When you’re just starting out on a Lakeland website design for the very first time, you are probably very excited at the prospect of creating various aspects of your website design. You might already be brainstorming ideas for the home page and drafting up wireframes for the content pages. After all, it’s your first web design, it’s only normal to want to go all out. However, one page that doesn’t really get a lot of attention in the hubbub of the entire design process is the “Error 404” page or the page that you tend to encounter when you run into a broken link or a page that doesn’t have any content on it.
It’s not something that we think about much, but it is very essential to any website. Of course, ideally, you wouldn’t want any broken links on your site, but if it does happen, you’re going to want something for your users to look at. This is where the 404 page comes in. As simple as this page is, this has the potential to keep your customers or lose them forever. Here are some tips that can help you design an effective 404 page for your Lakeland website design.
Keep it consistent
One thing that you should always keep in mind when creating your website’s 404 pages is that you should always keep it consistent. You have to make it so that your error page is still a natural part of your website. It might be unfortunate for your users to reach that page, but it is still a part of your website, nonetheless. When you start out with designing your 404 pages, it’s very important that you maintain the look and feel of this page to match the rest of your website. A shift in style and design can throw users off, leading them to leave your website altogether.
Give users a way out
While a 404 page technically means that there’s nothing on that particular page, you should never make users feel like it’s the end of the road. When creating your 404 pages, you should always give users suggestions of other pages on your website that they might be interested in visiting instead. The goal here is to get them out of your 404 pages, but not out of the website entirely. Providing options that they might be interested in helps keep them on your website while maneuvering them out of the error page.
Try to explain what happened
Arriving at a 404 page can leave users frustrated, which can lead to them choosing to leave your website. To help prevent this from happening, you can throw in a short explanation of why this particular link is broken or doesn’t work. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive, it can be a one-liner that says something along the lines of, “this link doesn’t work, sorry!”. It’s short, to the point, and lets users know what’s going on with your Lakeland website design.
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