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Learn about keyword research, link building, content optimization, and the latest SEO trends and algorithm updates to enhance organic search rankings.

Sometimes, customers click on a link and get a 'page not found' message, known as a 404 page. This can be annoying, but your online store can turn it into a helpful moment. 

 even when they can't find what they're looking for. You can make these pages fun or say sorry for the mistake. This shows you care about your customers. Plus, you can add links to your best-selling products or special deals. This way, customers can easily find other things they might like to buy, instead of leaving your site.

Ventura Web Design offers custom, branded, conversion-friendly 404 pages that helps recover lost traffic and boost sales. 

Learn more about our custom 404 page service!

Make Shopping Easier with Custom 404 Pages

Your 404 page is a great place to show what your shop is all about. Instead of a boring error message, make your 404 page fun and show your shop's personality. Use cool pictures, funny words, or something special about your shop. This makes customers remember your store and feel good about it, even if they didn't find what they were looking for at first. Plus, a cool 404 page can make people want to share it with friends, bringing more customers to your shop.

A clever 404 page can turn a lost sale into a new chance. When customers see your helpful 404 page, they might stay on your site longer and look at other things. You can use this page to suggest other products, tell them about sales, or ask them to join your email list. This way, even if they don't buy what they first wanted, they might find something else they like. Also, a good 404 page can make customers like your shop more. They see that you try to help, even when things go wrong. This builds trust and can make them come back to shop again.

10 Tips for Improving Your 404 Error Pages

When visitors encounter a 404 error page on your ecommerce site, it's a crucial moment to turn potential frustration into a positive experience. A well-crafted 404 page can not only retain customers but also encourage further exploration of your site. Below are ten simple yet effective tips to enhance your 404 pages. These suggestions range from adding functional elements like a search bar to creative strategies like offering discounts, all aimed at improving user experience and keeping your visitors engaged.

 on your 404 page. This helps customers easily look for what they wanted to find, or discover something new, without going back.

 Write a clear, friendly message on your 404 page. Avoid technical jargon. Phrases like "Oops, we can't find that page!" are more welcoming.

 Add links to your best-selling or most popular products. This guides customers back to shopping, potentially 

 Provide a small discount or a special offer on the 404 page. This can turn a visitor's disappointment into a pleasant surprise, encouraging them to shop.

 Highlight your latest products or current deals. This keeps the content fresh and may capture the interest of the visitor.

. This can make the 404 experience less frustrating and more enjoyable.

 Make sure your 404 page matches your site's overall look and feel. Consistent branding helps maintain a professional image.

 Include an email address or a contact form for customers who need help. This shows that you're ready to assist with any issues.

 Give customers a way to report a broken link or give feedback. This not only helps you fix errors but also involves the customer in improving your site.

Ensure your 404 page is mobile-friendly. Many customers shop on their phones, so the page should look good and work well on all devices.

When you hit a dead-end on a website, a fun 404 page can turn frustration into a smile. Check out these five custom 404 pages employed by industry leaders, along with explanations of their custom 404 page strategies.

Disney's 404 page features a character from their movie franchise, which gives a playful and brand-specific touch to the error page. The message "You didn't break the internet, but we can’t find what you are looking for" adds a light-hearted tone, suggesting that the error isn't the user's fault. It also includes a search bar with the text "What can KnowsMore help you find today?" encouraging users to continue their journey on the website.

Netflix's 404 page utilizes imagery from one of their original series, creating a thematic scene that's recognizable to fans. The message "Lost your way?" is consistent with the imagery, and the suggestion to return to the Netflix home page is clearly displayed, guiding users back to familiar territory.

Starbucks takes a more interactive approach with their 404 page, showing a spilled drink and inviting users to "Mop up the spill to reveal something underneath." This engagement can distract users from the inconvenience of hitting a dead end and also incentivizes them to explore more of the website.

Publix uses humor on their 404 page, likening the missing page to a product that's "past its sell-by date." They apologize for the error and suggest doing a search or contacting them for help, which is a straightforward method of redirecting users.

GitHub's 404 page features their mascot in a desert with a message that's a playful take on a famous quote from "Star Wars," tailored for the developer audience that frequents their site. This geeky humor aligns with their community's interests and subtly encourages users to continue searching for what they need on GitHub.

