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Web Page Mistakes
form dl, dl.labels {
margin:0em;
font-size:100%;
margin-top:0.5em
}
form dt, dl.labels dt {
float:left;
width:10em;
margin-bottom:0.8em;
color:#555;
text-align:right;
font-weight:normal;
position:relative /*IEWin hack*/
}
form dd, dl.labels dd {
margin-left:10.5em;
margin-bottom:0.8em;
font-size:100%;
font-style:normal;
padding-left:0.5em
}
form dd.submit, dl.labels dd.submit {
margin-top:2em
}
Web Page Mistakes
Text Alignment on the Web
Which text alignment do you use on your website? Left, right, center or justified? Did you know that text alignment can affect how easy it is to read a web page?Text AlignmentText alignment refers to how the lines of text on the page line up. There are four basic ways to align text on the web:LeftDefault setting when text alignment or the direction of text is not set on a web page.Default setting for languages read top to bottom, and left to right.Each line of text is even with the left margin.The right edges of left aligned text are jagged.RightDefault setting if the direction of the language used on the web page is right to left.Each line of text is aligned with the right margin.The left edge of right aligned text is jagged.CenterAs the name implies, the text is centered on the web page.JustifiedBoth the left and right edges of text in a line are even against the left and right margins.The words are spaced out to fill the line of text.Most commonly used in newspapers and other printed media.One more note about test alignment on a web page:The text-align property is inherited. All block-level elements inside a div container, for example, will inherit the alignment set for the block-level element. e.g.<div class="centered"><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diem nonummynibh euismod tincidunt ut lacreet dolore magna aliguam erat volutpat. Ut wisisenim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tution ullam corper suscipit lobortisnisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis te feugi facilisi. Duis autem dolorin hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiatnulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesentluptatum zzril delenit au gue duis dolore te feugat nulla facilisi.</p><p><img src="http://www.webpagemistakes.ca//"images/picture.jpg"" width="100" height="100" alt="My picture alt text" /></p></div>Will all be centered in the div container.Alignment on the Web vs Other MediumsText alignment and spacing on the web is not as precise as it can be in other mediums, e.g. printUnlike print and other mediums, having absolute control over how a web page looks in every browser and on every computer is not possible. You can make a web page not break and look acceptable in the different browsers but you can’t be as precise as you can with print and other mediums.On the web, you have no control over what browser or computer a visitor will be using.Setting Text AlignmentThe most familiar way to align text is the old way of including align=your setting in an HTML element tag. This old method has 2 problems:If you try to validate your HTML coding using a Strict DOCTYPE declaration or Transitional DOCTYPE declaration when using XHTML, you will not pass. The align=your setting attribute was eliminated in HTML 4.01.“align = left|center|right|justify [CI]Deprecated. This attribute specifies the horizontal alignment of its element with respect to the surrounding context.”Alignment, font styles, and horizontal rules in HTML documents - 15.1.2 Alignment of the HTML 4.01 SpecificationUsing this method will not let you format the text in other ways without adding a bunch of additional coding.To set text alignment for an HTML element, you use a style in your stylesheet. .centered { text-align: center;}In your HTML element you specify the style:<p class="centered">Text in paragraph</p>Which Text Alignment to Use?Text which is centered is hard to read. Your eye has to find the beginning of the next line. A whole page or section of a web page with centered text is considered not a professional looking layout.Some will use left aligned text with centered headings. This is also hard to read as it forces the reader to look for where the heading(s) start.Justifed text is not implemented on the web in the same way software for printed material adjusts the text. On the web, additional spaces are added between the words to force the line to fill to the left and right margins. Web pages do not add hyphens like other software will to break up the text more evenly.The best text alignment for the web is left aligned. This makes the web page easy to scan (which people do on the web), is easier to read and the words are spaced evenly.More Reading on Text AlignmentAlignment at Web Style Guide.Text/Typographical Layout at WebAIM
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Legibility |
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Find Broken Links
How often have you gone to a website, clicked a link and it is broken?There various tools available to find broken links on your own website. Some are free, some are browser plugins and some are part of a paid software package.What are Broken Links?Broken links are hyperlinks in a web page that lead to a non existant page or website. If the website still exists, you will end up at a 404 error page. If the website does not have custom error pages, then you will see a web server error page. When the website does not exist any more, you will see a browser error page.Why is it Important to Find Broken Links?It is important to find broken links on your website to:Stop loosing visitors or sales because they cannot get to other pages on your website.Become a reliable resource for additional information on your product or subject.Get all your pages listed in the search engines.How Do I Find Broken Links?To find broken links on your website you need to use a link checker. There are various ones available, but we’ll explain the free W3C Link Checker.To