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How To Make A 404 Error Page And Make Money In The Process
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
The What
Before I show you how to make a 404 error page, let me first ask you a question: “Do you know what a 404 error page is?”
In layman’s terms, a 404 error page is basically a “not found” page on a server. Your browser was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested.
Say, for example, that som
eone is trying to access the site http://www.yoursite.com/gggsgsggsg (which doesn’t exist). Typically what would happen is that a 404 message will be shown (like in the above picture).
You might be asking yourself “Why would someone give the wrong URL to other people?”
It’s not so much about person A giving person B the wrong URL (though that might happen). It’s more about person B (the receiving end) typing the wrong URL into his browser.
The Why
Whatever the reasons are that triggered the 404 error page, you as a marketer should NOT be wasting this kind of traffic. Since they’re already at your site (the 404 error page), you should be doing everything you can in getting the visitor to take the action that you want them to take.
For me, if someone went to http://First100Dollars.com and for some reasons they were taken to a 404 error page, my goal right then and there is to get him into my list. (More on how I do that later in this post).
If your goal is to get your visitors to click on your ads, then whenever a 404 error page shows up, you better do everything you can to achieve your goal. So instead of showing the typical 404 error page (like the picture above), you should be showing your ads.
Make sense?
Now go ahead and try clicking this link http://First100Dollars.com/hgesgrstreekm (which doesn’t exist, of course).
Guess what shows up even though such a URL doesn’t exist? Yep, the following screen is returned:
Even though this URL doesn’t exist, I still try my best to get visitors into my list by offering them a valuable Freebie in exchange for their email address.
By doing this, I’m not wasting any traffic that has already landed on my domain (First100Dollars.com). Instead I’m trying to squeeze every drop out of them. I figure since I’ve already done all the hard work in getting them to my site, why not do everything I can to get them into my list?
In general (especially if you run a business), you really want to strive to get people into your list. Once they’re in your list, you can follow up with them whenever you want and how often you want, just with the click of an email.
How To Make A 404 Error Page
Now that you know the importance of utilizing the power of 404 pages, your next question, of course, is “How do I make a 404 error page?”
It’s pretty easy actually.
Step 1:
Open Notepad in your computer and copy the following code (written in red):
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Loading…</TITLE>
<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;url=http://TheURLThatUWantToRedirect.com”>
</HEAD>
</HTML>
Make sure that you change http://TheURLThatUWantToRedirect.com to the URL that you want to redirect to whenever the visitor reaches a 404 error page. In my First100Dollars.com example, I have it redirected to http://First100Dollars.com/oops.htm whenever a 404 page is reached.
Save your Notepad file with the filename “404.shtml” (without quotes).
Step 2:
Open Notepad in your computer and copy the following code (written in red again):
ErrorDocument 404 /404.shtml
Then save your Notepad file with the filename “.htaccess” (without quotes).
Step 3:
Upload both files (404.shtml and .htaccess) to your server root directory.
Please note that if you already have a .htaccess file on your server, then DO NOT upload the new .htaccess file you just created. Instead open the .htaccess on your server and paste the following code at the very top without deleting or altering any existing code:
ErrorDocument 404 /404.shtml
Done! I’ve shown you how to make a 404 error page.
Recap
If you’re currently not utilizing your 404 pages to build more subscribers or to get visitors to click more ads or do whatever you want them to do, you’re leaving traffic (and money) on the table.
You’ve done all the hard work in generating traffic to your site, therefore you should make sure that you squeeze every last drop of your effort. Why waste traffic when you can turn them into money?
Let me know your thoughts about this in a comment below.
Popularity: 10% [?]
GetResponse 6.0 Is A Terrible Mess!
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Having been a satisfied customer of GetReponse since 2006, I have to say that I’m no longer impressed by its service.
For the sake of people not knowing what GetResponse is, GetResponse is an autoresponder company that provides email marketing services so that marketers can follow up with their prospects/exisiting clients to sell more products and services to them.
I first signed up for GetResponse in mid-to-late 2006 (I forgot the exact date) and have always been a satisfied customer until July 5, 2009 when it did a major upgrade to its system to version 6.0
The Upgrade To Version 6.0
The upgrade was a COMPLETE DISASTER as it turns out that many important features that were previously working were now either not working at all or working only partially.