A well-designed 404 page is important for any e-commerce site because it helps keep customers engaged even when they encounter a missing page. Instead of a generic error message, a custom 404 page can reflect your brand's character and make the experience less negative for shoppers. By including helpful features like search bars, links to popular products, or special discounts, you can quickly redirect customers to other areas of your site. This not only improves the chance of retaining visitors but can also potentially lead to more sales. A good 404 page shows customers that you value their time and experience, making it more likely they will continue to shop with you.

How to Enhance User Experience with Custom 404 Pages

We all want the best website that ranks number one on search engines but how do we get there? There is an important metric to look at when evaluating your website called domain authority. In this blog, we discuss what domain authority is, how to find your domain authority score, and how to improve it.

Domain authority is a score that is assigned to a website that identifies how well that website will rank on a search engine results pages (SERP). Like page authority, domain authority is scored on a 0-100 scale. The higher your score the harder it is to improve, but it’s also hard for anyone to have a score above yours.

 provided by Moz of the top 500 most popular websites. These are the top 10 listings.

Copy the URL of the domain you want to find the score for

View your domain authority score in the box below the search bar

Since the domain authority score is complex and takes many factors into account a good domain authority score depends on the sites you’re comparing it to. You may only have a domain authority score of 40 for example but the similar pages on the SERP may only have a 30. This will be favorable for your site as yours will likely be ranked above the others.

Remember your domain authority score will likely increase just by being on the internet for over one year.

An audit of your link profile will give you an idea of the backlinks associated with your website. Ideally, you only want link traffic from high authority, credible websites. Search engines will interpret your website as valuable by having links from other high authority websites.

Create content that keeps people interested

There isn’t an easy solution to raise your domain authority. You should create awesome content that keeps users coming back and gets new users hooked.

Your domain authority score is impacted by total traffic, organic traffic, direct traffic through Chrome, time on site, bounce rate, and SERP click-through-rate (CTR). So the only way to drive these metrics is to create engaging, valuable content worth consuming and sharing.

As mentioned earlier receiving link traffic from other authoritative sites is extremely important. The search engines will favor you more if you have these.

A good tip for getting high-quality links is to offer value to another company. Make your content better to earn the links, write a guest blog, or create some other type of content that can be used on their site but also drive traffic to yours.

Domain Authority: Explained

Google has shared their vision for what the next 

 will look like. In doing so, Google also discussed how their systems work today.

It is in this part of the article that they reveal a very interesting piece of information that both supports my previous quality raters hypothesis (raters can help or hurt site rankings), but also sheds additional light on a key aspect of the ranking process.

The major call out from this article is that the author, Ben Gomes (VP Search, News, and Assistant), identifies one way that Google uses its quality raters. Quality Raters are Google employees who look at search results and provide search quality rankings. Those rankings are then used to guide the algorithm. For a long time, I've believed that Raters have the ability to rank a site based on pre-defined 

, and that this ranking results in either promotion or demotion of the site in Google's search results rankings.

I've often likened this to turning the volume of your site up or down, like audio volume on your TV or radio. Raters can lower the volume, raise the volume, or even possibly mute your site's "voice" entirely (although Google's Danny Sullivan said "

" in a tweet). Even if only one page of your site is reviewed by a rater, that rating (probably) sticks with your entire site, although the weight may dissipate based on many factors (total number of pages, proximity of reviewed page to home page, site hierarchy, depth of content, etc.).

In Google's The Keyword blog post today, Mr. Gomes says that "

This statement provides additional insight into how the quality raters choose which sites to review. If your site falls within an experiment, and appears within the top 5-10 results, your site might be lucky enough to get a quality review. Previously, it was unknown how sites might fall within the cross-hairs of quality guidelines raters. It is important to remember that this is just one way that raters can find your site and impact your search rankings. There may be, and probably are, quite a few more ways that raters can find your site.

Given this insight into the algorithm, or, more accurately, a major component that shapes the algorithm, a focus on overall site quality is becoming more important than ever before. Twenty years ago, we could easily use a technique, today it's called "keyword stuffing," to affect the search results and drive our clients into the number one spot. We were overnight geniuses. Then, when this technique no longer worked, we migrated over to inbound links. When Google determined that this didn't work either, and Google got smarter, we made the shift to quality content and awesome user on-site experience (site usability via awesome design and content).

It is the role of a website's chief marketing officer to ensure that the content on the site, the overall message, and the user experience all guide the Rater to giving at least a neutral score, but at best, a positive score.

Googling any of the concepts discussed here will certainly result in contradictory opinions about how Google uses their Quality Raters. it is important to remind ourselves of the black box that is "the algorithm." Google is so huge that no one fully knows exactly how search rankings are produced in every scenario, and this is by design as well as by necessity. Google itself points to the algorithm and constantly references Machine Learning and AI.

