Are you looking to create a “Coming Soon” page for future content and/or products? If so, you’ve come to the right place. Some say that “Coming Soon” pages are only for big businesses, but this is highly incorrect. All types of businesses/websites can benefit from having a well-designed “Coming Soon” page and I’ll show you how and what you need to set them up properly.
Of course, you’ll need a powerful tool (WordPress plugin) to enable advanced features, which will make your job a lot easier and less time-consuming. You can use a WordPress plugin to create stylish “Coming Soon” pages to keep your audience up-to-date with your products/content by displaying notifications and much more on your pages.
Plugins can separate the maintenance aspect of your website and the content that you want your visitors to see. They allow you to create “Coming Soon” pages, improve your website’s overall design, and inform your visitors of its progress. By following my advice, you’ll improve SER, SEO, generate more conversions, and attract more organic traffic. I highly recommend you maintain your site and create “Coming Soon” pages so that search engines can evaluate your site better, which allows them to position your site and its content higher up the ladder. This will also assure a better user experience and will lower your bounce rate. If you don’t maintain your site properly, your SER and SEO will suffer immensely, which will cause your traffic numbers to drop and it will eventually cause you numerous (avoidable) problems.
For example, let’s say you want to redesign your site or simply promote a future product. It can take you several weeks to build a page the way you want, so it is crucial to let search engines and visitors know that the site/page is going under maintenance or that it is coming soon.
Keep Your Visitors Up-to-Date
“Coming Soon” & “Maintenance Mode” pages are quite useful as they allow you to show your progress and promote future products and content in general. Your visitors want to know more about your site/business and this is a good chance to attract more traffic by providing them with useful information. If you fail to do so, you’ll lose traffic and the user experience will suffer. They also make it easier to connect with your audience on a deeper level, which builds mutual trust. By keeping your visitors up-to-date, there is a higher chance of them coming back for more content/products.
Visitors can find out more information about content/products that they are interested in and can get a better grasp of your brand and its offerings.
Use notifications to:
Feature frequent updates about the website’s overall and future progress
Show the main goals and features
Build hype for your products/content
Inform visitors about the launch date(s) (countdown timers)
Collect emails for newsletters.
You should:
- Stick to your niche and do your research first.
- Skip long introductions and be precise.
- Try out different colors, fonts, designs, and see which works best for you.
- Ask visitors for their opinion and advice.
You shouldn’t:
- Beat around the bush.
- Use complicated phrases and words.
- Leave your pages unattended for too long.
Make sure to provide all of the needed information creatively. It can be hard to attract attention, so try using colors and video content to grab visitor’s attention more easily but don’t write long essays. Emphasize important features and use countdown timers and/or launch date(s) to build hype, which can greatly influence people’s actions.
Generate Additional Organic Traffic with Subscription Forms
You can create unique subscription forms that incentivize visitors to subscribe to your newsletters by simply entering their e-mail addresses. This allows you to promote your content/products and send offers (discounts) directly to their inboxes. Most importantly, this has been proven to attract loads of conversions and to be a good ROI. If you add email marketing into the mix, you’ll have no trouble with maximizing your profits. Show your audience that you care and send them personalized emails to generate more traffic.
Subscription forms should:
Incentivize users to want to know more about your content/products
Be simple and grab attention easily
Show that you care, which builds trust
Make it easy for you to collect emails and grow your contacts
Use subscription forms to collect user information (email) and grow your contacts list. However, you must make sure to explain to them what they are signing up for. You can also insert a supportive message to the subscription form that says – “We will not share your information” to show trust.
Ask them for their first and last names, so that you can send them automated (personalized) emails if you’ve enabled such features. Send them a “thank you” email for subscribing to your newsletters.
Once you’ve grown your contacts list, you can send them promo emails with calls to action (CTA) and start generating more conversions. You can offer them custom membership plans, discounts, coupons, trial versions, and let them enter giveaways.
Please don’t spam their inboxes by sending too many (frequent) emails or they will start unsubscribing and you’ll start losing traffic.
Set a Countdown Timer to Build Suspense
Countdown timers are quite useful and can easily build suspense. Research has shown that once people have a deadline, they are more eager to commit to it. Let visitors know when your content/product will become available or when the sale is over.
