If it isn’t happening it certainly will happen to your website.
Despite all and every attempt at maintaining your site there are bound to be instances when visitors navigate through your site and come across the 404 page stating something as meaningless as “Page Not Found”. It will definitely happen from third-party inbound links who may not update their links as your content changes.
“Page Not Found” does nothing to give your company greater online exposure and consider what you do when you come across a 404 page. Assuming you are quite internet savvy you may cut back the URL to the homepage and find what initially drew you in. However the majority of visitors who have found you via organic search will click the back button on their browser and pick the next result. BANG… there goes a potential client or sale.
If however you have developed your 404 page into rich content, one that has a snapshot of your website layout you are more likely to continue drawing in that visitor. The “need now” information culture that we live in means that we must continue to evolve the way we present information and capitalise on every opportunity.
Consider also adding some call to action on your 404 page where visitors can feedback what they were looking for, where they found the link and the opportunity to be updated when that content is made available.
Adding blog, news and resource articles to your 404 also adds huge value to this much underutilised page.
