I scanned the archives of eight fashion blogs tonight.
One of the biggest problems I noticed is that indie designers remove the web pages that writers have featured in their blogs.
No doubt, it’s probably by accident. For example, if you’re a jewelry designer, you might take down a web page promoting a necklace, once that particular piece has sold.
However, you never know when you’re going to get blogged about. And sometimes bloggers lead readers to a specific page on your site. If you take down a page that’s getting publicity, anyone entering your site through that link will get a ‘Page Not Found’ error. A potential customer may think your site is dead, and move on.
So if you’re going to take a page down, make sure you (or your site designer) sets up a 404 redirect.
A 404 redirect is basically a code that’ll automatically take your site visitors to a new predetermined page on your site - like your homepage. In other words, they’ll never see the dead pages again. Even if you remove a page, and a visitor enters your site through that link, they won’t get a ‘Page Not Found’ error. And you won’t inadvertently lose a customer.
Your other alternative… don’t remove any of your web pages.
You really don’t have to. Web space is super inexpensive. I run around 15 different web sites from a single $20-a-month account.
If you keep all of your pages up, you’ll never have to worry about cleaning up those page not found errors.
So just create, don’t eliminate.
Leave a Reply