How To Create A Weebly 404 Page & Fix Broken Links As a Non Tech

Last Updated 03/08/2018

Today I have a a technical post for you.

Not technical in the sense that you need any technical skills though - queue sighs of relief.

​I’m going to break down how to fix your broken links & 404 errors without needing any technical skills at all.

YAAY.

Before I begin, this post applies to Weebly Users.   

My website is hosted & built through Weebly so I will base the post off this platform. 

Having said that, the first half of this post will be relevant if you use Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix or any other platform so if you are not sure what a 404 error is it is still worth reading through.
​

This post covers:

What Are Broken Links & 404 Errors? ​
Why Are Broken Links & 404 Errors Important To Fix
How To Identify Broken Links & 404 Errors On My Site?
How To Fix Broken Links & 404 Errors In Weebly
​How To Set Up A Custom Weebly 404 Page




What Are Broken Links & 404 Errors?

Very simply this is any link that a user might follow on your website which takes them to a 404 error page instead of the page they were looking for.

This will happen anytime you update or optimise a url.

For example, say this post about getting a hobby was live on your website:

OLD URL: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/hobby-can-boost-motivation-change-life/

It’s doing really well and you are getting traffic and shares.  But, you do some keyword research and notice that the URL could be optimized to improve its ranking position.

So, you update the url to:

NEW URL: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/boost-motivation-with-hobby/

What you’ve done is created a new url, and the old url now goes to a 404 page (unless you have an automatic redirect set up, some wordpress sites do).

Anywhere on your website where you have linked to the old url, and anyone else who linked to your old url, all of those links now go to a 404 error page.

(This is the 404 page which you would get on a weebly website if you follow a broken link.)

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To check your 404 error page type your url into your browser and add some random letters at the end of it.

For example: http://tinybuddha.com/kkkddd

Top Tip: You can also optimise your 404’s like Tiny Buddha have done here.   By simply placing links through to important or popular content you will decrease the number of users who leave your website from a 404 page.  

There are tons of ways you can optimize the page and I have included some at the bottom of this post where we cover: How To Set Up A Custom Weebly 404 Error Page


The Reason Broken Links & 404 Errors Are Important To Fix


There are a few reasons why fixing your broken links is important.  

Firstly user experience.  

It is very annoying, especially if your visitor is on a mobile to click through to content & find a 404 page.

Short attention spans mean you don’t have a margin for error with your visitors.

Most will just leave your site and may never come back. That’s a lot of wasted energy which has gone into getting that visitor to your site only to have them leave again.

Another reason is for SEO purposes.  

Say your post had been referenced by several other websites, perhaps it has been shared hundreds, maybe even thousands of times (we can dream).

If you don’t fix your broken links then all of this link equity stays with the old url and you’ve lost valuable positive signals pointing to your website.

Redirecting your old URL to your new URL means that most of this link juice will flow through to your new page.


How To Identify Broken Links & 404 Errors On My Site?


Identifying broken links is SUPER EASY thanks to Google and their tool Google Webmaster Tools.   If you haven’t signed up already then get your profile.  It’s very easy to install and there is a tutorial here for you to follow.

It might take Google a week or so to crawl your website and populate the data.  But once it is populated navigate to the section; Crawl Errors

​This will let you know where your broken links are! Perfect.

How To Fix Broken Links & 404 Errors In Weebly

Once you have identified your broken links, navigate to your Weebly Website Dashboard.

Select “Edit Site”.

And now hit “Settings” In The Top Navigation

Click The SEO Tab and scroll down to the redirect section.  

​Here you can enter your old url and select the new page you want visitors to go to.

Top Tip: For deleted pages if there is a closely related page send users there.  If there is no closely related page send users to your homepage, or consider re-writing the page!

I hope this post has inspired you to fix your broken links.

It might not be the sexiest thing in the world, but improving your visitors experience is.

So, check in every few months and make sure you aren’t frustrating your readers and losing valuable SEO juice in the process.

If you want to go one step further and create a customer weebly 404 page, then check below.

How To Set Up A Custom Weebly 404 Page

Weebly's 404 error page is very basic, it has to apply to lots of different websites across a huge range of industries and brands so that makes sense.

It does include a link through to your homepage to encourage visitors to click through and see if they can find what they are looking for, but it can be improved.

A custom 404 page is also one of the indicators for Google that tells them your site is high quality.  I'm not saying that by adding a custom 404 page suddenly your site will be prioritized and you'll see your ranks increase. 

However, putting that little bit of extra effort into your content is a good habit to get in to! It only takes a few minutes and you can have a custom 404 page which elevates the perception of your blog, website and / or business.

To create a custom weebly 404 page 

Go to: Edit Site 
Click: New Page
Name this page: 404 
​Tick: Hide In Navigation

Now you can create whatever you like! 

And you can get really creative.  Here are some of my favorite examples of 404 error pages for inspiration (note, these were not all created on Weebly). 
​

Distilled 404 Error Page

Cirquedesoleil 404 Error Page

Ebay 404 Error Page - good for function! 

As you can see there are lots of ways you can go with this page.  The perfect page is one that stays on brand but still helps the user gets to where they want to go.  So make sure you have a link through to your homepage, or even better your site categories to help your visitor easily find what they are looking for.


That's it for this post! I hope this is a great reference for you.  Good luck on your blogging journey and feel free to comment below or contact me and say hi. 

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