How to Turn a 404 - Page Not Found Error Into an Income Opportunity

Let a 404 error be an opportunity for you not the death knell to a visit to your site.How often have you mistyped a file name in a web address?  Have you ever clicked on a search result listing link to a dead page?How many times did this result in the frustratingly uninformative '404 - page not found' thrown up by search engines or, worse, by ISPs flooding your screen with irrelevant ads? What do you? Try again or just go elsewhere? I'd put money on it being the latter!Just remember how you feel when this happens to you and you'll understand how important t is for you to make sure this doesn't happen to your visitors.Searchers despise the 404 error page, especially when it comes from clicking what looks like a relevant link in a list of search results. Too often, these 404s come up as an ineffective default page in the browser, leaving the visitor no other real choice but to hit the Back button and try again - and they probably won't bother. Nothing drives visitors away from your site faster than a generic 404 - page not found error.Search engines also despise 404s. Old page links can live on in search engine results for a very long time resulting in a seemingly endless supply of worthless search results. If your site does not handle 404 errors then the search engine knows about it and your page ranking is adversely affected.Mostly people are honest and have genuinely miskeyed or found a dead link in their search results. However, in some cases, people end up on this page because they are have gone fishing  for your download page to try and bypass having to pay for your product or opt-in to your mailing list.Regardless of how your visitors get to a 404 page, it makes sense to give them some value and a reason to stay but the generic message is no incentive at all, as we've all seen and experienced. You are not making good use of your web space if you just let them wander off somewhere else.A serious Internet marketer uses every page of their website to promote and sell their products and the 404 error page should be no exception since it can be customised just like every other page.For example, you could:-Making an special offer at a discounted price.-Make it a squeeze page for your latest promotion.-Put your Adsense code on it.-Use it to redirect to an affiliate link..And there are many other techniques you can use for maximising the productivity of your 404 error page.Let's be clear - this isn't going to make your fortune overnight! But it will contribute to your income and 'mop up' those sales you might otherwise have lost due to user or search engine error, and your visitors will appreciate the effort in making their experience a little more worthwhile.If you don't do something with that page then you are missing a potentially valuable opportunity, not just in direct sales but in visitor satisfaction too. Once lost, a customer is gone forever hence no possibility of repeat business.Read more about maximising the potential of your 404 Error page in this free Ebook.Here's to making good use of every page on your website!