You just got a great idea for a new website. You bought a domain, installed WordPress, and are now eager to share your idea with the world. But… your design is still kind of a mess. You’re short on content. Or you’re just not ready to reveal all your secrets just yet. What’s there to do? Launch an unfinished website? Here’s a better way to go: use one of the awesome coming soon WordPress plugins from our list to create a placeholder page and start building an early following.
The main purpose of a coming soon page is to generate buzz about your site, so you want one that looks professional and encourages visitors to stay in touch. To give you a helping hand, we reviewed the best coming soon WordPress plugins on the market – both free and premium. Take a look.
WP Maintenance Mode
Overview
If you’re after excellent results with minimal setup and no investment, this plugin does the trick. Perfect for a coming soon or maintenance page, the plugin allows you to fully customize the splash page – so you can change fonts, backgrounds, and colors. It also lets you add a timer to the placeholder page, a contact form to encourage people to subscribe, and social media icons. It’s simple, yet very effective. Add in the fact that’s free and you’ve got yourself pretty sweet deal. Definitely worth a spot on our best coming soon WordPress plugins list.
How it works
Once installed, go to Settings, WP Maintenance, and you will notice the menu has three sections: General, Design, and Modules. The General section is for settings – like change the status of the plugin, set user level restrictions, and so on. The Design section allows you to customize the way the splash page will look (title, text, background) while the Modules tab enables you to add a countdown timer, a subscription field, social links, and a contact form.
Features
- Fully customizable
- User-friendly setup – perfect for WordPress beginners
- Free
- Works with WordPress Multisite installs
- Responsive design
- Works with any WordPress theme
Easy Coming Soon
Overview
This plugin comes in two versions: free and pro. While you can still build a decent-looking landing page for your site using only the basic functionalities included in the free version, upgrading will give you access to a plethora of features meant to help you keep readers engaged. From powerful design settings to email marketing & data capture, Easy Coming Soon doesn’t shy away from offering you all the tools needed to build a strong following prior to launch.
How it works
Once installed, you will find a new menu in your WordPress admin – Easy Coming Soon. Access it and you’ll notice two tabs – General and Design. The General section allows you to change the status of the plugin, as well as add a title, background image, description, Google Analytics, and social links. From the Design tab you can adjust fonts and colors. Other settings tabs are exclusive to the paid version.
Features
- Responsive
- Customizable
- Easy setup
- Works with any WordPress Theme
- Add Google Analytics Tracking
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Pro version:
- Translation Ready Support
- Multiple Page & Design Templates
- MailChimp Support
- Progress Bar
- Background Image SlideShow
- YouTube video background
Ultimate Coming Soon Page
Overview
Similar to the previous coming soon WordPress plugin, Ultimate Coming Soon Page comes in two versions: free and pro. Simple and flexible, the plugin enables you to build a solid coming soon/maintenance page even if you’re not willing to make an investment. After all, you can make a great first impression by only using a beautiful background, catchy content, and by offering visitors the ability to stay in touch. If you’re after something splashier, the pro version comes with a real-time page builder, image/slideshow/video backgrounds, animations/effects, as well as several marketing tools to help you grow a following in a jiffy. There’s no wonder this is one of the best coming soon WordPress plugins out there.
How it works
Once the plugin is installed, go to Settings, Coming Soon. Here, you will stumble upon a two tab panel: Settings and Live Preview. The Settings section allows you to adjust the status of the page, set a background, insert text content, and select an email list to build using FeedBurner. Scroll down and you will see the Style area, where you can tweak design elements.
