Free WordPress Plugins for Coming Soon Pages

Did you know that it’s possible to optimize a WordPress site even before it launches? Sometimes there’s a time lag between the setup of web hosting and the completed site. If you don’t do anything, visitors will only see a generic message from your web host. This doesn’t really help you, as it’s mainly an ad for the web hosting company. There are, however, WordPress plugins that allow you to leverage such traffic.

Why you should make use of pre-launch traffic

Many website owners and online marketers have multiple projects going on. They may purchase domains with plans to create elaborate WordPress sites. For various reasons, however, these projects can be delayed. Sometimes many months may go by before you get around to actually building your site. Yet you may still be getting traffic. For the most part, however, anyone who lands on such pages will see that there’s no website and leave without giving it a second thought!

If you’ve purchased a domain with any age, or that contains any popular keywords, there’s a good chance that you will get some visitors. Wouldn’t it be better to get some benefit from this traffic rather than just having it go to waste? After all, it’s not likely that many people will remember to return to your site later to see if you built it.

Another possible scenario is when owners of functioning WordPress sites must shut their site down for maintenance or to make some changes. In this case, you may already be getting substantial traffic, so it’s even worse if visitors think your site is non-existent or extinct.

That’s why some innovative plugins can be so useful. Let’s look at some of the best of these. Keep in mind that plugins can be installed in a few clicks, so it’s no trouble to start using them even if you’re not ready to build your site.

• Indot Under

  

  This plugin does something very simple – it places a counter on your landing page that tells visitors exactly when the site will be launching or when it will be back up.

  This plugin also has SEO friendly features that helps your upcoming site rank in the search engines.

  

  The only limitation of Indot Under is that you have to be on a precise schedule and let people know when the site will be up. This can be very useful for high profile launches and membership sites and can even add to the hype and anticipation people feel when they see how many days, hours and minutes it will be till your launch.

• Easy Coming Soon

  

  This is a good plugin for anyone who wants a simple yet customized “coming soon” page for their upcoming WordPress site. This plugin also allows you to collect email addresses from visitors and lets them connect with you on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You can customize the look of your page with different colors, fonts and background images. You can even add Google Analytics to your page to track traffic.

  Easy Coming Soon comes in a basic and Pro version. The Pro version features mobile ready responsive design to make the page accessible to smartphone and tablet users. It also gives you more design templates and integrates with services such as MailChimp and FeedBurner.

  The Pro version costs $39, which includes usage on unlimited websites. You can of course try the basic version (which is free) and upgrade if you want more features.

• Coming Soon Page & Maintenance Mode by SeedProd

  

  This is a straight forward plugin and it does the job it is intended to. You can use this plugin to easily create a Coming Soon Page or a Maintenance Mode Page. You can then work on your site in private while visitors see a “Coming Soon” or “Maintenance Mode” page.

  Benefits, Features and Options:

  • Works with any WordPress Theme
  • Responsive
  • Customize the Look and Feel
  • Easily add Custom CSS and HTML
  • Uses HTML5 & CSS3
  • Translation Ready, i18n Support
  • Multisite Support
  • BuddyPress Support
  • Uses WordPress Best Practices

• Ultimate Coming Soon Page

  

  Update: This plugin was closed on May 13, 2018 and is no longer available for download.

  This plugin is another good choice for setting up a Coming Soon page for your WordPress site. It works with any WordPress theme and has customizable images, logos, fonts and colors. This plugin allows you to collect emails with FeedBurner and is also integrated with Google Fonts. It works so that only visitors will see the Coming Soon page, which allows you or others on your team to work on the site in the meantime.

  Ultimate Coming Soon Page has a free and Pro version. The Pro version, in addition to all of the basic features, optimizes your page with the search engines with meta tags and has mobile ready responsive design. With this version you can integrate the page with email services such as Get Response, AWeber, MailChimp and Constant Contact.

  The personal license for the Pro version is $29 and the developer license is $49.

Conclusion

The above are a few good solutions for putting up an optimized Coming Soon page.

This can make a big difference if you have a launch coming up or if you have a site that you are temporarily taking offline while you work on it.

These plugins do several key things. They give visitors a customized page that tells them about your plans. This is preferable to the typical “This page does not exist” or “Site under construction” along with your web host’s logo and information on how people can get hosting with them. The latter ends up diverting traffic to the web host’s site.

These plugins also give you the ability to leverage your traffic by collecting email addresses or referring them to your social media pages. This is extremely valuable, and it gives you the chance to gain new leads that you would otherwise have lost forever. There’s no reason you have to let traffic coming from your incomplete WordPress projects go to waste. These plugins allow you to get a head start on benefiting from your WordPress site, even before it’s built!