use the W3C Link Checker your website needs to be on a web server.Once you enter the URL (web address) of your website, you have the choice to just check one page or a number of pages. To check a number of pages, put a check in the box in front of “Check linked documents recursively” and then enter the depth of the website to check.It may take a while to see the complete results, but when finished there will be a list of links checked and which ones are broken. The W3C Link Checker shows you which page the broken link is on, make a note of it.The list of broken links could be links to pages that do not exist anymore, websites that do not exist anymore or links you have coded incorrectly.Fix Broken LinksOnce you have a list of broken links, you need to fix these. How you fix the broken links will depend on how your website was built. A regular static web page can be fixed using a plain text editor or the HTML editor that was used to create the page. A dynamic website (one that uses a database) might be a little harder to fix, depending where the link is stored.How Often Should I Find Broken Links?As a regular website maintenance task, this should be done once a month. It doesn’t take long to do if you keep it up. You should also test a new page you have just added to the website for errors.Taking the time to find broken links will improve your website visitor’s experience and improve your results in the search engines.
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Website Maintenance |
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Heading Hierarchy
Heading hierarchy on a web page is little hard for some to understand. In this article, we’ll try to clear up the confusion by comparing heading hierarchy in a web document with how you use headings in a printed document.In web page coding there are heading tags H1 through H6 available to format the headings in the web page. H1 is the largest, H6 is the smallest. Just like an article printed on a piece of paper, the default size of the heading represents the importance of the heading. These sets of HTML tags are meant to define headings in the page, not to format just any text on the page.Let’s take a different approach to understanding the heading hierarchy in a web page. People usually use a book as an example, but we’ll use a one or two page document you are writing for, say, a school assignment or a report at work.Web Heading Hierarchy vs Print Heading HierarchyIf you open up Word and start a new document you will see that the default blank document has some formatting already in place. Click the arrow beside where it says Normal in the toolbar and you will see some heading formatting already set up. Notice how the font size gets smaller as you move from heading 1 to heading 2 to heading 3. This creates a heading hierarchy within the Word document. The heading tags on a web page also decend in size by default, H1 is the largest, H6 is the smallest.Heading 1Because we are writing an article, the title of the article would use heading 1.Heading 2Each main section of the article would use heading 2.Heading 3Now if you had sub sections within the main sections the first one would be heading 3.Heading 4, 5 and 6If your sub section required further headings, then the first one after heading 3 would be heading 4. The next heading within this sub section would be heading 5. The next would be heading 6.Headings in Descending Order of ImportanceWhen you write an article to be printed on paper, the reader expects some kind of organization (hierarchy) of headings to break up the article and show how the headings relate to one another.If all the headings look the same by giving them the same heading formatting, wouldn’t you find it confusing where one section of discussion ends and another starts and how each section relates to another?It would be much easier to read an article that has definite heading differences showing how they relate to the heading above.Courses which teach you how to study better tell you to look at the headings in the table of contents and within each chapter of your textbook to get a feel for what each chapter is about.It is ok to mix up heading levels, as long as they show the hierarchy of the document. One main section may just have heading 2, the next main section might need heading 2, 3 and 4 to clarify the subsections. That’s ok.What makes it difficult to read something is when you go from heading 2 and it’s subsection uses heading 4. The reader will wonder what happened to heading 3.If you were to take out all the words and just leave the headings, does the resulting table of contents type layout make sense? This is the goal of using heading hierarchy properly. When you take the words away, can the reader get a sense of what is covered.Heading Hierarchy on the WebHeading hierarchy works the same way on the web as it does in print. Web users are generally in a hurry so they look for headings to see if they want to stop and take the time to read the whole web page. Web users also skim in search of what they specifically are looking for. Having a heading hierarchy will help them find what it is they are looking for.The heading tags available in HTML should not be used as a means to format something that is not a heading. This messes up the heading hierarchy for the search engines and those who use technology to read web pages to them.The default format of heading tags might not match the style of your web page. This can be altered by using the heading selector in your stylesheet and setting the formatting to match the look of your web page. Using a class (e.g. .heading1) in the stylesheet does not set the heading hierarchy correctly. You need to format the actual heading selector (h1 for example) in the stylesheet to retain the web page heading hierarchy.Proper Heading HierarchyUsing the proper heading heirarchy on your web pages adds to the legibility of the web page, improves your search engine optimization and adds to the accessibility of the page.
