout your website.
If the Services button on your homepage leads to a page that doesn’t exist, that’s a problem and it needs to be fixed. If Google is regularly sending people to an important page that’s been removed, that’s something worth looking into as well.
Think of the 404 page as the safety net.
We still want the links throughout your website working correctly. We still want people landing on the pages they’re looking for. But websites change, old links exist, and occasionally someone is going to end up somewhere they weren’t supposed to.
When they do, the safety net is there.
It’s a Small Detail, But Those Add Up
Will someone hire your business simply because you have a clever 404 page?
Probably not.
But that’s not really the point.
A professional website isn’t one big thing. It’s dozens of little decisions that work together to make your business feel trustworthy, polished and easy to work with.
Your navigation makes sense. Your phone number is easy to find. Your website works well on a phone. Your contact form actually reaches you. Your content answers the questions people have.
And when someone takes a wrong turn, you help them find their way back.
A custom 404 page is just one more piece of that experience.
One Less Thing You Need to Think About
This is also a pretty good example of why I don’t expect my clients to know everything about websites.
You have a business to run.
You don’t need to spend Tuesday afternoon wondering whether your 404 page has enough personality. You probably don’t need to think about your 404 page at all.
But somebody should.
That’s part of my job.
When I’m building a website, I’m thinking about what happens when everything goes right, but I’m also thinking about the little things that happen when it doesn’t.
And if we can turn a wrong turn into a smile while we’re at it?
Even better.