I was tempted to blog about my frustration with their new upgrade, but managed to suppress my temptations after I’ve reminded myself of the fact that it’s okay to have some bugs in the script when you’re doing a complete system upgrade.
However, in my opinion, this has to happen reasonably.
It is now July 15 as I blog about this (which is 10 days after the major upgrade). 10 days have passed and there are still bugs that affect me and tens of thousands of customers.
This is TOTALLY NOT ACCEPTABLE! These bugs are costing me and other marketers money. Every other day that the bugs are not resolved is money lost!
Though I’ve not done a thorough analysis of the functionality of every single feature they offer, below are some key disappointments that I’ve experienced as a customer. Please note that bugs that have been resolved as of this writing are not included below. I’m ONLY going to report bugs that have not been solved at the time of this writing.
The Frustrating Problems That I’ve Experienced (That Have Not Been Resolved)
1. [[sig]]code for signature that is used in the previous GetResponse is not working in the new GetResponse.
The weird thing is [[sig]] is changed automatically to [[pre signature]] which is also not working. Have to manually change all instances of [[pre signature]] to [[pre sig]] across ALL campaigns to get it to work.
2. Dashboard says “last newsletter” sent out, when in fact it’s not the last newsletter.
3. [[ref]] code is not working.
This is a VERY IMPORTANT feature for tracking how we acquired our subscribers. By knowing where our subscribers came from, we can focus our efforts on the marketing methods that generate the best results, thus giving us the best bang for the buck and time invested.
When querying GetResponse for subscribers that were associated with a particular [[ref]] code, no results were returned. This is true for subscribers acquired BEFORE the upgrade and partially true for subscribers acquired AFTER the upgrade.
I say partially true because for some weird reasons, subscribers acquired AFTER the upgrade sometimes show up and sometimes they don’t.
4. Export via CSV not working properly.
When exporting subscribers’ to CSV format, the results returned under the “ref” column and our own custom fields column are wrong. It’s basically printing the same results from top to bottom.
5. Daily report not working.
Even though I’ve set up a daily report of subscribers that were added to a certain campaign to be emailed to me every day, I did not receive this daily report until only a few days ago. However, even though I’ve now received a daily report, it’s for subscribers added a week earlier and NOT for that actual day.
Essentially, I’m receiving a daily report that’s 1 week old.
Also, the daily report’s “ref” column is blank.
6. Some delivered broadcasts are missing when trying to view their statistics
Statistics such as the open rate and click through rate of a particular message is important in analyzing what kind of subject works and how responsive our lists are. When trying to view the statistics of some of the broadcasts, they were not there.
7. Preload without authorization set to “YES” automatically
Campaigns that were previously set to “NO” preload without authorization is now set to “YES” after the upgrade, making our campaigns prone to be copied by other marketers.
I have contacted support for SOME of the above issues, but they were still not resolved yet. As for number 7, I was so frustrated (because I have a lot of campaigns) that I asked them to manually set the preload without authorization setting back to “NO”.
What I Think Of GetResponse NOW
I seriously think that they could have done a MUCH BETTER job and cause MUCH LESS bugs in their new system. About a month or so before the upgrade to the new system, they conducted a beta test of the new system by inviting existing customers to participate in the test.
With the beta version, they should have discovered most, if not all, of the bugs. With a business as large as GetResponse (mind you they have 93,000+ customers), this is REALLY a shame.
I’m not the typical “complain” guy, but this time GetResponse has gone overboard. I’m not the only one who’s disappointed by their poor service, there are tons more people feeling the same way I do. You can take a look here at this thread from the Warrior Forum.
I should have started with Aweber in the first place 3 years ago. If I did, I wouldn’t be in the position I’m in now.
Right now, if I wanted to switch to Aweber, I’d have to run the risk of losing a lot of folks on my list because Aweber is only allowing me to send out a confirmation message once to my current subscribers.
I used to be a satisfied customer of GetResponse, but not anymore.