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Legibility |
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404 Error
Have you ever clicked a link to only end up at a page that says that the page does not exist? This is a 404 error which means the link you clicked (or typed) is incorrect, the website was revised/renovated and no redirects were put in place or that the website owner has deleted the page without redirecting you to another page.If your website hosting has not been set up with a custom error page, the visitor will be sent to a generic web host error page. This is very confusing for the visitor as they won’t know what to do next.404 Error and Search EnginesIf you have a bad link to a non existant page on your website (from another website or the search engine results) this can be bad news for potential visitors who have found you in the search engine results. The search engines find the link(s) in their index from visiting websites who have linked to your website or crawling your own web pages.404 Error - GoogleThe Official Google Webmaster blog decided to help webmasters out by explaining 404 errors through the week of August 11, 2008. Here’s a list of the posts as of this writing:It’s 404 week at Webmaster Central - the announcement of Google’s 404 error series. This initial post covers how error response codes work.Farewell to soft 404s - explains soft 404 errors (when your web hosting error page is served up on error) and returning a 404 response code (showing your custom error page when there is a 404 error).More on 404 - Answers to questions Google receives about the 404 error.Make Your 404 Pages More Useful - Explaination of Google’s Enhance 404 Pages web page widget available through Google’s Webmaster Tools.The posts at Google Webmaster Central blog include pictures to help you understand how 404 errors work. Check out all their posts on crawling and indexing.404 Error - Yahoo!Page Not Found Error Handling - Information from Yahoo! on handling 404 errors in Yahoo! Stores.“You’re still crawling URLs that I removed ages ago.” - information from Yahoo! Search Help on handling a 404 error.404 Error - Live SearchLive Search Releases Web Page Error Toolkit - this is an asp.net application for IIS servers.Customize your 404 error pages with the Web Page Error Toolkit - more information on the Live Search Web Page Error Toolkit.
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Site Design |
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Are Your Podcasts and Videos Reaching All Audiences?
If you have done any research on social networking, podcasting or the use of videos to attract readers to your website or blog, you will find that podcasting and inserting videos into the web page/post is highly recommended as a marketing tool.Today in Glenda Hyatt Watson’s Accessibility 100 series she brings up a very valid point: Using Transcripts to Increase Your Audience.Marketers tell you to use podcasts and videos to attract visitors to your website or blog, right? So why don’t they suggest including a transcript of the podcast or video to accommodate those who cannot listen to your podcast/video or see it? You are missing out on a whole section of the internet users.The Internet has opened the lines of communication to so many people with disabilities or who are otherwise shut in. Why not make it so your podcasts and videos are reaching all audiences?As an example of what can be done, Darrell of Enabling Abilities to Appear explains using a podcast how to create a transcript and then provides the transcript, How to Create a Transcript for Podcasts.What a great way to cover your bases! Using podcasts, videos and transcripts to reach all audiences. Not only do you provide accessibility to your website or blog, there’s a copy of your presentation for those who prefer to read your presentation. Great marketing solution!This isn’t a new idea. UIE Brain Sparks also provide transcripts for their podcasts.From Google Videos:“Users will be able to find your video more easily if you add a transcript to each video file you’ve uploaded via your Video Status page. …”Google Video Submitting TranscriptsVideo Search Engine Optimization Tips and Techniques also suggests that you provide a transcript for your visitors and the search engines.“Many videos on the net simply aren’t seen because they cant get discovered. This can be due to lack of promotion, search engine optimization or effort on the part of the creator. But adding closed captions to a video may be one way in which to get some additional traffic to it as well as make the video accessible to those without sound-capable PCs (e.g. many office workers) or those with hearing impairments. Using translation techniques to provide multiple language captions can also drive additional traffic to your content from non-English speakers….”Video Accessibility, Closed Captions, & Video SEOThis is yet another demonstration of how easy it is to make a website or blog accessible which also improves the usability and search engine optimization of your website or blog.
