Not just an online placeholder anymore, a well-done Coming Soon page can attract interest in what actually is coming soon, can collect email addresses, offer links to your social media sites and can be useful summaries of the pertinent information you want everybody to have.
Coming Soon pages are not afterthoughts. They need to be done as well as the rest of your WordPress site.
One general rule: Simple is better when, let’s face it, you don’t have what they really want to see up on the screen. If the Coming Soon page looks too busy over nothing, or if site surfers have to work to read a lot of copy to get to the point, they’ll click away — much like they do for the rest of the Internet. Hm, imagine that.
Some Coming Soon pages offer navigation variations depending on who’s hitting the page. SeedProd, for instance, offers plugin options where visitors can be directed to the Coming Soon or Maintenance page, users can see the real site when they log in, and clients are offered a URL for optional bypass to see the progress on the site.
Some Coming Soon pages also let you offer the option of viewing the site by IP. Some offer the capability to link to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media icons, or offer Share or Like buttons.
Here are some examples to get you thinking about creative ways to do your WordPress “Coming Soon” page. There’s really no point ranking these in any kind of order, it’s personal preference based on what you need for your site, so they’re alphabetized:
Easy Pie Maintenance Mode
If you really, truly are going to be be back “soon,” you might want to just hang out a simple “Come back later, be back in a few hours” maintenance mode page. Easy Pie Maintenance Mode is a good one for that — it couldn’t convey the message any more simply or efficiently.
It’s probably not a good idea to use these “built for speed” ones longer than a day or two, you’ll start to look like you’ve got genuine tech issues. If you’re going to be away for more than 48 hours don’t use a page promising you’ll be back in “a few hours.”
Landis
Landis is definitely on the sleek, simple, basic look end of things but pulls it off well. You can customize the colors and other appearance factors, and we like the fact that it can capture email addresses. Other Coming Soon themes can as well, if you’re looking for that functionality.
Launcher
We like this one. Launcher is an eye-catching and simple theme, and has the popular feature of giving a day- hour- minute- second countdown for when they can come back and get value on the site. What’s nice is that viewers don’t need to mouse-over to get any more information, but if they do on the rocket they get unexpected graphic motion.
Launchpad by Obox
Simple, straightforward, if you want to maintain an aura of mystery about what’s coming next — but indicate that something is coming soon — this is a good one. Hasn’t been updated in a while, though. Download plugin here.
Lexiity
Lexiity is another Coming Soon theme that’s simplicity itself — and sometimes that’s best, sometimes there’s just not much to say. Prominent is the “Time to Launch” countdown from days to seconds, but there’s not a lot of space for much information. It does let you put up links to Facebook, Twitter and other icons.
Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode
Another highly-rated plugin, this one stands out mostly for its extreme customizability: Pretty much all the page features can be customized — “each and every element,” developers say, can be configured. Get it here.
Shuttr
We mention this one because we’re impressed with the fact that you can link up to 24 social media icons — no, that’s not a misprint, twenty-four. We’re not sure we can name 24 social media link options. Available at Theme Forest.
Ultimate Coming Soon Page
The name’s a bit of an oversell, but it is a fine looking, highly-rated plugin, and is very flexible. It lets you edit the page to appear of a piece with the site, with your own background image, color, font — make it look as much like what’s coming as you can. If you really want to put a lot of time and effort into your Coming Soon page, this is a good choice. Grab it here.
Got another favorite we havn’t mentioned? Let us know below.
