Coming Soon – Free

1. 

   Example of a coming soon page created using this plugin

2. 

   Another coming soon page example

3. 

   The plugin settings page

Installation Instructions

1. Upload the plugin files to the /wp-content/plugins/coming-soon-free directory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly.
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
3. Click on the red Coming Soon button in the WordPress admin bar or go to Settings->Coming Soon to configure the plugin.

How long does it take to get my coming soon page ready?

About 10 seconds. We’ve setup intelligent defaults so if you’re looking for a solid coming soon page on the fly, we’ve got you covered. Just install and activate the plugin and you’re done.

Is the coming soon page mobile-friendly?

100% responsive (aka mobile-friendly). Your coming soon page will look awesome across all devices and screen sizes. It will also load very fast, even on slow internet connections.

Cool, but can I customize the look and design on my coming soon page?

Absolutely! You have full control over all aspects of your coming soon page, including the background image (and opacity); title, subtitle, and description text; include your social icons and links; options to collect emails and show a Google map. Check out our screenshots to see how we’ve made it ultra-easy to show the content you want.

Sounds kinda complicated… is it?

Not at all. Unlike most WordPress plugins that have confusing and overwhelming options pages, ours is well-organized and super intuitive. We even hide fields that aren’t necessary based on your current options so what you see is what you get. (Isn’t it annoying when plugins show you all the fields and many of them don’t even matter based on your current settings?!)

So I can upload my own background image?

Yep. It goes right into the WordPress Media Library. And we even resize it and show an optimized version so your coming soon page loads quickly. You can also set the background opacity (a CSS tweak but you don’t need to know any code) giving you the ability to subdue your image and make your text and call to action pop more.

What if I’m running the Photon module of Jetpack?

We recommend it! That won’t have any negative effects on using our coming soon plugin. In fact, it will help your coming soon page load faster, so it’s a good idea.

Will this plugin help with my site’s SEO and Google rankings?

Why yes, so glad that you asked! We’ve implemented SEO best practices in the code that produces your coming soon page. This includes H1 tag for your title, H2 tag for your sub-title, optimized <title> tag and <meta> tags. And of course, our markup is clean as a whistle and the plugin loads very quickly, both good for SEO.

What if I’m already running Yoast SEO plugin?

Not a problem! Our coming soon plugin plays nicely with Yoast SEO and doesn’t output all of that SEO data on your coming soon page (because this could show unnecessary information about other parts of your website that aren’t ready for public consumption yet). We do this by omitting wp_head(), in case you were wondering. Instead, we output the essential SEO information that will help your site rank well and look good in the SERPs without any risk of getting deeper pages in the site indexed before they’re ready.

What about Yoast sitemaps?

We’ve got that covered, too. When our coming soon plugin is active, all pages (other than the home page of course!) will be temporarily redirected using a 302-redirect to the home page. So even if someone or a spider tries to load any page on your site, they’ll be redirected to your home page and shown the coming soon message. When you deactivate the plugin, Yoast will work as normal.

How can I get my site to rank in Google while it’s still in coming soon mode?

Love it, great question! This will help your site get a head start in building trust and age with Google. It’s really easy, takes a few minutes and will make you into an SEO ninja. First, submit your URL to Google Search Console. That’s easy. Then, still in Search Console, click on your URL, in the left menu click Crawl > Fetch as Google. Fetch your home page (desktop option is fine). Then click “Request Indexing” button, choose “Crawl only this URL” and submit the form. Dude, you rock! Your URL will show in Google in a few minutes — test this by Googling site:yoururl.com like site:tourvista.com.

Wow. Mind blown by that last answer. You guys rock!

That wasn’t really a question, but thanks. We think that you rock, too.

What if my site is hosted at WordPress.com?

No known issues, jam on.

Does it matter if my site is on HTTPS?

Nope, the plugin works on HTTP and HTTPS. We recommend hosting your site on HTTPS as a best practice because it’s secure and is a positive ranking signal to Google which will help with your SEO and increase user confidence.

Can you tell me about the form for collecting email addresses?

You bet! This is a very cool feature. Why not collect emails of those who see your coming soon page, right? Not only will this grow your email list, but it will also keep these users in the loop when your site goes live. The options are straightforward (see the screenshots) allowing you to change the field label and button text. We also do a bunch of stuff behind the scenes like validate the email address, filter out duplicates & spam, etc.

Sweet. Can you tell me more about the email form?

But of course! You can also get an email notification each time someone submits the form. You can also automatically email all subscribers when deactivating the plugin, giving them the first notice of your site going live!

Wait a sec. You’re telling me that this plugin will email people when I deactivate it?

Yes, that’s an option (default setting is off). Here’s the idea: collect emails on your coming soon page, then when deactivating the plugin (making your site go live), you have the option to automatically send an email to these users letting them know the site is now live. They signed up because they wanted to know, right? So we just make that easy and automatic. If this option is selected, you can change the email subject and message — we provide smart defaults of course. You can also see the full list of emails that are subscribed in an easy copy/paste section in case you want to import them into your email marketing software. Finally, after sending your email blast, we email you a confirmation with all email subscribers that received the blast.

OK, that’s really cool. What if I deactivate, reactivate, then deactivate the plugin? Will that email everyone 2 times?

Ah, you’re a smart one, aren’t ya? No, it won’t keep emailing them. We mark each subscriber when emailing them so they’re just emailed the first time you deactivate the plugin.

What about spammers attacking my form?

We’ve implemented industry-standard measures for preventing this. Shouldn’t be a problem.

And I have the option to show a Google Map?

Correct. If your business has a physical address, why not include a map on your coming soon page? Just enter your address and we’ll take care of the rest. Note: you will need to provide your own Google Maps API key, but that’s easy and we show you how.

What’s with the Footer options?

Easy peasy. These allow you to provide a link to the WordPress login form. We do this to give our clients 1-click access to login. You can change the link and the login text. We also give you the option of including a “shout out” to us! Only do this is you’re stoked on our plugin and want to give us a little link love (it’s much appreciated!).

Wow, sounds like you guys have thought of everything. So… why wouldn’t someone want to use this coming soon plugin?

The only negative that comes to mind is our plugin is not integrated with any email marketing software. You can still collect emails on your coming soon page, but you’ll need to manually import them when you’re ready to send an email blast (we’ve made this really easy, just copy/paste the entire block of emails and import them, should take about 2 minutes of your time). Our focus is on building the plugin and integrating with a bunch of 3rd party services is a lot of work so we’re not offering that, yet…

1.3

• Swapped map to embedded map
• Eliminated the need to geocode location

1.2

• Added field to customize Coming Soon text
• Added ability to reset settings
• Reduced required fields

1.1

• Added date and time information to the list of subscribers

1.0

• Initial release