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Accessibility, Social Media |
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Website ROI
Your website is an investment in your business and as such, you would want a return on that investment. We’ll look at website ROI in this article and why it is good business sense to invest time and money into your website.First, let’s look at ROI (return on investment).ROI (Return on Investment)ROI is a comparison between how much you invest, the return on your investment and how much you gain on the investment.Take the potential increase in sales and deduct the cost of the investment. This gives you the net gained.Now, divide the net gain by how much you invested. This gives you the ROI (return on investment).Choosing to Invest in Your WebsiteTake all the investments you want to make into your business (including investing in your website) with the projected ROI on each investment. Sort the list with the items with the most ROI at the top of the list.While making your list keep in mind that fixing up or creating a website is a one time initial investment to improve sales while hiring a salesperson and/or buying link traffic will be reoccuring expenses.Now don’t cheap out on the budget for the website. This is an important investment in your business and just as with everything else for your business, you want to make a good first impression to help land the sale. Focus on adding features and information that enhance the website, not just glitz and glamour, to improve the website ROI.Your website is a 24/7 salesperson and has much more potential of attracting clients than a salesperson who you pay commisison or a salary to.What Ruins Your Website ROIImproved ROI can be accomplished by keeping things simple and making small changes in your website plan or your existing website.Here’s a few things that can ruin your website ROI:Prioritize elements and features that give the best ROI. Don’t just focus on the visual elements of the website. You need information and features your target audience are looking for.Check your ego at the door. The website needs to be built for your target audience if you want it to make money for you. Just because you like something, doesn’t mean your target audience does. Show others what you have in mind and be open to the feedback.Just because your competitor is doing something, doesn’t mean you have to copy them. Be unique. Be different. That’s what people will remember.Don’t let your web designer’s ego take over. A good web designer will be more concerned about what works for your target audience than forcing what’s in at the moment.Be sure to be clear on what you want in your website design when asking for a quote. The more homework you do ahead of time, the better price you will get and the less chance for miscommunication between you and your web designer.Areas That Improve Website ROIThere are some specific areas to look at to improve website ROI:Usability - if the website is easy to use then your visitors will be happy and recommend your business to others.Informative - providing all the information a potential customer needs to make the decision to buy can be the crux of making a sale.Know your audience - I know, this is the fourth time I have mentioned your target audience in this article. Are you getting the idea that researching and knowing your target is very important yet?Goals - know your goals for the website. To increase sales? Reduce staffing costs? Be a source of information for your clients?How Do I Measure My Website ROI?To measure the success of your investment you need to compare what the website is now doing for you with what the goals were when you started.Are you getting the targeted traffic you set out to get?Have your sales and/or leads increased?Are you getting any feedback from visitors on what is working and what is not then taking the negative feedback and making the necessary changes?When you look at your website stats, is the increase in website traffic converting to an increase in sales? More traffic isn’t any help if it’s not increasing your sales and/or leads.If you have an ecommerce website, how’s your checkout rate? Are people completing the sale or abandoning the shopping cart?Website ROI - It is ImportantAs you can see from the points above, taking a serious look at your new or existing website then making the required changes and tweaks to match target audience you are going after is a smart investment in your business. Listening to feedback from visitors, analyizing the website stats and sales stats then tweaking the website can only improve your website ROI.Recommended Reading on Improving Website ROIweb design for ROI by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus is a 200 page book on “Turning Browsers in Buyers & Prospects into Leads”. This book goes into more detail about how to increase your website ROI.Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug is also a 200 page book. It’s subtitle is “A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability”. As noted above, increasing the usability of your website will in turn, increase your website ROI.Why We Buy, “The Science of Shopping”.This book is a bit heavier read than the first 2 suggestions. It is written in a friendly style like the other recommended reading and is full of all kinds of hints on what little things can be done to increase sales for your business. It was written for brick an mortar businesses, but I got some ideas that could be implemented on the web.Online ROI CalculatorsROI Calculator - Sales Revenue Required to Break-Even, Break-Even Point on Marketing Activity, Number of Prospects Required to Break-Even, Percentage of Response Required to Break-Even, Cost per Lead, and Cost per Sale.
