SEO TIP – Use Custom Error Pages to Drive Traffic

SEO
15 Sep, 2015
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With the new incarnation of SEOogle.info one of my many upgrades were custom error pages that didn’t just have redirect code that spit you back to my homepage. My custom error pages are set up with links to some of my more popular posts and categories. Rather than just spitting my users back to my homepage using:

meta HTTP-EQUIV=”REFRESH” content=”0; url=https://www.seoogle.info/

Your 404 pages can be powerful traffic tools if you let them. After I deleted a post I noticed I was getting a number of errors showing up in AWStats. Realizing that my users were hitting my 404 more often got me thinking I should maybe add some links here to more popular parts of my blog.

Since the addition of these pages I’ve noticed an incline in users as well as them staying for a longer duration. It’s quick, easy and it works!

Check out a sample error page here.

Tags: 404 Code Error Pages

Search Engines Vs Usability

Sometimes people seem to make a choice between making their site pretty for search engines or making it useful for people. I am always fascinated when I hear this discussion. In fact, it is interesting to hear someone say "I'm removing my Webring because Google will get annoyed" or "I'm deleting my links page because god, uh, Google, won't like it", or "search engines don't use meta tags, so I took them all out". These comments all ignore the basic datum about the internet. It's about PEOPLE! The internet is not about some silly, stupid little robots, or some faceless idiotic rules enforced by their creators. The internet is about communication.

Yes, search engines are a part of that communication, as it is one (and only ONE) want of getting people to your site. But there are an infinite number of other ways to get people to your site, from viral marketing to Webrings to link exchanges to contests to newsgroups to whatever else you can think of.

But if your site does not cater to PEOPLE, it will fail. Period.

Yes, it's a good idea to make sure your site is known to the engines and known well. But that is NOT the purpose of the site. The purpose of the site is to communicate. Pure and simple.

Google's customers are advertisers; the searchers are the commodity that's being sold to the advertisers. The search engine is the bait used to get the commodity to view the advertisements. SEO types tend to reduce the value of the bait, which in turn lowers the value of the commodity, which in turn makes the advertisers (the customers) more likely to look elsewhere.

SEO TIP – Use Custom Error Pages to Drive Traffic

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Search Engines Vs Usability

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