: How to stop your customers from walking out the backdoor by: Jason Tarasi How can a simple mistake increase your profits and generate more leads for your business? The answer is hidden within your Web logs. Without

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How to stop your customers from walking out the backdoor

by: Jason Tarasi

How can a simple mistake increase your profits and generate more leads for your business?
The answer is hidden within your Web logs.
Without knowing a single piece of information about your Website, I am willing to bet one of your most accessed documents is the same as mine.
This document would be your 404 error page.
When a visitor is unable to access a page on your site, they are taken to the dreaded "404 Error" page.
I know you have come across this page in your Web travels, we all have:
"404 Error File Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server"
Are you one of those Webmasters who has this hideous error page on your Website?
This mistake is not only costing you money, but it looks very unprofessional as well.
Whenever I come across one of these error messages, I just assume the site owner is most likely an amateur. This is probably an unfair judgment on my part, but not totally without merit.
You see, once I show you how easy it is to create your own error page, you may soon be jumping to the same conclusion when you come across one of these error pages.
I always say there are only three sure things in this world:
Death, taxes, and 404 error pages.
You can never truly stop all of your visitors from seeing the 404 error message. Visitors may type the address to one of your pages incorrectly, you might have removed a page that is still listed in the search engines, etc.
Just accept the fact that you can never totally prevent your visitors from seeing these messages.
However, you can control what your visitor sees when this message is displayed.
You can easily customize your error page to generate more affiliate sales, direct users to a new page, or anything else that your heart desires.
You can even go as far as blending your error page with the layout of your Website. You can make this page look anyway you want it to.
Here is an example of my custom error page:
www.freeclassifiedlinks.com/custom404.html
As a general rule, you should always provide a link back to your main page.
With this rule in mind, you can learn how to create your own custom 404 page by following the instructions in this article:
www.edevcafe.com/viewdoc.php?id=244
Remember this...
A majority of visitors that are sent to your error page, are lost forever. They simply move on to another Website without blinking an eye.
By following the steps I have outlined for you in this article, you will prevent potential customers from walking out your back door.
Copyright 2005 Jason Tarasi