This discussion wouldn't be complete without at least a reference to 

 and how it interprets and replies to the 15% of never before seen queries that Google receives daily. With Google busy indexing the world's information, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation of how to best help your site rank in those search results for your desired keywords and phrases.

First, figure out the questions that your audience will be asking and answer them (

Then, be sure to answer those questions in a way that is easy to use and understand (

Then, never quit learning, searching, and thinking about how to make your site better for your users (

How Google Quality Raters Affect Site Rankings

Whether your business is strictly online or it’s a combination of online and brick-and-mortar, you know you want to be at the very top of those search results when anyone Googles something related to your industry. There are countless things you could do to improve your SEO and help get you to the top of that list but today we’re going to focus on 

Your site should have content that is relevant to the business, it needs to include keywords, and it should address common questions or concerns. Pay attention to your competition. Let's say your competition is ranking at #1 for "Auto Parts", it might be difficult to surpass them. However, how do they rank for "cheap auto parts", "best auto parts", or "auto part reviews" etc? Chances are there's opportunity there for you to come in and create the best content for that specific topic instead.

2. Make sure your Meta Data is up to date

Your Title tag should contain keywords you're trying to rank for, this is the link that appears when your site is found in Google or other search engines. Your Meta Description needs to be compelling copy designed to entice visitors to visit your site. This also appears in Google Searches.

Make sure your page URL is descriptive and short. HTML tags, such as H1 and alt tags, should be included on every page of your site. Be sure that your website developer uses the latest website coding techniques to ensure that your site is easy for Google's bots to read and understand.

Update your old blog posts or pages with new, relevant information. Find pages that are underperforming and update them with new content. Google likes to see new, fresh content and will reward your site with higher rankings.

5. Improve your Page Load Speed / Optimize for Mobile

If your site loads slowly, Google will recognize this and it will harm your ranking. It also leads to poor user experience to anyone visiting your site, especially mobile users. Improve your e-commerce site speed by optimizing images, develop the site with mobile users in mind, and/or remove unnecessary elements.

There's plenty more ways to boost your SEO, but this will get you started.

Keep track of your search engine rankings

How is your site ranking? Find out and watch for what content is generating interest and what content is not.

5 Easy SEO Boosts

No matter what you sell or what service you provide, you won’t be selling much or providing service unless you can introduce potential customers to your offering. How will anyone find your website, let alone stick around to buy your product? There are many ways to get visitors to you, see our list below for our top 5 methods:

Many people have heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This is a process that involves optimizing your website to be easily found via search engines. This is a simple solution that all websites should be embracing. We like 

 which offers a checklist of 13 quick wins to improve your SEO.

Another acronym used in shorthand for “pay-per-click” advertising. Utilizing this method, customers are shown your ads, but you only pay when they actually click the ad. This can be quite effective especially when selling a product or service to “cold traffic”. Here’s a list of the most common and relevant PPC platforms out there:

All of your advertising does not need to be a direct sale or sales offer of any kind. Many of the world’s biggest brands advertise via content marketing. For example Red Bull and GoPro are companies who share lifestyle photos and video content to build their brand as the authority in their field. Check out 

 for some great examples of lifestyle content marketing. Some businesses will want to look to more product-driven content, like our very own client North Shore Commercial Door. Their YouTube channel is filled with helpful product reviews, 

 and explores their vendor’s brand history. This content marketing establishes them as the expert while keeping the focus on the products. Another way to share helpful content is to utilize customer reviews in your social media marketing. 

 shares recipes, photos and customer reviews on it’s Instagram channel which brings important social proof and allows their content to easily be shared.

Once a customer reaches your site, how do you keep them coming back? And how do you know if your website marketing is having the desired results? Luckily there are many tools available to automate the process of keeping communication open with customers and staff.

How can lead magnets help your business? If you’re not sure what a Lead Magnet is, we’ll explain. A lead magnet is a deal so good that customers cannot resist providing you with their email address to get it. We list 6 ways to use this method:

(Either your Main Product or something Relevant and useful)

(A simple discount or free shipping offer is enough to gather leads)

(This will help you gather leads, but also perform valuable research into your customers)

Even in today’s modern world of marketing, word of mouth is still one of the best ways to find new customers. That’s great news for you because you can offer referral incentives to those customers via a referral program. Even better, offer a “double-sided” referral to give back to your existing customers while gaining a new customer. There are many different variants of this idea, but just make sure you take care of your brand ambassadors, your existing customers! That way they will refer your business to a friend with or without a referral program.