Bottom line
Lesson learned: If you’re providing a service that SO MANY people rely heavily upon, be sure that when you release or upgrade the service, you test it thoroughly through extensive beta tests, thereby reducing the number of bugs/errors to an acceptable minimum.
If you’re looking for a professional autoresponder company, go for Aweber. I know I will be for my new business venture with my partner. In fact, I will be signing up for a new account tomorrow or later today.
Your Thoughts?
What are your thoughts when a company as big as GetResponse upgrade its services with bugs all over the place? Do you think it’s acceptable? Better yet, if you’re a customer like me who underwent the major upgrade, what do you have to say about this incident?
Let me know in a comment below…
Popularity: 10% [?]
Satisfy (The Majority Of) Your Customers
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
When it comes to selling products and services, both online and offline, there are bound to be unsatisfied customers. This is true no matter how good a job we’ve done to service them.
The fact is: we simply can’t make everyone happy. That is simply not possible. Everyone has different standards and expectations. What impresses customer A may not impress customer B.
When a customer’s expectations are not met, they are unsatisfied. When that happens, 3 things occur:
1. They won’t buy our products or services again in the future
The key to making big money is to sell other related products that increase in price and value. In the Internet marketing field, this is commonly known as “back end” products.
If customers are ONLY buying your product/service one-time, then there’s not going to be a lot of money being made. In some cases, you may even lose money by selling ONLY your low-cost front-end product.
2. They will bad-mouth our name to other people
Worse than number 1 above, these unsatisfied customers tell EVERYBODY about our perceivably (at least in their eyes) “poor” product or service. Our supposedly “bad name” spreads like wildfire.
This is especially enhanced with today’s web 2.0 where consumers interact a lot, thanks to the help of social networking and bookmarking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Digg, etc. People can interact and communicate freely and easily with one another.
Unfortunately, we human beings behave like herds of sheep.
One bad-mouth leads to another, and people follow other people in joining the bad-mouthing bandwagon, even though they have not purchased the product/service in question yet and hence do not know about its quality.
This is, of course, VERY BAD for our business.
3. They will ask for their money back (also known as refund), if at all possible
When selling physical products, asking for a refund also means that you have to return the purchased goods to the seller/manufacturer. Services-type of goods is harder (or sometimes impossible) to return.
In the online information business, asking for a refund is VERY easy. The customer still gets to keep the product after the refund because in most cases, information products are delivered digitally. This means that customers can consume the digital product, and then ask for their money back, and the product is still in their PCs.
So what do you do if you do indeed sell digital products? Do you actually need to refund the customer’s money if he so requested?
The answer is, of course, YES!
Having sold thousands of copies of my own information products for the past 15 months, there are VERY few refund requests that I’ve gotten. I forgot the exact number (I have to dig through my files to find an exact number), but I’m pretty sure it’s less than 10.
Had I not put up the “money back guarantee” sign on my sales page, I’m VERY sure that there would be a lot less people buying my products.
What I’m saying is: the benefits that “money back guarantee” bring far outweighs its disadvantages.
You might be thinking “That’s great Welly, but what happens if a freebie seeker takes advantage of this? They can buy my digital products, and then ask for a refund. Won’t I be losing money?”
To which I’d answer: That is inevitable. In every market, you’ll find this kind of people. It’s not a matter of IF they’ll rip you off; it’s a matter of WHEN.
My advice is to FOCUS on your good, paying customers instead of worrying for the very small number of freebie seekers who refund your products.
One tip you can use is to record who refunds what, so that if a serial refunder keeps refunding your products time and time again, you can ban them from ever purchasing from you again.
Instead of exerting our efforts and time on a few bad eggs, we might as well focus on our good, paying customers and make them happy so that they want to buy from us again and again.
Conclusion
To summarize, it is a heavy price to pay if we let our customers down (not meeting their expectations). That said, it is also NOT possible to please EVERY SINGLE customer and make them happy.
The key is to cater for the majority of our customers and find out what they want, and strive very hard to please and make them happy, so that they become our lifelong customers. If they’re happy and satisfied with our products/services, there’s also a high chance that they’ll refer their friends to us.
What do you have to say about satisfying your customers? Please let me know in a comment below…
Popularity: 9% [?]
