Recent­ly, a read­er asked us if there is a dif­fer­ence between com­ing soon mode and main­te­nance mode? 

The answer is: Yes. They are both used for dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es and search engines treat com­ing soon mode dif­fer­ent­ly from main­te­nance mode.

In this arti­cle, we’ll explain the dif­fer­ence between com­ing soon vs main­te­nance mode, so you can choose the best option for your needs.

What is Coming Soon Mode vs. Maintenance Mode, and Why Does It Matter?

Com­ing soon mode is used when your web­site has not yet been launched. Main­te­nance mode is used when your web­site is tem­porar­i­ly offline for maintenance.

It’s easy to get these 2 modes con­fused. Sev­er­al Word­Press plu­g­ins such as SeedProd’s Com­ing Soon and Main­te­nance Mode Plu­g­in let you put your site into either com­ing soon mode or main­te­nance mode. You may not be sure about the difference. 

It’s extreme­ly impor­tant to use each mode cor­rect­ly. Because if you choose the wrong option, then it can harm your Word­Press site’s SEO rankings.

When to Use a Coming Soon Page

You should use a com­ing soon page after you have reg­is­tered a domain name, but before you have fin­ished cre­at­ing your website.

A com­ing soon page lets you gath­er inter­est on your site before you launch it. Plus, it lets Google start send­ing you visitors.

It’s best prac­tice to have an email newslet­ter form on your com­ing soon page. This allows peo­ple to sign up and get an email when your site goes live.

Seed­Prod lets you cre­ate great-look­ing com­ing soon pages with just a few clicks. Let’s take a look at how to cre­ate a com­ing soon page like this:

How to Create a Coming Soon Page

To cre­ate a com­ing soon page, you first need to install and acti­vate the Seed­Prod plu­g­in. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a Word­Press plu­g­in.

We’re using the Pro ver­sion for our tuto­r­i­al, but you can also use the free ver­sion of Seed­Prod.

Upon acti­va­tion, you should be prompt­ed for your license key. You will find this in your account area on the Seed­Prod web­site. Sim­ply enter it on your Word­Press site and click the ‘Check License’ button:

After that, go to the Set­tings » Com­ing Soon page and click the ‘Edit Com­ing Soon/Maintenance Page’ button:

Then, sim­ply pick a tem­plate for your com­ing soon page. There are over 50 dif­fer­ent com­ing soon tem­plates ones to choose from:

You will now be tak­en into SeedProd’s com­ing soon page edi­tor. Go ahead and change any­thing you want using the tabs in the left-hand sidebar.

For instance, you can click on the Count­down tab to enable a timer. You will need to spec­i­fy an end date for the timer:

If you would like to inte­grate your com­ing soon form with your email mar­ket­ing ser­vice, then sim­ply click on the ‘Email Form Set­tings’ tab. Next, select your email mar­ket­ing ser­vice from the ‘Save Sub­scribers To’ dropdown:

You then need to fol­low the on-screen instruc­tions to con­nect your com­ing soon page with your email list.

Go ahead and make any oth­er changes you want. Once you’re hap­py with your com­ing soon page, click the ‘Save’ but­ton at the top of the screen. Next, click the ‘Back to Set­tings’ link:

Now, sim­ply click the ‘Enable Com­ing Soon Mode’ but­ton then the ‘Save All Changes’ button.

Your com­ing soon page is now live. To view it, log out of your web­site and vis­it any page:

When to Use Maintenance Mode

You should use main­te­nance mode if you need to briefly take your site offline for changes or updates. 

For instance, you might want to use main­te­nance mode while chang­ing Word­Press themes. This ensures that your site still func­tions cor­rect­ly and looks good with the new theme.

Anoth­er good time to use main­te­nance mode is if you’re adding an online store to your site. You can leave your web­site online but put your store into main­te­nance mode.

Main­te­nance mode lets search engines know that your site is cur­rent­ly down. It does this by return­ing the head­er code 503. That way, your site’s SEO won’t be affect­ed by the downtime.

It’s good prac­tice to let users know that your site will be back soon, too. You can do this by putting a mes­sage on your main­te­nance page. You might want to add an email form so they can get an email alert once your site is back up. 

Tip: When you update plu­g­ins, themes, or core Word­Press, your site will auto­mat­i­cal­ly go into main­te­nance mode for a few sec­onds. If your site gets stuck in this mode, we have instruc­tions on fix­ing the Word­Press main­te­nance mode error.

How to Put Your Site in Maintenance Mode

To put your site in main­te­nance mode, first install and acti­vate the Seed­Prod plugin.

Next, fol­low the instruc­tions above for cre­at­ing a com­ing soon page above to cre­ate your main­te­nance mode page. 

When you are ready to put your site into main­te­nance mode, sim­ply go to the Set­tings » Com­ing Soon Pro page in your Word­Press admin. Then, select the ‘Enable Main­te­nance Mode’ option and click the ‘Save All Changes’ button. 

Remem­ber, main­te­nance mode should only be used when your site is down for main­te­nance. If you have not yet launched your site, use com­ing soon mode instead.

We hope this arti­cle helped you under­stand how to choose com­ing soon vs main­te­nance mode. You may also want to check out our guide on the must have Word­Press plu­g­ins for your web­site and our guide on how to install Google Ana­lyt­ics in Word­Press.

If you liked this arti­cle, then please sub­scribe to our YouTube Chan­nel for Word­Press video tuto­ri­als. You can also find us on Twit­ter and Face­book.

The post Com­ing Soon vs Main­te­nance Mode: What’s the Dif­fer­ence (Explained) appeared first on WPBe­gin­ner.