Whether you’re using one or all of these methods, they’re sure to bring in more leads to your business and as a result, more revenue!

How Do I Generate New Leads?

Your guide to a successful e-commerce design starts here. We've put together the essential design elements that make up a great web store, how many of these features does your store have?

 HTTPS is essential to provide security to your customers. The green lock icon tells visitors your site is trustworthy.

 The hero image and headline strongly influence your visitor’s perception of your business by providing users with your most important offer and/or service.

 The call to action tells users exactly what you want them to do. Usually in the form of a brightly colored button, CTA’s direct visitors exactly where you want them to go.

 Displaying featured categories provides users an even easier way to find products relevant to their interests.

 Bring attention to promotional items by displaying a badge or similar element. This catches the user’s attention and will result in more page views of this item.

 Promote top-sellers, high-margin items, or products with high search volume.

 Use an add-to-cart button to make purchasing easier for users who already know what they’re looking for or are return customers who have decided to purchase.

 Use a “new arrivals” section to promote your latest and greatest products; visitors may be looking for new items.

 Build an email list to retain traffic and drive repeat traffic to your site. Email newsletters can be used for promotions, retargeting, and sharing news and features.

 Enable social sharing links to allow visitors to spread your business via social media. This improves search engine rankings and provides social proof to skeptical shoppers.

 Many customers will want to contact you directly; make it easy to find your support phone number.

 Significantly improve users' search experience and utilize this feature to suggest your featured products.

 Providing a category menu will allow visitors to quickly and easily find what they’re looking for by browsing categories.

 Clearly display your shipping, support, and other policies. No one likes to be surprised by shipping costs.

 Displaying recently viewed products increases the chance that a user will purchase a product they may have hesitated to purchase in the past.

 Clearly display your contact information, and if you have a physical location, list your address and hours of operation. This should be visible on every page of the site.

 Breadcrumb navigation shows your visitors where they are on the hierarchy of pages. This is especially useful when you have many categories and subcategories.

 This is the first image a shopper sees when looking for their product. A quality photo can increase the value of the product itself and improve trust in your brand.

 Simulate the experience of walking into a store and being able to pick up a product and look at it from every angle. This provides customers a better feel for the product.

 Video is the most compelling way to engage consumers, especially those viewing your site from mobile devices. Consumers are more likely to buy after viewing a video.

 Displaying related products is an easy way to cross-sell directly to your customers. You can offer them products that work well together or alternative brands.

 Your product title should be large and easy to read, but it also needs to capture their attention and provide enough information to differentiate the product.

 Most people consult reviews or ratings before making a final purchase. As a result, they are more likely to buy from your site if you have product ratings and reviews available.

 Your design should make the price of the item clear and noticeable. Any promotional discounts should be obvious; confusing pricing schemes will only frustrate users.

 Allowing customers to specify the number of items to add to their cart not only improves the number of sales you get but reduces friction and intuitively makes sense.

 Customers want to see all of the options available for an item they’re interested in. Make sure you show customers all of the product details with clickable color swatches.

 Use color and contrast to make the Add to Cart stand out from the rest of the page. The button should be fairly large and include an arrow or design element to draw the eye.

 Display a “trust seal” to overcome skeptical customers’ fears and increase conversions.

 Sometimes a shopper isn’t quite ready to order but wants to remember the product and your store. Make it easy to do so by providing an “Add to Wish List” button.

 Customers have questions about products. Your product description should answer all of the questions before they get to checkout. If they can’t find the information they’re looking for, they are likely to abandon the sale completely.

72 Must-Have Features for E-Commerce Websites [Infographic]

49 Elements Your Product Detail Page Must Have

How The Best Ecommerce Sites Win at Web Design [23 Examples]

Why Product Images Are so Important in Ecommerce

Your DIY Product Photography Resource Guide

Why Online Store Owners Should Embrace Online Reviews

Importance of a Trust Seal on Your eCommerce Website

The Complete Guide to Writing Product Descriptions That Convert

The Essential Ecommerce Web Design Guide

You may not have noticed it, but Google made a major change to the way it displays search results. Google recently removed all pay-per-click ads from the right side of it's search results pages. After more than ten years of Adwords pay-per-click results taking up both the top 1-3 spots and the entire right column being a long list of ads, this is a significant shift in how Google is going to provide "answers" to search queries.So why did Google remove a major source of revenue on the right column of its search results? The answer is almost certainly a result of testing and monetization. Google thinks it can provide a better user experience, and make more money, by using that space more wisely. But what is going to go there? To learn where Google is going, you have to be fully immersed in the world of all things Google. Luckily for you, that's pretty much all we do. :)

