There are many different reasons to create a website. You may need an outlet to post some thoughts on things you find important. A website can also be an important cog in your business’s marketing machinery. You can have a website as a central part of your business model, just as online stores do.
You can do so much more with a website – if people can see and use it. That’s why it’s ironic that one of the most important things you need to know as a website owner or administrator is how and when to stop people from seeing and using your website.
You should know why, when and how to enable WordPress maintenance mode on your website. We will address these issues and explain:
When your website is in maintenance mode, it’s as if you’re putting it aside and showing your website visitors a landing page instead. While visitors are viewing that page, you can do almost whatever you want with the website that is away from the eyes of the visitors..
The reason why it’s important to know how to put your website into maintenance mode is simple — You want your website to be out of bounds while doing things. When updating your website, customizing your online store theme, or doing anything else that could cause visitors to access a poorly functioning website. much better to tell them to come back in a few minutes when it’s all over.
If you’re closing loopholes in your website’s security or are dealing with a security issue, it’s even more important to prevent people from getting to it. That’s what maintenance mode does, and that’s why it’s built into WordPress – every time you update WordPress itself, WordPress automatically puts your website into maintenance mode.
But the problem with WordPress’ built-in maintenance mode is that you can’t pull it off when you need it. It only works when updating something via WordPress core. When this is not the case, you can use two different methods to put your website in maintenance mode..
The safest method to have maintenance mode at your disposal is to use a plugin.. At WordPress.org you can pick your choice of plugins – there are many, they are just as easy to install as other plugins and often have additional functionality or options.
To make things easy, we’ll quickly show you two maintenance mode plugins: Coming Soon Page, Under Construction and Maintenance Mode by SeedProd and Care by WP Maintenance.
Coming Soon Page, Under Construction and Maintenance Mode by SeedProd
After installing the plugin, you should aim directly at its Settings and set all important items. SeedProd’s plugin comes in a Lite version that is free to use and a Pro version that requires payment. The free version will be enough for you to set up and open your maintenance mode page..
After going to the SeedProd menu on the dashboard and clicking the “Settings” item, you will have access to several tabs of options:
You will only need four of these five tabs to put your website in maintenance mode. You can do most of it from the Content tab, actually. The Pro version of the plugin includes access to stock photos and themes, making it even easier to create the perfect maintenance mode page.
Maintenance with WP Maintenance
The Maintenance plugin doesn’t offer much variety when it comes to basic options — You will find most of the options available in SeedProd’s plugin. Options are organized in sections rather than tabs. Below the large on and off button you will find:
What makes this plugin stand out is the integration options it offers.. For example, you can integrate it with the booking plugin Amelia and have events and appointments displayed on your care page. You can do the same with certain types of forms.
There are some places on your WordPress website that you can justifiably treat as your playground and experiment with them. Themes functions.php file is not one of them, but it is a place where you can use custom code to put your website into maintenance mode..
Whatever you do with it, you should create a backup of your website first. It’s also a good idea to use a child theme when making any changes to your theme. Otherwise, any changes will be deleted with the next theme update. Once you’ve done that, you can go to Appearance > Theme Editor and find the function.php file there. Add the following code at the bottom of the file:
// Activate WordPress Maintenance Mode
function wp_maintenance_mode() {
if (!current_user_can('edit_themes') || !is_user_logged_in()) {
wp_die('<h1>Site Under Maintenance</h1><br />Please check back later.');
}
}
add_action('get_header', 'wp_maintenance_mode');
You can customize the “Under Maintenance” and “Please check back later” options. copy it and change it to something you want to see on your website. The resulting page will look pretty simple – you can see it by logging out of your site or visiting it in your web browser’s private mode.
But if you know coding, you can customize the page to look just as good with a plugin.
final thoughts
A handy function of WordPress, maintenance mode is one of the most essential tools website administrators have in their tool belt to ensure a consistent quality of user experience. There is no reason to allow your website visitors to access a cluttered, barely functioning version of your website. Why not wow them with a perfectly designed landing page that will greet and inform them while doing some important work on the website? If you don’t want the basic look and potential complications you get from the manual method, there are more than enough plugins to help you do that.