Make sure to honor the deadlines and check that the timer is properly set up. You don’t want to break trust and appear unprofessional.
Make Your Logo (Brand) Stand Out
Place your logo somewhere visible and try to make it stand out as it allows you to grow your brand’s reputation and makes it easy to see and memorize.
Introducing your logo design can help you with branding and you want it to be the first thing your visitors see (think of) when they hear your name. Try placing your logo over a creative background to emphasize it.
Let Them Know What’s Coming
Let visitors know exactly what you’re offering by posting creative (catchy) descriptions that explain your content, products, or services that are coming soon.
“Coming Soon” and “ The Site is Under Construction” are not the only descriptions that you can use. Try using “Big Opportunity is Coming to Your Door” or “Come Back Soon”. You can also ask direct questions like “Can You Handle the Truth?”, “Can You Do This?”, and so on.
Encourage visitors to return to your site by asking them to subscribe so that you can send them discounts and updates.
Insert Video Content to Grab More Attention
If you’re having a sale, targeting specific content or products with personalized ads, or you simply want to make it more interesting, add video content that shows your content or product in a good light. If your visitors like the video, they’ll share it with their contacts and you’ll get more recognition.
Use Social Networks to Promote Your Pages
Include contact data and CTA social buttons to let people share your content, products, and pages with their friends and colleagues. By adding social icons, you can drive more traffic to your desired locations.
Promote your work on your social profiles (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and get more recognition, as well as reach a wider audience.
Be ready to answer messages and make sure to be polite and friendly. Use this opportunity to let people know more about your content/product. Share your links with them and start getting more traffic.
Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode
This powerful WordPress plugin allows you to build “Coming Soon” or “Maintenance Mode” pages that are highly customizable and let you stand out from the crowd. It can save you a lot of time and effort as the plugin includes various (preinstalled) features and themes. Build stunning pages faster and easier with the help of this WordPress plugin.
Features
1 Million+ Free Images – free HD images + Instagram filters
120+ Remarkable Themes – fully customizable
Best-in-class SEO Setup – rank higher in SER with built-in tests
Easy Access for Clients – Secret Access Link feature allows clients to see their site while the work is still in progress.
SEO Snippet Preview –a real-time preview of how the site will appear in search engine results (Google)
SEO Analysis – more than 20 tests on different SEO aspects with advice
Google Analytics Tracking ID – see your site’s stats and track it with Google Analytics
Themes – Preview and activate themes easily.
Design – Layout
The drag & drop builder has 10 fully customizable modules and is much easier to use when compared to other WordPress builders. You can add transparent background to the content section, position the content in 4 different positions, and insert spacing between the modules. There are 47 content intro animations to choose from.
Design – Background
You can use a static image background, an animated video background from their 400,000+ images gallery, or simply use your own. The background image is displayed in its original size, so make sure to resize images for them to cover the whole screen. Looking to stylize background images? Choose from 27 filters and 9 predefined positions. If you want, you can set any background color instead of images. Grab more attention by adding YouTube videos that will be played, muted, and looped.
Design – Logo
Your company’s logo is highly important for brand marketing and can be used for SEO purposes. Make sure that your logo is visible by positioning it somewhere noticeable. Its width and height are calculated automatically, making logo easy to resize.
Design – Video
Insert video content via YouTube, Vimeo, or from other sources. Enable “autoplay videos” on page load with the ability to mute the audio.
Design – Subscribe Form
Clever subscription forms with various features and designs that include “subscribe button text”, “show name field”, “success and error message”, customizable size, colors, and style.
Conclusion
Modernize your site with clever “Coming Soon” or “Maintenance Mode” pages with the help of a proper plugin. Start ranking higher in SERP, generating more organic traffic, collecting emails, and generating subscriptions. More conversions equal more profits but it does come at a cost as you must maintain all of your pages and its content, as well as include SEO strategies. By properly maintaining your site, search engines (Google) can evaluate your website more efficiently and rank it higher in SERP.
Hazel Raoult is the Marketing Manager at PRmention, a digital PR agency for SaaS and Tech Businesses.