Well, it's the same with Marketing. I know… heck, I PREACH to my affiliates to set up custom error pages so they aren't sending traffic to dead pages.

You know the error pages that say “Page Not Found” and make your readers leave your site faster than beans leave my husband? (hee!)

Instead put up a page that says “oops!” and is monetized in some way. Use that traffic so that you aren't wasting it.

Well, sometimes I forget to follow my own advice.

Now, I'm not a total slacker. I DO have error pages on some of my sites.

For instance, you can see this one:

ShowMomtheMoney.com Error Page (opens in a new window)

BUT… imagine how embarrassed I was when a certain Internet Marketing expert sent me an email after he'd ordered on EasyPLR.com — and got the default error page — AND I didn't have it monetized.

Talk about feeling like a rooky. Geesh.  Double whammy – (1) error when downloading AND (2) no custom error page.

OUCH.

I know, I know. I'm making too big of a deal over nothing — or am I?

I looked in my stats for ShowMomtheMoney.com and over 2000 errors showed up for this month alone.

I'm glad I had my error page set up. It was viewed quite a bit the last few months.

And, in EasyPLR I had over 6000 errors this month — with NO custom error page.

That's a lot of wasted traffic that I've been losing month after month. (sob!)

That's not just bad for me, that's bad for my affiliates, too.  So, today, I'm working on plugging up those places where traffic is sneaking away from me.

So, are your error pages working for you?

If not, use them now.

Here are some ideas for better utilizing your Error Pages…

1. Set up a squeeze page like I did on ShowMomtheMoney. Send the traffic to an ecourse that you have set up or just have them join your ezine to receive your newsletter. (*If you don't have one yet I recommend this service and use it myself – click here to try it for $1.)

2. Offer a free report that contains your own product links. (You can create one easily with PLR content.)

3. Offer a free report that contains affiliate links. Need one? I'll have a new site soon where you can grab all of the free brandable reports you'll ever want or need.

4. Display your products like a storefront.

5. Put your RSS blog feed on your error page.

6. Invite your visitor to join your affiliate program.

7. Sell or trade the space if you don't have anything to offer.

HOW do you do it?

Well, if you're using Mom Webs or Reliable Webs, you just log into your cpanel and click on the little icon that says “Error Pages” and it'll walk you through it.

If you're using any other host, it may vary – and usually involves editing your .htaccess file. If you're on Windows hosting, it WILL vary (since you don't have a .htaccess file, silly).

If you are comfortable editing your .htaccess file, you can do this yourself. If not, outsource it to a Virtual Assistant.

To Set up Your Error Pages in your .htaccess File…

Open your .htaccess file and insert this code at the top:

# -ErrorDocuments-
ErrorDocument 400 /customerrorpage.htm #Bad Request
ErrorDocument 401 /customerrorpage.htm #Authorization Required
ErrorDocument 403 /customerrorpage.htm #Forbidden
ErrorDocument 404 /customerrorpage.htm #Not Found (Most Common)

Note: The paths to the custom error pages are all relative to the root folder (where .htaccess lives), and each could be different.

Then, set up your custom error page on your site – using the same name as you used in the htaccess file. (You can name the file and folder whatever you'd like — just make sure that you make it match in both places.)

That's just a quick “on the fly” explanation. I hope it helps you to earn more from your existing web traffic.

Warmly,
Nicole

PS. If you'd like to see my new Error page that'll be showing soon — you can peek at it for ideas by clicking here.