So you’ve had a great idea for a product. You’ve purchased an appropriate domain, installed WordPress and now you want to build the site. That however, will take time. And while you’re working you’d rather not have the world stumbling across a half-finished project and (at worst) dismissing it before you even get things off the ground. This is one clear example of when you need a Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon Page.

Whether you are launching a new website, making some much needed edits to an existing one, or simply performing a bit of routine maintenance–these are times when being able to create an elegant and effective maintenance mode or coming soon page can come in real handy. If you happen to be in need of such a page, then you’re going to love today’s post. I’m going show you five different WordPress tools for accomplishing just that.

1. WP Maintenance Mode

First up, though these tools are in no particular order, is WP Maintenance Mode. This free plugin is a bit unique in that it offers its full range of functionality–which is both simple, yet highly effective–at the free level. Of course that’s not to suggest that the other plugins–those that do have premium versions–do not also offer a high quality experience at the free level, it’s nevertheless nice knowing that you’re getting the full product without needing to upgrade.

So what is the full product in this case?

It’s a simple plugin that adds a splash-style page to your website that lets your visitors know you are either in maintenance mode or you have a launch of some kind coming up. Once installed it has three sections to its menu (which is tucked under Settings > WP Maintenance): General, Design, and Modules.

Under the General tab you are able to change the status of the plugin, bypass search bots, set user level restrictions, and exclude pages you do not want to re-direct to the new splash page.

On the design tab the options are seemingly sparse, but in reality it’s just a well designed backend. You have a title space, heading space, and text/html space. Then you can set the background. Now this is the section I really like because with just one simple drop-down you can choose to set a color, upload a new image, or choose from a set of pre-loaded high quality background images; making it really easy to achieve an elegant look and feel.

 

Thirdly, we have the modules tab. Here you are able to a include a countdown timer, a subscription field, social links, and a contact form. Once all of your settings are configured, all you have to do is click Save Settings and view your new Maintenance or Coming Soon page.

As you can see, the results look great and the setup is minimal.

WP Maintenance Mode Plugin: Info & Download

2. Easy Coming Soon

Next up we have the Easy Coming Soon plugin. Once installed you will notice a new menu in your WordPress admin called, aptly enough, Easy Coming Soon. Within this new menu you will find a well designed, simple set of tabs for configuring the plugin’s settings.

As with our previous plugin, the first tab is titled General. Under this tab you can change the Maintenance/Coming Soon status, add a background image, main content, google analytics and social links.

The next settings tab is called Design. In this tab you are able to adjust the background color, various fonts, and even add some visual noise to the background you’ve chosen.

All of the other settings tabs are exclusive to the paid version. However, as you can see below, you can still manage to create a decent looking Maintenance or Coming Soon page for any screen size with the free version of this plugin.

Easy Coming Soon Plugin: Info & Download

3. Ultimate Coming Soon Page

Our third and final plugin for creating Maintenance Mode and/or Coming Soon Pages is the Ultimate Coming Soon Page plugin by SeedProd. This plugin, while perhaps as robust and versatile as you can get in its premium version is just as stripped down as the other plugins above in its free version. That said though, and as you’ve seen in the examples above, you don’t need a lot of crazy features to get a nice Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon page. Is the other stuff nice? Of course! But what you really need is a beautiful background, simply stated content, and the ability to connect with your visitors via email and/or social. All of which can be done with the Ultimate Coming Soon Page plugin.

When you install this plugin, like the first one we looked at, its settings are tucked in under Settings > Coming Soon. Once navigated to you have a simple two tab panel: Settings and Live Preview. The Live Preview is pretty self explanatory so I’ll just walk you through the settings.

Under the settings tab you’re able to adjust the status (on/off) of the page you’re building, set a background, insert text content, and select an email list to build via feedburner. Under the top settings box you will find the style section. Here you are able to tweak the design elements like background, noise, image dimensions, font color, etc.

When it’s all said and done, this plugin is another solid option for creating these types of pages, as the example below demonstrates.

Ultimate Coming Soon Page Plugin by SeedProd: Info & Download

4. Anticipate

Finally we come to the first premium plugin: Anticipate. Which, really, is only a half-true statement. It comes as part of the Elegant Themes membership and so yes, it does “cost” to get it, but its highly unlikely that you would get the ET membership just for this plugin. It’s more like a freebie for members only.

In any case, the Anticipate plugin is designed to provide you with a means of displaying a Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon page to non-members of your site so that you can work on it in the background. It has an extremely simple settings panel under Settings > ET Anticipate Plugin.

As you can see you are able to insert a logo, set a date for launch, set a percentage of project/site completion, and more. For any Elegant Theme member not running Divi, the Anticipate plugin is a great “free” tool that can serve all your Coming Soon Page needs.

Anticipate: Info & Purchase

5. Divi Blank Page & Page Builder

For those of you who are running Divi, it comes with it’s own page template and module settings that provide you with all the tools necessary to create a killer Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon Page for your WordPress website. All you have to do is create a new page with the blank page template selected.

Next, using the Divi Page Builder, select one of the following page layout option: Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon.

Depending on which one you select you’ll have something that looks like the following two images to begin working with. Just like on any pagebuilder page you can add or subtract any of the Divi design modules you want until you’ve achieved the perfect page.

Perhaps the one drawback to using Divi to build your Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon page, instead of one of the above, is that it does not redirect every page to your new splash page. Which means if someone were to go directly to a subdomain of your site they would still see that page. In all things design though, Divi is a great choice.

Divi: Info & Purchase

In Conclusion

Any of the five tools I’ve gone over today will do a good job for you when it comes to quickly and easily creating a great looking Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon page. If you’re not an Elegant Themes Member then my personal suggestion would be to go with WP Maintenance Mode. Out of all the first three plugins it somehow struck the best balance between simplicity and versatility. It’s a great free plugin.

On the other hand, if you are an Elegant Themes Member then I’d go with either Anticipate or Divi. Obviously, if you’re already running Divi then it makes sense for you to just use it for you Maintenance Mode or Coming Soon page. However, you may want a more “complete” tool that goes beyond a splash-page home page; something that redirects everything to one page while you work on the rest of your site. In that case, and for anyone not running Divi in the first place, I’d recommend using Anticipate.

But that’s just my take on it! Have you used any of these plugins yourself? What did you think of them? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.

Article thumbnail image by Tarchyshnik Andrei / shutterstock.com

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