Turning a Dead End Into a Shortcut: What Happens When You Turn a 404 Page Into a Landing Page

byJDenesovych

819 followers

2 days ago

Most people treat their 404 page like the junk drawer in the kitchen.
It exists, nobody looks at it, and you only notice it when something goes wrong.

A 404 simply means the page someone clicked on doesn’t exist anymore.
Maybe it was deleted. Maybe the URL changed. Maybe your visitor just made a typo.
Either way, a 404 is supposed to gently redirect the person back to where things make sense again.

That’s the traditional purpose.
Nice and simple.

But here’s where things got fun.

Should You Play Around With a 404 Page?

This is the question I asked myself earlier today.
I was working on my various sites and thinking…
Why in the world are we wasting such a perfect moment of someone’s attention?

Someone lands on your 404 page with one of two emotions:

• mild frustration
• curiosity about what went wrong

Both are opportunities.
Both are moments where you can either lose someone or give them something helpful.

So I asked GPT a simple question:

“Can I turn my 404 pages into a landing page?”

The answer?
A huge yes.
And, as usual, GPT took the idea and turned it into something way better than I originally imagined.

The Direction We Ended Up Taking

We decided to treat each of my brand sites like they deserved their own mini “404 experience”.

For example, here’s the Earthbound Tours 404 hero image we built:

A group of travellers with backpacks walking into a narrow European street, only to find a big orange DETOUR 404 sign blocking the way.

It was playful, relevant, and honestly pretty on-brand for a travel site.

Then we created an HTML block that pulled in the Earthbound brand palette, softened the styling, and introduced a clever little CTA:

• Return to homepage
or
• Grab yourself a ticket out (linking to Ticketmaster)

The whole thing felt like a small interactive moment on the site instead of an error.

Why Do This At All?

A 404 page is one of the rare places where someone will stop and actually read something because everything else disappeared.

So why not:

• reinforce your brand
• offer a helpful redirect
• lighten the mood
• slip in a soft CTA
• guide them to the next logical step
• show some personality

These tiny touches tell people you care about their journey.
Not just their clicks.

Why You Might Not Want To Do This

There are a few situations where customizing a 404 can backfire:

• If your site design is inconsistent and the 404 is the only polished page
• If your CTA feels pushy instead of helpful
• If the page loads too slow because of a giant image
• If the 404 accidentally distracts from where the user actually wanted to go
• If you try too hard to be funny and it comes off awkward

So yes, it’s a great idea.
But it should always match your brand tone and user experience.

The Part Most People Miss

This whole experiment took less than an hour for each site once the first version was built.

And honestly, it’s fun.
You get to stretch your creativity a bit, come up with something people don’t expect, and give visitors a little smile instead of a cold error message.

If you have a website, take action on this.
Your 404 page is literally sitting there right now doing absolutely nothing for you.

Your Turn

What’s your most ingenious thought of the day?

If you could turn something boring on your site into something clever or profitable, what would you tweak?

Here are a few ideas to spark things:

• Custom thank-you pages with helpful next steps
• Exit-intent messages that actually add value
• Category pages with personality instead of dry lists
• “Coming soon” pages that warm people up instead of scaring them away
• A Tools page showcasing absolutely everything you use
• A Start Here page that acts like a guided tour for new readers

And if you do build a creative 404, drop it below!
I would genuinely love to see what you come up with.

Make dead ends useful.

That’s basically the whole game in affiliate marketing anyway.