Like other tools in your marketing collection, your website needs regular updates and maintenance, which sometimes requires taking it offline. When you’re working on the back end, your site might become buggy for front-end visitors. To prevent a poor visitor experience, you can activate maintenance mode. This will limit access to your site and display a maintenance page informing visitors about the ongoing work and providing relevant details, setting proper expectations without taking the site completely offline. Instead of using codes or complicated methods to establish a maintenance mode page, we have a simpler solution for you – use a maintenance mode plugin!
This blog will help you to set up a maintenance mode with a plugin but before that, lets know more about the necessity of maintenance mode.
Ways to Display Website Maintenance on Your Website
When your WordPress site is in maintenance mode, only administrators or people with special access can use or view it. Other visitors will see a “coming soon” page with additional details.
There are several ways to activate maintenance mode on your WordPress site:
1. Built-in Feature: WordPress automatically enables maintenance mode during plugin or theme updates, disabling it once the update is complete. However, this method is limited as it can’t be used for other purposes or customized.
2. Custom Code: You can add custom code of maintenance mode to your functions.php file or make changes to the .htaccess file on your server. These ways require technical expertise and can be risky for beginners since a single mistake could break your website.
3. Plugins: The most popular and user-friendly method is using WordPress plugins. These plugins allow you to set up and customize your maintenance mode page without any coding. Below, we’ll explore a selection of free and premium plugins that you can use to manage maintenance mode on your site.
Also Read: Maintenance Mode: How To Successfully Enable, Disable And Troubleshoot It?
Benefits of Creating a Maintenance Mode for Your Site
- Boosts Your SEO: Enhance your domain authority even before launching your site.
- Generates Buzz: Run a pre-launch campaign from a simple “under maintenance” page to build anticipation for your product.
- Grows Your Email List: Collect leads and even advance payments by starting a pre-sales campaign.
From a marketing perspective, maintenance mode is an incredibly effective way to generate traffic and leads, even if your product or service website isn’t fully ready.
Also Read: 15 website maintenance tasks you should be doing in 2023
Best Maintenance Mode Plugins for WordPress
1. WP Maintenance Mode
WP Maintenance Mode is a unique WordPress maintenance mode plugin that offers an impressive range of features for free. However, it does promote its other premium products within the WordPress dashboard.
A notable issue with WP Maintenance Mode is its compatibility with cache plugins. To avoid problems, you may need to clear your cache whenever you make site changes or temporarily disable the cache plugin.
On the positive side, this maintenance mode plugin provides features such as:
– Countdown timers
– Subscriber and contact forms
– Design customization tools
– Advanced admin access features
– A messenger bot for your maintenance mode
– GDPR compliance settings
These features make it a robust option for those looking to enhance their site’s maintenance mode capabilities.
2. SeedProd
SeedProd is the most famous WordPress maintenance mode plugin. While it offers much more than just creating maintenance mode pages, we’ll focus on why this maintenance mode plugin is ideal for this purpose.
SeedProd allows anyone to create professional, high-converting landing pages without any design or coding experience. It features a drag-and-drop visual page builder and access to over 500,000 free stock images, making it easy to add elements to your maintenance mode notice, such as:
– Custom text
– Headers
– Images
– Videos
– Opt-in forms
The plugin is lightweight, integrates with various marketing software, and is fully mobile and SEO-friendly. Popular features include:
– Countdown timers for your maintenance page
– Custom logos
– Easy integrations with email marketing services like MailChimp, AWeber, and Drip
– Built-in forms with advanced features like progress bars and payment gateway integrations
– Built-in email autoresponder
– Pre-loaded Google fonts
– One-click import of SEO-friendly page templates
– Referral tracking for maintenance mode
– Social follow and share buttons
SeedProd simplifies creating a professional maintenance mode page, enhancing both functionality and user experience.
3. Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode
Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode lets you craft a coming soon or maintenance page with a chosen background image or video. Compared to other plugins like SeedProd, Elementor, and Divi, it offers fewer features.
This simplicity is its strength. Unlike those multi-functional tools, Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode focuses solely on creating maintenance pages. Its main selling points are the versatility to set a background image or video and include a subscription form to collect email addresses.
