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In These Economic Times, Small Business Can Mean Big Business

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Due to the difficult economic times, marketers everywhere are getting their budgets slashed. A lot of businesses think that they will make it through these hard economic times by not advertising.

Something to think about, however, is the new trend in consumer spending. Consumers are looking for ways to save money, while maintaining the same level of product quality. Therefore, brand loyalty is not important anymore. What’s most important is finding a brand that caters to consumer wants, while satisfying needs.


If anything, marketing is more important now than it ever was. People are willing to try different products. If they are satisfied with these new products, there won’t be a reason to switch back once the economy gets better. Aggressive advertising and marketing will put your products in front of the consumer when they are looking to find that great new product.

How can you find these consumers? Get them online! With every dollar being more important than before, consumers are researching almost every purchase they make. Serious thought is put into everything from what toilet paper brand to buy to what car make to drive.

Online advertising can be done most economically through search engine optimization. It does not involve a lot of money toward advertising, and the people it drives to your website are better qualified leads if keyword research is done properly. There are great tools, such as SEOBook.com, that provide free tutorials on the basics of Search Engine Optimization. This way, you can work on SEO on your own and monitor your own progress. If you don’t have time to learn, or you want help from experts, another great way to start an SEO campaign is to work with a marketing firm, like Accession Media, to help implement and handle your SEO for you. Good internet marketing firms will get to know your company and products, and work with you to determine the best strategy to implement and monitor your SEO campaign. Taking this route will free your time up to work on other things, and you’ll get regular reports and advice on the progress and direction of your site.

Filed Under: internet marketing, marketing, Search Marketing In House, SEM Management

Options to Track Your 404 Errors

April 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment
There are many debates as to the best way to track 404 errors. The range of tools and functions range from just being able to count the 404 errors, all the way up to tracking your 404 errors, then helping you remedy the 404 errors. As always, there is never one fix that applies to all websites. The best fit for a 404 tracking tool depends on what type of site you have, how often errors occur, and whether you need a quick way to fix these 404 errors. Once you answer those questions, take a look at this list of 404 error tracking tools.
  1. Google Analytics is a great option if you already use Google Analytics on your website. If you do decide to use Google Analytics, first you would install a small piece of code onto a custom 404 error page for your site. This code will track the amount of times the error page occurs, and then embed this information into the “Top Content” section of your Google Analytics report. Another awesome feature is the ability to tell you the URL that generated the 404 error and the link that sent the user to that error page. Something to keep in mind, however, is that using Google Analytics to track 404 error pages cause your 404 metrics to be included in your reporting. 404 numbers are great to have when they are bigger than most of your other content, but these numbers may not be great to include in other web metrics, such as pageviews. Also, Google Analytics does not offer a way to remedy the 404 error page. Once the 404 error occurs, it’s up to the webmaster to write code to create a 301 redirect to send the user to the new, working page. Therefore, Google Analytics is perfect for websites that 1. Already use Google Analytics 2. Are small and/or static sites and therefore do not generate too many 404 errors. 3. Your custom 404 error page follows 404 error page Best Practices, and is very good at keeping visitors on the website. If your website does not meet these criteria, then you may want to look to another tool to fix your 404 errors.
  2. Linkgraph is a webmaster tool that makes use of a widget to let the user know that the page they requested no longer exists and then after mini animation, it provides the new URL to the content the user was looking for. Linkgraph works through logging a website’s page index, and then tracking changes to any of the pages. The Linkgraph service is free to try for the first month, then after that it’s £150 (which converts to about $224) for the first year. To see the widget in action before you decide, there’s an online demo of the Linkgraph widget. This widget seems to work best for sites that have a lot of changing content. If your site has extensive archives then this may be the best tool for you. Just keep in mind that Linkgraph does not remedy 404 errors. The 404 error count will continue as usual, which may have a negative impact on SEO.
  3. Alex King’s 404 Notifier is a wordpress plug-in that tracks 404 errors. Looking at this tool, the only downfall is that it only works for WordPress and it is only a tracking tool. 404 Notifier tracks 404 errors on your website and creates a table that logs all the 404 erros that occur on your WordPress blog. Another great feature is that you can set up a 404 Notifier RSS feed or get email updates, so you can get all your 404 information without having to always log into your WordPress Admin Page. On top of all the benefits, Alex King’s wordpress plug-in is free to use on your site.
  4. Errorlytics is a SAAS (software as a service) application that has a couple additional features compared to other 404 error tracking tools. Not only does Errorlytics collect information on all 404 errors that occur on your site, but it also provides an opportunity to set up rules to handle the 404 error if it occurs again. These rules generate 301 redirects, which have great SEO benefits, seamlessly send the user to a relevant working web page. The sources of your 404s are also shown on Errorlytics. 404 error source information is helpful because it gives you the opportunity to try and get these bad links fixed to reduce the number of times a 404 error shows up on your site. Errorlytics also adopts some features from other 404 trackers, such as an RSS feed and email notifications.

Here are just some of the tools to track your 404 errors. If you decide, as a webmaster, that it’s time to take action against pesky 404 errors, than one of these four sites will help you get started.


Filed Under: 404 errors, 404 notifer, Errorlytics, Google Analytics, linkgraph, track 404 errors

Can Optimizing My 404 Error Page Make Me Money?

March 13, 2009 By 1 Comment
No matter what type of site you may have, 404 errors may cost you something. It might not be money, but it’s costing you something. Retail sites could be losing money. Other types of sites, however, may be losing something just as valuable…pageviews…return visitors…things like that.

On your site, what do you use as a measure of site performance? How have you been doing lately? Maybe you’ve been enjoying high numbers for a while, or maybe you’ve been getting used to steady KPI growth. How much would your website performance improve if your traffic and/or pageviews grew by another 10-25% percent?