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Online Business Basics, Site Design |
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Is Your Blog Accessible?
How accessible is your blog (or website for that matter)?Today’s post in the Accessibility 100 series at Glenda Watson Hyatt’s Do It Myself Blog covers 5 Ways to Increase the Accessibility of Blogs.We have covered some of the points Glenda brings up here at Web Page Mistakes before:Effective Colour Contrast - Not only an accessibility issue, but also a usability issue.Image Alt Attribute a.k.a incorrectly, as the image alt tag.Other accessibility issues (which are also usability and SEO - search engine optimization issues) we have covered here at Web Page Mistakes are:Using Javascript on Websites - not only an accessibility issue but also a usability and SEO (search engine optimization issue).Disabling the right click - not everyone is trying to steal your images.Opening the Lines of Communication - How the internet has opened the lines of communication for those with disabilities.Heading Structure - Heading Tags - how proper heading structure not only helps those using screen readers but also all of your visitors and the search engine bots.Does Your Website Have to be Accessible? - benefits of making your website and blog accessible, beyond any legal obligations you have to incorporate accessibility into your website/blog.As you read through each of the articles above, you will come to find that making a website or blog accessible is not that hard and adds the benefits of being more user and search engine friendly.Related Reading“…Numbers don’t lie: According to the American Foundation for the Blind and Statistics Canada, there are 12.8 million blind and print-restricted Americans and 2.8 million similarly disabled Canadians. And with an aging population, expect that number to rise.The disabled love to surf: Almost half the disabled in North America maintain their independence by using the web. In fact, they spend more time logged on than most nondisabled users….Add 2.8 Million Readers With Accessible Writing
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Accessibility |
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How all Your Web Pages Fit Together
To better understand how all the different web pages fit together on your ecommerce website (or any website actually) let’s look at different scenarios of how someone can enter your website. Remember that a person can enter your website on any page that is indexed by the search engines, they won’t always arrive to your home page.Scenario # 1 – Arriving at the Home PageThe visitor typed something in the search box that showed your home page in the results and they clicked it. The person could be totally new to the subject of your website, somewhat versed in the subject of the website or someone with enough knowledge of the subject that they just want to get right to what they visited the website for.What we all do as website owners, is try and get everything onto the home page because we thing everything is important. Through a well planned navigation system and well written content on the home page to introduce the “departments” of the website, a visitor will be taken to/find what it is they came looking for.Scenario # 2 – Arriving at a Category PageThe visitor typed something in the search box that showed your category page in the results and they clicked it. Like scenario # 1, the person can be new to the subject, somewhat versed in the subject or someone who knows exactly what it is they are looking for.Having an introduction to the category at the top of the page summarizing the category not only helps the user confirm that they are in the correct section of the website, it helps with your search engine optimization if it includes the keywords and phrases people use to find this selection of information. The content should always be written for the users but with tweaks to improve your search engine optimization program.Keep in mind, this person has not read your home page introduction, so some restatement of what this section of the website covers would be necessary.Now you are going to say that the “big guys” don’t do this. This is true for some. But what you have to keep in mind is that they have much bigger marketing budgets than the average small business owner to use other means to drive traffic to their website besides the results in the search engines.Once the person is at the category page and you have subsections of the category, the visitor needs some indication what is in the subsections. Again, having a short description as to what they will find in this subcategory will improve the visitor’s experience by leading them to what it is that they are looking for. This is another avenue to