Features:
- Fully customizable
- Works with any WordPress theme
- Easy setup
- Collect Emails with FeedBurner
- MultiSite/BuddyPress support
- Translation ready
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Pro version:
- Mobile ready responsive design and layout
- Custom look & feel with no coding
- MailChimp, AWeber, Get Response, Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor integration
- Built-in referral system
- Progress bar
- Social Profiles & Social Sharing Buttons
Minimal Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode
Overview
A free plugin for when you want to keep things simple and straightforward. It’s flexible and allows you to modify almost every aspect of your coming soon/ maintenance page without too much hassle. If you’re not looking for flashy animations, progress bars, or opulent timers, this might just be the perfect pick for you. Moreover, it comes with a suite of advanced features that will come in handy – like MailChimp integration and Analytics support.
How it works
Once installed, go to Settings, Maintenance Mode and you’ll find a menu with several tabs – basic, email, design, form, advanced, support, and about. You can tweak design elements in the design section, customize the content in the basic section, configure your MailChimp account API in the email section, and add custom HTML & CSS in the advanced tab. Not too shabby.
Features:
- Fully-customizable
- Easy setup
- Free
- Works with any WordPress theme
- Collect emails with MailChimp
- Track visitors with support for Analytics
- Translation ready
EZP Coming Soon Page
Overview
Another popular and responsive plugin that enables you to create beautiful coming soon pages with minimal effort. You can add a countdown timer and social accounts to your page, use built-in backgrounds for a professional look, and export email addresses gathered by EZP Coming Soon Page to CSV for compatibility with MailChimp, AWeber, and other major email providers. It also has an elite version that comes with tons of features that make customization easy.
How it works
Once installed, you can access the plugin features via a new menu in your WordPress admin. The menu has three tabs – Display, Content, and Preview. The Display section allows you to tweak colors, backgrounds, add your logo, or add custom CSS. The content and preview sections are pretty self-explanatory.
Features:
- Highly customizable
- Fully responsive
- Easily translatable
- Compatible with MailChimp, AWeber and other major email providers
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Elite version:
- Fullscreen video
- Extra social icons
- Bonus backgrounds
- Auto-sync your subscriber list to MailChimp
What makes these coming soon WordPress plugins great?
There are several reasons a website owner can choose to promote their website before they have all their ducks in a row. You can generate buzz, encourage people to sign up for your newsletter/follow you on social media, or, in case you’re selling something, share a sneak preview of what’s to come in order to get people to pre-order your product. Whatever your reasons may be, a reliable coming soon WordPress plugin will come in handy. In just a few clicks, you’ll have a temporary homepage you can tweak to fit your needs and keep visitors interested enough to come back once your website is up and running.
Tip: For more pre-launch strategies, take a look at this great article from Gleam: 15 Pre-launch Growth Hacking Strategies For Startups.
Coming soon WordPress plugins are also useful when you’re trying to give your site a facelift and have some behind-the-scenes maintenance scheduled. Instead of letting visitors hit an error page or blank screen, use one of the plugins on this list to create a beautifully designed placeholder page. This way, you can let fans know what’s going on and when your website will be back online.
Why did we choose to promote the plugins above? It’s simple: versatility, functionality, and ease of use. While you can also install a coming soon theme to welcome your visitors (and there are some great ones out there), plugins are more user-friendly and take less time to customize.
Plus, a good plugin enables you to build an eye-grabbing page that will instantly attract attention and generate leads. For this to happen, however, you want your placeholder page to include all the info necessary to turn new visitors into fans. In other words, the page must match your branding and help capture leads. You can feature a timer letting folks know when you’ll be online, but you should also work on integrating the following elements into the page’s design:
- a form prominently displayed on your page to encourage visitors to sign up for your newsletter or launch notifications
- links to your social profiles
- sharing buttons that enable visitors to share news of your site socially
Just because your site is under construction doesn’t mean it can’t look great. Use one of the coming soon WordPress plugins above to create a placeholder page that builds hype and helps you grow a solid fan base prior to launch. Pretty cool, right? For more
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Great list I must say. :) However, you could also try our this new one. Its called Nifty Coming soon and under construction and its free, see here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/nifty-coming-soon-and-under-construction-page/