This post takes a bit of a detour from my usual SEO/social media related posts, but they’ll be back soon!

I’ve adored coffee since I was 16, but over the last few months the taste has been growing just a bit blasé to me. I found myself absorbed in the wonderful loose leaf tea blends of Teavana.com one evening, and in the months since, enjoying the taste and soothing ability of tea so much more than coffee. Since then, it’s been love! Recently, while browsing the site, I hit their 404 error page, the dreaded “concrete wall” in online user experience. This time was different, and instead of the regular old “Page Not Found” text, the following met my delighted eyes:

The text reads:

You found an error on our site, so perhaps it’s a good time to enjoy a cup of tea. We will start working to fix the problem now. If you were trying to view our homepage, it’s likely the entire site is down. However, if this wasn’t the homepage, it is probably just this page that is down.

So you can try to move forward with some of the links to the left or below or call us at 1-877-TEAVANA for immediate help. Or just type a keyword in our search box above and we’ll try diligently to find a page that works.
Not only does the text capture the soothing and somewhat witty personality of their site, but it makes me feel like I’ve just done Teavana a favor by tripping over this page, as if I’m somehow reporting the problem page to them. Plus, including a few of their most popular products on their error page keeps me wanting to browse around the site, rather than immediately bouncing and visiting one of their competitors’ sites.

In the time it takes you to enjoy a cup of their heavenly Tiki Twilight tea, you can plan out a creative 404 error page that might even attract a few quality links and get people chatting about your site. It’s time to break away from those tired old error pages, and blend something new!