Put Customers at Ease by Customizing Error Pages
The dreaded "Page Not Found" error is only the most common error. I never understood why many of the big dogs ignore the fact that you can customize content for many server/site errors, instead leaving us reading a screen filled with gibberish about their databases being offline.
Custom error page content is essential to every online store and web site.
Why are custom pages so important? Stock error pages displayed by the browser either frustrate or scare online shoppers into thinking the site isn't secure. By customizing what they see you greatly increase the chances of them continuing to navigate the site. Ignore the practice of custom error pages and you're just throwing traffic out the window.
Creating a standard HTML error page is simple. You can use the source code for your site's "outer shell", then simply type your custom content into the live area. You can simply tell shoppers the site's been updated and provide a brief site map, or go into detail and request they alert you of the problem (i.e. what link they clicked on). You could go as far to offer a store credit for alerting you (which ultimately helps you fix problems on your store much more quickly).
If your ecommerce software supports calling custom content in using iframes or similar methods you can take things a step further by displaying a product name and noting that it's no longer available (but read below, because there are better methods for that - ultimately, error404 pages should be reserved for missing static pages.)
But, there's more... 404 is a page not found error. If you look at your site's statistics you may see other error codes. A bad request is logged as error 400, a 401 error means authorization is required, and 403 means access forbidden (you get this when you use a bad password on a password protected page). Then there's the dread 500 error - Internal Server Error. It's a scary one, so you want to customize that page as well.
Discontinued Products Be careful about deactivating or deleting products you no longer carry. You're better off allowing the product page itself to be displayed, with a message that it's no longer available and links to similar products. This can help guide customers to find something they'd like rather than sending them back to the search engines, vying to find another vendor.