While it may not offer the most value for money due to its limited features, it is straightforward and effective. There are no issues with caching or code conflicts, making it an excellent choice for those who need a simple, quick solution.
4. CMP
CMP is a completely free WordPress maintenance mode plugin that’s both fast and user-friendly. Despite being free, CMP offers a wide range of features, including:
– Compatibility with any WordPress theme
– Fully responsive maintenance mode designs
– Custom branding for your site
– Background images and videos for the maintenance page
– Custom CSS styling options
If you’re on a budget and need a reliable maintenance mode solution, CMP is definitely worth considering.
5. Under Construction
The Under Construction plugin is one of the few maintenance mode plugins of WordPress that permits you to schedule ‘coming soon pages’ and ‘maintenance modes’ on your site. It also offers some impressive features, including:
– Easy integration with Google Analytics
– Custom CSS for additional styling options
– Social sharing icons for your maintenance mode
– Whitelisted user roles and users
Intrigued? There’s also a lifetime license available starting at $69.
6. Slim Maintenance Mode
Slim Maintenance Mode might seem like a basic maintenance mode plugin, but it offers several features that many paid plugins don’t. You can easily activate the plugin to enable maintenance mode and deactivate it once you’re done.
Additionally, it provides:
– An alert note on your WordPress dashboard when the plugin is active
– Full compatibility with any WordPress theme
– Support for caching plugins like Cachify, WP Rocket, Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, and W3 Total Cache
– A 503 service unavailable error to prevent search engines from indexing your content
These features make Slim Maintenance Mode a surprisingly robust choice for managing maintenance on your site.
7. Supsystic Coming Soon
Supsystic provides a straightforward drag-and-drop interface for creating a custom WordPress maintenance mode page. It includes numerous pre-designed templates, allowing you to craft a beautiful, personalized coming soon page in just a few clicks.
The plugin is intelligently designed, mobile-ready, and compatible with major browsers and most WordPress themes. With its subscription form, you can easily allow new subscribers to sign up and communicate with them via email.
8. Colorlib Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode
The Colorlib Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode plugin offers a variety of features to keep engaging with your web visitors while your site is offline. It’s user-friendly, straightforward, and free of charge.
Compatible with all current WordPress themes, it provides 15 stunning templates to select from. Other features include a countdown timer, a custom CSS area, and seamless Mailchimp integration.
9. Rocket Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon Page
Rocket Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon Page is an effortless plugin designed to indicate that your site is undergoing maintenance. It enables you to begin instantly without any intricate settings to configure your maintenance page.
With four responsive themes to choose from, you can also set up a countdown timer and progress bar to provide visitors with an expectation of when your site will be live again.
10. Minimal Coming Soon
Minimal Coming Soon is a WordPress plugin designed precisely for creating minimal coming soon pages. Its key features include:
– Admin access to alter the website while the maintenance mode is active
– A custom drag-and-drop page builder
– Animated and video backgrounds
– Compatibility with all WordPress themes
– Integrations for autoresponders and emailing services
With a lifetime premium plan available, this plugin is particularly recommended for agencies.
Conclusion
You don’t have to halt website development entirely while rebuilding or updating the elements. Utilize maintenance mode plugins to collect email addresses for your list and connect with individuals interested in joining your community by showcasing your social media accounts on the page.
Why not try one of the WordPress maintenance mode plugins mentioned above? This way, you can continue marketing and expanding your website while giving it the necessary makeover.
FAQs
Do Maintenance Mode Plugins Support Multisite Installations?
Many Maintenance Mode Plugins are compatible with WordPress Multisite installations, allowing you to enable maintenance mode across multiple sites simultaneously. However, it’s essential to check the compatibility of each plugin with your specific multisite setup.
What Happens If My Website Crashes While in Maintenance Mode?
During unexpected moments when your website crashes or encounters issues in maintenance mode, most plugins provide a fail-safe mechanism to revert to the default WordPress maintenance mode page or display an error message to visitors. Additionally, you can often access your site’s backend to diagnose and resolve any issues.
Can I Collect Email Addresses with a Maintenance Mode Plugin?
Yes, many Maintenance Mode Plugins include features for collecting email addresses from visitors who land on the maintenance page. This allows website owners to stay connected with their audience and notify them when the site is back online.
