Author: SparkDev

Errors are no fun. But they can be! We’re talking about the 404 Error pages on websites.

A ‘404 Page Not Found,’ or 404 error, is no cause for panic. They’re actually quite common. You know the ones we’re talking about. You type in a URL or click on a link only to see the dreaded “ERROR” splashed across the screen. But have no fear, we’re going to cover what they are, why we see them and talk about the importance of customizing your own 404 page on your website.

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Here’s a few we’ve designed for our clients:

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What You Should Know About 404 Errors

What are they and why do we see them?

A 404 error will show when your browser is asking a website to display something but the website can’t find the right page. This results in an error. Simply put, you see a 404 error when you visit a page that doesn’t exist. And that’s no good! No good for you or for your user. Because that means the user isn’t finding the info they came onto your site looking for.

What causes the 404 error?

There are a few reasons why a user might stumble upon a 404 error including:

• The server is down.
• The page moved or was deleted and wasn’t redirected.
• The page never existed.
• The user typed the URL in wrong.
• The URL is broken.

Regardless of the reason, if a user tries to visit a page that cannot be found, they’ll end up on your 404 page.

Why you need one and should it be customized?

If it’s your error page that people are landing on, customizing it is your chance to have a little fun, to share your company’s personality, and to show users that you care leaving them with a positive experience on your site. Custom 404 pages can sometimes be so user-friendly that it can be hard to tell if you’re even on one. Adding links to guide users to relevant pages (homepage, FAQ, contact form) keeps the traffic on your site flowing while reducing the bounce rate.

The short answer is YES, customize it! Having a custom 404 page with helpful links is better for user experience, it will help boost your SEO and it can also help Google remove the unwanted URLs when indexing so the page doesn’t continue to be found.

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See our 404 error page in action here!

Humans have been telling stories from the beginning of time. We use stories to maintain a sense of shared history, to assert the character of our communities, and to learn how to behave individually and as societies.

Plus, stories also save us from making all our own mistakes if someone else does it for us and cares to tell the tale.

If you’re looking to create long-term value for your community, crafting the narrative that shapes it is critical from the start, and understanding how the story can and should evolve over the lifespan of the community can be helpful in navigating your communications and community relations.

I recently joined Dan Slone, who is a lawyer, novelist and “vision wallah,” and Monaca Onstad, Community Relations Director for Lakewood Ranch, to present this framework to the Urban Land Institute Community Development Council. Enjoy!

Understatement of the year: we are living in unusual times. One of our favorite recent memes said “2020: Written by Stephen King. Directed by Quentin Tarantino.” Sounds about right.

Usually, we compensate for a sense of disorientation on this scale by bringing our focus closer to home. And while we’ve certainly all been at home, we haven’t been able to engage with our extended friends, family and neighbors the way we instinctively would have otherwise in, you know, a normal crisis.

Zoom calls, virtual concerts, online book clubs & happy hours have been a godsend for connection, but they’re still facsimiles of the real thing.

We’re starved for community, but we’re all wondering what communal life can look like at a safe distance.

For master-planned and mixed-use communities used to promoting events, amenities and restaurants, the fact that social interaction can’t be one of our key selling points for a while also presents a new marketing challenge.

Or does it?

Can we get creative and, in that, find a way to connect and inspire people?

Here are some thought-starters (and we’d love to hear your ideas!):

Demarcate gathering spaces

People will naturally be hesitant to attend an outdoor concert or performance, but perhaps not if they know no one will encroach on their space. Your landscape architect may have great ideas for how to make a pattern on your parks and squares that would give a family a certain amount of “me space” while outdoors.

Multiple Gazebos

A large park that can’t be used for group sports could offer multiple gazebos to reserve in advance. Even if they’re not all together, seeing neighbors out and about and entertaining their small groups can give a sense of life and activity back to a park.

Artistic Directionals

To share sidewalks and trails on foot, we may want to adopt the same norms we have for driving: walking on the right side. Painted metal arrows could be installed as an inexpensive option to encourage this in your communities.

Check out these artistic directionals and these.

A Plein Air

If we can’t go to museums, maybe we can bring them to us. Open-air art galleries, painting studios and other installations could be toured with safe spacing, and then perhaps a discussion could be started online.

Park Pods

We don’t know if these are called Park Pods, but they should be. Artistic spaces that are natural but also solitary could give people a sense of being able to be in public, in a private way.

The Third Place, from the Car

Drive-in movies are making a big comeback, and there’s no reason we can’t do that on the community level with large screens. Also, with sports teams looking at playing without fans in the stands, the tailgate might play a bigger role. A screen on the outside of the arena could let fans watch from the parking lot (with extra spaces between cars) and, who knows, maybe the crowd noise could get broadcast into the arena to give the players back some connection, too.

We think the most marketable communities in the near future will be those that figure out creative ways to help people share community experiences in a safe way. Does this spark any ideas for you? We’d love to hear from you!

In any market, you’ll get the most mileage from your marketing dollar by “meeting people where they are.”

And since “where people are” right now is online, it’s no surprise that digital advertising is even more important than ever as, across the globe, Google is reporting dramatic increases in web traffic.

In marketing real estate specifically, some elements have certainly had to change in the community-consumer relationship, such as emphasizing virtual tours and online appointments instead of working to book in-person tours.

But as far as consumer-driven interest goes, some surprising stats have emerged: Google reports an all-time high in the last week of April of searches in the U.S. for “houses for sale near me,” and, after a brief dip in March, a complete return in volume for search terms like “new homes” and general “real estate” terms. The chart below from Google Trends shows searches for “houses for sale near me” over the last 5 years.

While some of these searches are certainly more ‘aspirational’ than driven by an immediate move, focusing your spend on those Keywords that signal stronger intent (e.g., “buy a new home”) while also measuring success properly (e.g., targeting deep engagement with the site instead of just visits) ensures that you are in the conversation with relevant consumers at the very time that they are, in many cases, spending the highest percentage of their daily life online. It is a strong marketing move for now, but might also end up making very powerful impressions for actions taken later this year.

In Display, as long as the measurements of deep engagement are being tracked properly, the same dynamic applies: massive impression and click volume can almost be assumed, so the focus for us is on delivering the most relevant visits (conversions) to the websites at the best possible value. Google’s interface makes this simple to track and prioritize, and while the cost per conversion went up for many clients in March (because CPCs went up, given the ‘search demand’ for many Keywords), with the right optimizations it has settled down for most clients and has even started dropping to new lows for some.

In short, Paid Search and properly-tuned Display campaigns have gained as priorities, as they provide measurable success in terms of awareness and action: ad impressions at a time when it’s important to stay in the conversation, relevant clicks at a time when they are most needed for many clients, and — when coupled with Google Analytics — providing valuable data insights to help with decision-making for near-term marketing moves during a challenging period with cloudy-but-real opportunities.