How to create a Coming Soon page for WordPress
Adding a Coming Soon! page to WordPress is surprisingly easy for website designers of all levels, there are a few ways to do it of course but here are two extremely simple and straight forward ways to ensure your WordPress website has a proper greeting page.
Theme Switcher Reloaded
A super cool, extremely easy way to create a Coming Soon! page for WordPress is to install the Theme Switcher Reloaded plugin and simply add a second theme to your install! Your second theme only needs a few things, I’ve included a free bare bones theme for you to use as your Coming Soon page, so all you need to do is:
- Download, install and activate the Coming Soon theme
- Download and install and activate Theme Switcher Reloaded
Now that the general public can only see the Coming Soon! page, you’re free to add your second (real) theme and activate it using the Theme Switcher Reloaded plugin. Once you’ve added it, visit your homepage using the ?wptheme=[yourthemedirectoryname] option to view the working theme. Remember you have to be logged into the backend to see it!
Adding a Template to Your Existing Theme
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of installing the Theme Switcher plugin, you could also add a special page template to your directory with the following content:
[source lang="php"]
<?php
/**
* @package WordPress
* @subpackage Default_Theme
*/
/*
Template Name: Coming Soon
*/
echo "Coming Soon!";
?>
[/source]
Of course, you will then have to add a new Page to your website, make it the default homepage and change the theme. This option works well but causes the homepage of the site to always default back to a coming soon page, even for the developers. Tim has an article with detailed instructions on it here.
By the way, if you think a Coming Soon! page has to be boring, think again! Check out these great Coming Soon pages at 25 Examples of Cool Coming Soon Page Designs – Part II
how genius you are.its tremendous idea to update your blog. thanks
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Thanks for all your info again chris, all this wordpress information is being archived as i think wordpress is the way to go forward for my blog. thanks again keep the info comming
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Very nice. It could have been better if u cud have proviuded a demo of it :) .. thanx
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i just wanna get a little feedback on my blog the overall look and feel of it and any good tips?
This is a brilliant idea. I have had several clients ask that no one is able to see their new blog while we are installing, configuring and adding the initial content. My only “solution” so far was to create an index.htm page and remove that for a few minutes when we needed to see the blog live.
Now finally an elegant solution that makes sense!! Thanks
Melanie
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Hi Christopher,
Now there’s an easier way to do this – Custom Coming Soon Pages WordPress Plugin … This allows you to display a fully customizable coming soon page to visitors (and members even) except the administrator who has full access to the dashboard and does not see the coming soon page – but the fully functional theme! You can also specify a launch date in the plugin settings and the Custom Coming Soon Page will show a Count Down Timer up to that date.
http://www.cssjockey.com/wordpress-plugins/custom-coming-soon-pages-wordpress-plugin
No Creating Page Templates, Writing Custom Code, Using Theme Switchers, etc. Give it a try and let me know what do you think about it.
The CSS Jockey Coming Soon plugin doesn’t work, but the idea is a great one. Only those logged in (admin, editors etc.) can see the new template being installed and modded. Frankly I’m a bit upset that it doesn’t work because I need to see a theme as it’s developed live.