404 and ‘Thank you’ pages provide a unique opportunity for retention and conversion

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I have a mantra I stick by; ‘Always be optimising’. This comes in quite handy (and by quite, I mean massively) when improving a website. When it comes to boosting conversion and conversion rate optimisation, even the smallest of changes can have a big effect. However, I am not going to discuss here a small change, rather a radical one, not often considered but with returns to rival the best tactics. That is, the optimisation of failure and success pages.

How can I boost goal completion?

A great way to boost goal completion is to add relevant links to often forgotten pages. The 404 error (failure) page and the thank you (success) page each present unique opportunities for retention and conversion.

Taking 404 pages first, let’s recap on what it really is. 404: a standard HTTP response code that says to the user that the server could not find the requested file.

In most cases, the page is alarmist or worse, unreadable.

Failure pages can lead to success — follow 3 easy steps

Some quick do’s when you are making a custom 404 page:

  1. Useful navigation options encouraging retention of visitors to your site.
  2. Speaking the right language of the brand, to align with the rest of your site.
  3. Tracking should be employed in order to figure out common entry routes.

These guidelines in mind, here’s a great failure page:

This uses humour rather than a dull error message and also has easy navigation tools in a prominent place to redirect users back to the main site, where conversion is a possibility.

You may have considered humourous 404 pages as a win but what then of success pages? Read on.

How can I optimise my success page?

This is when the aforementioned mantra of “Always be Optimising” is again true. Why would you stop at the conversion point when you could gather all sorts of useful demographic data on your new customer? The retention game starts here!

A few quick things to include when optimising your success page:

  1. Include social profile links, including a “share this page” button.
  2. Additional resources (white papers, case studies, etc.).
  3. Company content (blog, forums, etc.).
  4. Related products or services.
  5. Email newsletter sign-up forms.
  6. Coupon codes for future purchases.
  7. The list goes on…

Why would I want to optimise my success page?

You may well be thinking to yourself, I’ve just got a sale, life is good, what more could I want? The thing is, if you are of a mind to “Always be Optimising”, you can get incremental revenue from these.

Some other tips for success page greatness

Social Sharing can aid customer advocacy

Social sharing is an avenue that can have an effect on the volume of your goal completions, provided there’s a good experience on offer, of course! Nobody’s going to recommend you to friends and family if your website loads as fast as an oil-tanker does a 180 turn!

Ratings and reviews also have an impact

Roughly 82% of adult Amazon Prime members consider ratings and reviews from other members in evaluating products for purchase. If you collect reviews on your success page, you can enhance your numbers. Numbers in this context can be expressed in terms of traffic to a website.

Traffic from failure pages is still traffic — retain it where you can

On 404 pages if you aid navigation by providing search functionalities to find site content or navigation buttons that we tend to take for granted, you retain traffic. It may be a long term play but keeping that traffic on your site is better than losing it (possibly) forever. Why let potential customers leave so quickly? After all, there is an industry devoted to keeping your traffic on your site, and ultimately, converting it.

So, it makes sense to keep a hold of traffic, improve dwell metrics on site and ultimately that traffic will convert if your site works as a conversion tool.

So there you have it, ignoring failure and success pages is like throwing away money.

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