404 Error Pages are a necessary part of the web and you just have to accept they crop up from time to time. However we should be mindful of helping our site visitors gain the information they seek as efficiently and painlessly as possible.

Below are 10 things to consider when building websites and the associated 404 Error page by putting yourself in the mindset of your end user audience.

1 – Brand Recognition?
Design the page so that it is recognisably the business/website the user is looking for and is consistent with the brand. Keep the Primary navigation in place – don’t hide it. This will aid those who clicked an expired URL in an email or referenced an outdated publication to navigate back to your home page, key product or services pages. The below page represents a standard Windows IIS Server 404 Error page and realistically isn’t really useful to anyone – the second Apache Server page is even less useful. In both instances if you are navigating around a website and hit a snag, you have to hit the back button on your web browser – to many users this is very disorientating and many might not be even sure if they are on the correct website or not.

Standard Windows IIS Server 404 Error Page

Apache Server Error

2 – You were looking for?
The small step of actually displaying what the users typing efforts inputted into the URL address bar assists in the user being able to validate their typing – and desired destination. Representing the URL in the window can allow a second inspection to take place by the user, as it could reveal a typo in a link supplied in an email. Remember, not everyone has the address bar visible (Full screen F11 browsing) all the time.

3 – Key site areas:
People visit websites for specific reasons – you can identify key areas of interest by way of your site analytics package. Offering a breakdown of these key site sections into a neat array of alternatives on a 404 Error page is an excellent way of  guiding your users to their chosen area of interest. The www.apple.com website is very well setup in this regard.

Apple website 404 Error Page

4 – Search:
If your website has a search facility, placing this within the framework of your 404 Error page will allow users to start looking for what they are after within your site. Particularly if you have predictive search enabled, then this will further assist wayward site users in finding what they are after. Highlighting it like the www.dailymirror.co.uk is a nice and visually subtle way to draw attention to the facility.

Daily Mirror 404 Error Page

5 – Offer Instructions, Tips & Guidance:
Don’t be shy – offer instructions about what a site visitor can do to improve their search, including use of operators like “and”, “or” and use of “quotations” to help put into context word groupings etc. On that, direct people to the search e.g. “Site search is located in the top right hand corner of this page” – it doesn’t hurt to state the obvious.

6 – Offer access to your Site Map::
A general layout, again as illustrated by the Judicial College of Victoria website below will prove useful in guiding your users to finding the appropriate area of the site they are interested in.

Judicial College of Victoria 404 Error Page

7 – Be open to Feedback:
The nature of modern web systems is that many people may be involved in the day to day maintenance and management of the environment. It is entirely feasible and plausible that those tasked with looking after the site might not even be aware of the error in missing content in the first place. Offering the immediate ability to offer feedback by way of a feedback/contact form is a great way to defer the responsibility of site content management. Many people  are quite conscientious about reporting small errors to site content.

8 – Most recently searched items:
If someone is visiting a website, chances are they actually are looking for something they have either heard the business does or they want to find out something they heard recently about the business. Offering the 5 top search items, generated by popularity is a helpful way to offer possible relevance to the site visitors.

9 – News/Cross Promotion:
Just 3 headlines will do. It won’t hurt search engine ranking and page update relevance. Based on the idea that someone is specifically looking for information in relation to your organisation, the fact that the latest news is presented, increases the likelihood of engaging users directly with what the business is currently communicating.

10 – Offer some light-hearted humour:
People can take things too seriously at the wrong times. Consider injecting some humour into your 404 messages. Obviously this approach needs to be treated with care and consideration to the end user audience and the representing website.