The truth is, your site could potentially do that extra 10-25%, you just don’t benefit from it because your visitors are encountering 404 page not found errors. These visitors can be potential browsers and buyers, but once they hit that 404 page, they’ll leave and bring their money to another site.

How do you keep these people on your site? There are two paths you can take: 1. Optimize your 404 page WITHOUT trying to ID and eliminate the errors from occurring or 2. Optimize your 404 page while attempting to ID and eliminate the 404 errors from occurring on your site.

Option #1: Optimize 404 Page ONLY
This can be done through a great custom 404 page. There are certain guidelines for an awesome 404 page to follow when working on your custom 404 page. Some of these guidelines are:

  1. Have links to possible pages that the user could possibly have been looking for.
  2. Keep the page copy in a “It’s not your fault” or “We’re going to help you” tone. Unless you’re trying for a comedic edge, don’t make the user feel like they’re wrong or doomed.
  3. Give them a way to contact someone directly, to talk about the 404 error they experienced. An email address or phone number would be best.
Optimizing your 404 error page will definitely help keep some visitors on your site. There are some downfalls, however, to only optimizing your 404 page. First, 404 errors will keep occurring on your page, which is bad from an SEO standpoint. Search engine spiders don’t like 404 error pages and question the importance of an error filled website. Also, even if you have a great 404 page, not all of your visitors will make a second attempt to find what they were looking for. Some of them will still just leave. For a way to keep some of those visitors, read Option #2.

Option #2: Optimize 404 Page WITH ID & Elimination Process
If you decide that you want to keep more users than an optimized 404 page could keep on its own, then do this option after completing option #1 successfully. Get a system in place to track your 404 errors. Google Analytics has the capability to track your 404 errors. Simply tracking your 404 errors, however, is just the first step. You’ll need a tool that will tell you where the 404 errors are being generated, and then create SEO-friendly 301 redirects to send visitors and search engine robots to a functional page. Tools, like Errorlytics, help identify 404s, the source of the 404s and then gives you the opportunity to create rules to automatically redirect these 404s to the proper working web page. Taking the couple extra steps is a small investment of time, that may have huge returns in preserving and/or improve site performance.

In conclusion, don’t forget about the 404 error page. If you give it the same attention you give your other pages, it will return the love and bring in some visitors that you’ve been missing out on.

Filed Under: 404 errors, custom 404 error pages, Errorlytics, Google Analytics, Usability

Adding Your 404 Page to Your SEO Strategy

March 6, 2009 By 1 Comment
SEO campaign strategy can be an exciting stage in the website building process. As a lot of websites are looking to optimize their page, however, finding a creative edge is becoming more and more of a challenge. One way to add an extra creative aspect to your site is to make an awesome 404 error page. 404 error pages are often forgotten and get no attention, but what people fail to realize, is that it’s a page just like any other page on a site. It has the potential to be seen by visitors and it can generate traffic and awareness for your site.

First, a funny, interactive, and or unique 404 page can generate a buzz for your site. Some sites make it onto blog posts about creative custom 404 error pages simply because they have a 404 page that the blog writer found interesting. People may find a 404 error page they like and send the link to their friends, family members and co-workers. The viral marketing opportunity in a good 404 page can bring in traffic otherwise not seen by a website. 404 error pages are also important vehicles to carry a site’s branding strategy. An effective 404 error page should have the same look & feel of the rest of the site, following through on the branding strategy. What’s more, the 404 error page has a lot of freedom to have it’s own “voice”. If your company is fun loving, for example, a funny and interactive 404 page can strengthen that trait. Make your 404 error page work for you.

In conclusion, when a lot of work is put into building a functional and aesthetically pleasing site, don’t forget to unlock the power of the 404 error page.

This post is brought to you by the SEO team at Errorlytics/Accession Media.

Filed Under: 404 errors, custom 404 error pages, Errorlytics

10 Funny 404 Error Pages

February 27, 2009 By 12 Comments

A good way to get through tough times is through laughter. When a user encounters a 404 error on a website, try to minimize the anger with some giggles. Here are some sites that have pretty funny 404 error pages. Take a look!

If you know of any funnier ones, please feel free to post the links here.

Brought to you by the 404 error-crazed people at Errorlytics

Filed Under: 404 errors, custom 404 error pages, Errorlytics

Introducing Errorlytics – Fix your 404 errors

February 19, 2009 By 1 Comment
  • Did your website just undergo a redesign or relaunch?
  • Ever wonder where your traffic was falling off?
  • Need a quick way to ID 404 errors on your site?
  • Want someone else to write your 301 redirect code for you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then maybe you need Errorlytics. Errorlytics is an exciting new web tool that identifies ALL 404 errors that occur on any or all of your websites. All these 404 errors get consolidated into one report that you can access via the Errorlytics website, a daily email, or an RSS feed to any RSS reader that you already use.

Errorlytics works for any site built on WordPress, Drupal, Java, Ruby on Rails, and PHP. After signing up, installing Errorlytics is just as simple as adding a customized script on your server or installing a plug-in/module, depending on what type of site you have.

Not only does Errorlytics identify 404 errors, but you can set up the tool to automatically generate seamless, SEO-friendly 301 redirects. automatically generate seamless, SEO-friendly 301 redirects. It’s done through simple rule creation in plain English. If you don’t know how write regex code, or if you just don’t have time, Errorlytics will write it for you. All you have to do is tell it what pages you want redirected and where you want to redirect to.

For more information, just visit the website, http://www.errorlytics.com/, or watch the Errorlytics tutorial video.

Filed Under: 404 errors, Errorlytics