Creating a website takes time. Even when your website is finished and ready to be accessible publicly, there are still times when you may want to shut it down for a moment or even days to prepare new updates.
This may be the case when you launch a new product or want to refresh the website with a new theme, layout and look. However, you probably also want to show some information to let your users know what’s going on and that your website will be back up and running soon.
A “Coming Soon” page or maintenance mode is a good way to inform them that you’ll be back shortly.
What is a “Coming Soon” page?
Coming Soon pages are usually used when you are working on a new project. For example, if you are adding new features to your existing website, you can use a Coming Soon page to inform your visitors about your situation.
As mentioned above, a Coming Soon page is the ideal way to let your visitors know that there will be something new and exciting here. It also gives your website a “200” HTTP status and allows your website to be indexed by search engines while you are still working on your site or page.
Plus, a Coming Soon page creates a better user experience and a good impression of your brand than a broken website.
What is maintenance mode?
Maintenance mode is a status that you use to inform your visitors that your website – or part of it – is currently undergoing short-term maintenance.
By default, WordPress creates a notification page that informs your visitors that your website is undergoing maintenance. However, this is just a simple page with the text “Temporarily unavailable due to planned maintenance. Check back in a minute”.
This can mean a poor user experience for your visitors and leave a bad impression on your potential customers. Ideally, you can improve this notice by creating a more interactive page to inform users of this inconvenience.
If you’re making major changes that require significant time, your visitors may not be able to access your website. In these cases, you should use maintenance mode to increase user-friendliness.
This way only logged-in users such as editors and authors can see your website during the construction phase. Visitors or even customers, on the other hand, will see the “Coming Soon” page or the “Maintenance Mode” page, depending on which mode you activate.
Creating a “Coming Soon” page or a Maintenance mode using plugins
Both modes are essential for your website, and each of them serves specific purposes. Once you’ve decided on the most suitable mode, let’s take a look at how you can create a Coming Soon page and a Maintenance Mode quickly and easily.
The best way is to use a WordPress plugin. WordPress offers thousands of options to help users reduce the hassle of adding additional features. Which WordPress plugins have been widely used recently and are considered trustworthy by other users?
Let’s start by finding suitable plugins for creating a Coming Soon page and Maintenance Mode. The following 4 plugins are widely used and currently used by many users due to their convenience and usefulness.
Minimal Coming Soon
This plugin allows you to install a Coming Soon page and a Maintenance Mode Page quickly and easily, whilst it can also be used as a landing page or launch page for your website. It will work with all WordPress themes and plugins, and it also easily connects to the MailChimp API and is fully GDPR compliant.
With the Pro version, customers can explore over 120 themes, one million premium images, more Instagram filters and content animations. SEO preview and analysis tools are also included in the Pro version.
CMP – Upcoming page & maintenance mode
CMP is a free Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode plugin that any WordPress user can easily find. The CMP plugin is compatible with any device and any WordPress theme. If you want to display your social media icons for visitors to take a look at while they wait for the website to be ready again, CMP can also do this.
Each user has access to more than 20 themes, with new themes being published every 1-2 months. This plugin will set a search engine response code for you. There are other advanced features like redirect mode to switch your website to another website, or subscribe feature protected by Google ReCAPTCHA integration, and so on.
Site Offline or Coming Soon or Maintenance Mode
This plugin is easy to set up and manage. It provides you with a ready-made template with a countdown timer. Like other plugins, it has a responsive design, and you can access unlimited colors. It also offers a range of features such as Css3 animations, live preview option, logo customization and so on.
If you buy the pro version, there are more than 31 specific features like full SEO control, auto-launch, social profile drag and drop, Mad-Mimi & Mailchimp newsletter integrated.
Nifty Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode Page
Nifty is a simple plugin to help you create a fantastic Coming Soon page or for maintenance mode. You can change the text part on the Coming Soon page, create the countdown timer, create a subscription and much more.
With this plugin, you can set up a background slider with overlay pattern and opacity. You can enable or deactivate any section of the page for free and select Google Fonts like premium features.
Create a Coming Soon/Maintenance Page with Password Protection Using PPWP
If your website is still under construction or being updated, it’s a good idea to make your website private. Password Protect WordPress Pro (PPWP Pro) allows you to password protect the entire website and exclude certain pages or posts for different purposes.
It allows you to create an entry page or a welcome page to inform users and give them a quick overview of your website’s business. At the same time, the rest of your website is protected via password. Users will only see the password form that spans the entire page, nothing more and nothing less.
In addition, the plugin also allows you to password protect every single page, post, custom post type and WooCommerce category. If you want to restrict access to certain content based on user roles, there are features available for you to set up. It works like a double protection for your website, you just need to prepare the content and leave the protection job for PPWP Pro.
Conclusion
Creating a Coming Soon page and displaying a Under Maintenance page are both effective ways to let users know your website currently isn’t active. We’ve looked at some popular plugins among WordPress users above to help you create a Coming Soon page or for Maintenance mode, and you can use Password Protect WordPress Pro if you want to lock your content behind a password.