improve your search engine optimization program if the description includes keywords or phrases a person would use to find the information (without going overboard).Scenario # 3 – Arriving at a Sub Category PageThe person typed something in the search box and clicked your result that takes them to your sub category page.Depending on how you decided to structure your website, the sub category page could also be your category page.Remember again, this person hasn’t come from your home page so reintroducing this section of the website would confirm to the user they are in the right section of the website.Just like any other page on your website, this page, needs to include some written words to entice the user to purchase your product or read on if it’s information they need. Having written words on the sub category page not only improves the user experience, it is yet another opportunity to improve your placement in the search engine results.This page is also an opportunity for the person who knows what they want, without further persuasion, to make their purchase. By including the price and a Buy Now! button or link on this page you have satisfied the person who knows this is exactly what they want.For the person who needs more information/persuasion include a link to a product specific page.Scenario # 4 – Arriving at the Product PageThe individual product page has various jobs. This page could be the page the visitor was taken to from your result in the search engines (therefore doesn’t know anything about your website yet), or a person who has worked their way through from the home page, from the category page or the sub category page.Once on this page, the person may need more persuasion to purchase the product or need more information to make their decision.Keeping the above in mind and that the person could have come directly from the search engine results this information would need to be on the page to keep all visitors happy:Web page content that describes how the product will improve the visitor’s life.Includes marketing and search engine optimization techniques.Technical information for those who need/want this information before making the purchase.Easy way to purchase the product (e.g. Buy Now button).Information on your shipping, privacy and return policies (these can be links to single pages within the website).Answers to all the questions the purchaser might have about the product.Links to how to use the product articles (another avenue for people to find your website!).Quality pictures of the product including it being used and different angle shots.Testimonials from happy customers.Related products and/or accessories available that compliment this product.Summarizing How All Your Web Pages Fit TogetherAll the above pages have the potential to make a sale. It doesn’t matter what page the visitor arrives on, if you provide enough good quality information on the higher pages in your website hierarchy to lead them to the purchase you will accomplish what you set out to do, make the sale.Put you shopper hat on, what would you need to see on the page to convince you to buy this product? Get a few friends or other potential buyers to look at the pages and give feed back on what parts are missing from your web pages and holding them back from making the sale.Each page is part of the puzzle in making a sale. Building a website that gives a clear overall picture of how all your web pages fit together will improve your search engine results standing, make your website popular by word of mouth, improve the user experience and create return visitors/customers.Recommended Readingweb design for ROIwritten by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus is a new book released in 2008 which covers techniques to improve conversion rates on your website.Don’t Make Me Thinkwritten by Steve Krug is a book on how to improve the usabililty of your website. It is now in it’s Second Edition and includes three new chapters covering usability as a common courtesy, web accessibility, CSS (Cascading Stylesheet) use and what to do when the Boss wants you to … (fill in the blank) and it just isn’t a good idea.Both of these books are short books, written for anyone involved in the creation of a website, including website owners, content writers, marketing people and web designers.Make It Easy to Order Right Now! A look at what website owners miss when optimizing their ecommerce websites.Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce? A look at how poor usability of your website affects your sales. Mr. Nielsen’s website is referenced in both of the books recommended above plus many more. He is an usability expert therefore, spending come time on his UseIt website reading through the many articles available would be time well spent.