Over the past few months, the team at Ventura Web Design has noticed that there are many queries that bring up a special box called a Knowledge Panel on the right with relevant info about your search. While the knowledge box itself is not new, how it displays specific information about medical searches is very interesting. Look at the results for "hay fever":

You can now learn about symptoms and treatments directly on the search results page, without leaving Google. This content includes information from medical doctors about how common a condition is, whether it's critical or contagious, typically affected age group(s), and more. The knowledge box includes tabs for an Overview, Symptoms, and Treatments for that ailment. The information comes from a variety of sources, including the NIH, CDC, FDA, WHO, and more. Google has also partnered with organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Apollo Hospitals, Lumiata, and VoxHealth. The source of the information in the past was quoted very prominently and the goal of Google was to help you go from Google Search Results to the website with the answer to your query. As you can see from the search result image above, that "goal" seems to have changed.

Even the knowledge box is styled and looks nothing like any other knowledge boxes. Google commissioned illustrations from licensed medical illustrators for use here. The colors and attention-grabbing layout differs greatly from what Google has provided in the past.

This is a major shift in Google's philosophy. This layout shows the direction Google is heading: to a more display driven layout, rather than its historically text only layout. Remember when Google's single goal was to get you OFF of their website and on to what you're seeking? Google is now answering a question without linking away. But more importantly, Google is now in the content creation business. This is a major historic shift for the search leader. Think about that for a moment. Google is using the power of all the data it has access to, that you no longer have access to via Google Analytics, to guide its own decision making on content creation.

From the Google perspective, this new direction improves the user experience by providing "quality" answers even faster than before. Google's stated mission is to answer the question you have, before you've even fully typed the question in to the search box (instant search (link:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/186645?hl=en

The knowledge box is a function of Google's Knowledge Graph, which launched in May 2012. it's used both by Google itself to improve search relevancy and also to present the knowledge boxes that provide facts about people, places and things alongside regular results. Google reports it has over 3.5 billion facts, including information about 500 million entities, including movies, museums, bodies of water, music, astronomical objects, buildings, sports, medical ailments, and more. Similar to how Google uses a link graph to model how pages are interlinked to and which are relevant for searches, it uses the knowledge graph to determine relationships between entities and report facts about them. If you currently have a knowledge graph card and want that information to change, you need to request a change from Google. Here is the link for more information on changing knowledge graph cards. (link: 

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/6325583?hl=en

There is currently no mechanism to include yourself or your site as part of the Knowledge Graph. If you run a blog all about movies, there isn't a way to be listed as a suggested source for information. Tagging information on your landing pages with rich snippets can be helpful in the long run, though it's no guarantee of inclusion. This is where good SEO efforts can help. Your goal, as a website owner, is to have Google view your site as the leading authority of information on a particular topic. If Google determines that your topic is popular enough, it may create Knowledge Cards and include a link to your site or information in that card.

In an interview with Search Engine Land, the Google's Former Head of Search, Amit Singhal, noted that the facts come from publicly available sources like Wikipedia, the CIA World Factbook, and Google Books. They also license data from other sources. "Whenever we can get our hands on structured data, we add it," said Singhal. This is incredibly important to online store owners, as Google has said for years that structured data is important to being able to categorize product listings and display them in a relevant way. While knowledge boxes currently lack the ability to take action on most of their listings (you can learn about the Tower of London but there is no option to buy tickets to a tour), that functionality is coming. Amit recently left Google to pursue philanthropic efforts. (

http://searchengineland.com/amit-singhal-the-head-of-google-search-to-leave…

) To make room for the knowledge box on selected queries, Google removed the ads on the right column. While this will limit the amount of adspace available and possibly drive up the cost of adwords campaigns, the side and bottom ads never did amount for the majority of click volume. According to a study of January 2016 desktop paid clicks by position, only 14.6% were from the side and bottom, so the change is not decreasing revenue by any appreciable amount, only ad impressions. However, it does allow for more Google PLAs (Product Listing Ads) on the right column, which is a benefit for online stores that offer a product feed to Google Shopping. Also, if users grow to depend on Google being an authority rather than merely a portal, PLAs will be more trusted and therefore effective. Overall, this is a good move for Google, its users, and those that advertise on it.