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Online Business Basics, Site Design |
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Accessibility 101: Tips for Improving Accessibility
Glenda Watson Hyatt will be starting a series of accessibility related posts on her Do It Myself Blog starting the first week of June to coincide with the National Access Awareness in Canada.This promises to be very informative as Glenda would be giving first hand experience. If you don’t know Glenda Watson Hyatt, she is a woman with cerebral palsy that has written and published her autobiography plus has become known as the Left Thumb Blogger.The topics she plans to cover include:Tips for communicating with People with DisabilitiesWays to improve accessibility of blogsMaking your writing accessibleMaking job interviews accessibleMaking job postings accessibleIncreasing your attitude’s accessibilityOn the other ideas list:How to make locations more accessibleSimple customer accommodationsShe’s looking for other topics her readers would be interested in, so pop over to her blog and leave your suggestion or question.Update: Accessiblity 101 Tips LaunchedThe Accessibilty 101 Tips series was launched May 13, 2008. Glenda’s first guests were Emese Szücs, Manager of Accessibility Programs, and Karen Thompson, Project Coordinator, from Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia (SPARC BC) discussing Access is Everyone’s Business. This first interview discusses a few simple things businesses can do to make their businesses more accessible.You will be able to find all the tips under Accessibility 100 at Glenda’s Do It Myself Blog.
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Accessibility |
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Custom Error Pages
Have you ever visited a website where you clicked a link and were taken to a none descript error page? Maybe you clicked a link on another website or in the search engine results and ended up at an error page. This is because the website you are visiting (or trying to visit) does not use custom error pages.As a website visitor, wouldn’t you find something like this a little more useful: Than seeing something like this: What are Error Pages?Error pages are web pages shown to the website visitor when something has gone wrong with the web page they have requested. They will also been shown when there is a server error.Common errors you may encounter:403 ForbiddenYou have requested to view a web page or directory to which you are not allowed.The webmaster may have put security in place so that certain web pages are not available to the general public (you have to be logged in to view) or that certain directories on the web server are not available for viewing.404 Not FoundThe web page you requested cannot be found on the web server.This is caused by:A link to a non existing page was clicked.A page has been moved or renamed and the web designer did not put a permanant 301 redirect in place.Someone found an old listing in a search engine or directory results and clicked it.The user made a typing error when manually typing the url of a web page.500 Internal ErrorThere’s something wrong on the web server and it cannot process your request or update.What are Custom Error Pages?Custom error pages are pages shown to your website visitors which match your website theme when an error has occured within your website. The error can be caused by different things, the most common is the 404 - File Not Found error.How Do I Create a Custom Error Page?Note: Consult your web hosting documentation how to implement custom error pages, if allowed. A free web hosting account or when a hosted solution is being used, you may not be able to use custom error pages.Start by taking a copy of your website template and saving it with the appropriate name for the error you are creating it for. Consult the web hosting documentation as to the naming convention you should use.Include in the body (content) area:a precise description of what has happened, written in plain english, not a techical explaination.a search box if you have website search enabled on the website.a link to the website sitemap. (the traditional type, not to be confused with the sitemaps for Google or Yahoo)a list of possibly related links.a contact form (or link to) so the visitor can notify you of the error.For more ideas on creating a custom error page, refer to:The Perfect 404 - Article on creating the perfect custom error page by AList Apart.Improving the Dreaded 404 Error Message - An article by usability expert Jacob Nielsen on creating a user friendly custom error page.Make the links to the images and styles for the page absolute as you may not know in advance what the relationship between your error page location and the page requested will be.Add the necessary server side instructions to implement your custom error pages.On an Apache server you would use the .htaccess file for example. Consult the web hosting documentation for what they require.Further Reading on Custom Error PagesTrap 404 Errors on ASP and Report to Webmaster 404 Error Report - Used to catch 404 errors and report them to the webmasters email address. Also gives user a friendly message.404 Research Lab - Research and information on custom 404 error pages.Create a custom error page on 1and1 Linux HostingCustom Error Pages for Blogs:Creating an Error 404 Page - WordpressCustom Error Pages - Joomla!Custom Error - DrupalDo It Yourself 404 - contains techincal information for different web servers.
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