When you install WordPress and point your domain to a live server, the site is already publicly accessible. Depending on your theme, visitors arriving during the build phase might see the default WordPress layout, a blank page, or a partially assembled site with placeholder content. None of those make a good first impression, and some of that incomplete content can even be crawled by search engines before you have a chance to remove it.
A coming soon page solves this by replacing the public-facing site with a clean, intentional holding screen. You stay logged in as an admin and continue building normally — visitors see only the coming soon message until you turn it off. The setup takes about five minutes using a free plugin.
One thing to clarify before you start: a coming soon page is for brand new sites that have never launched. If you have an existing live site and need to take it offline temporarily for updates, that’s what WordPress maintenance mode is for. They’re different settings that serve different purposes — this guide covers coming soon.
Quick Answer
Install the free SeedProd plugin from the WordPress plugin repository. Once activated, go to SeedProd → Landing Pages and click Set Up a Coming Soon Page. Choose a template, customise the text, and click Enable Coming Soon Mode. From that point on, any visitor not logged in as an admin sees the coming soon screen. Building continues uninterrupted in the background.
Why a Coming Soon Page Matters
A domain pointing to an unfinished WordPress installation creates real problems before you’ve even launched. Search engines can reach and index incomplete pages, which leaves thin-content records in Google’s index that take time to clean up once the real site is live. Visitors who land on a half-built site — from a social share, a business card, or a link in a bio — form an immediate first impression based on what they find.
A coming soon page gives you control over that impression from day one. It also gives you something useful to do with early traffic: most coming soon plugins let you add an email signup form so you can build a small audience before the site is even live. A launch announcement to even 50 subscribers is worth having.
Step 1 — Install and Activate SeedProd
From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New. Search for SeedProd or Coming Soon Page. Look for the plugin called “Website Builder by SeedProd” — it’s the one with over 700,000 active installations. Click Install Now, then Activate.
The free version includes everything needed for a basic coming soon page. The paid version adds more templates and marketing integrations, but those aren’t required unless you want advanced functionality like an email provider connection or countdown timers.
Step 2 — Enable Coming Soon Mode
After activation, SeedProd adds a new menu item in your WordPress dashboard. Go to SeedProd → Landing Pages. You’ll see four page types — Coming Soon, Maintenance Mode, Login, and 404. Click Set Up a Coming Soon Page.
You’ll be taken to a template gallery. Choose any template that suits your brand — the exact design doesn’t matter much at this stage, since you’ll update it later. Once selected, you’ll land in the SeedProd page builder. At the top right, toggle Coming Soon Mode to Active and save. The page is now live for non-admin visitors.
Step 3 — Customise the Page
The page builder uses a simple drag-and-drop interface. At minimum, update these elements:
- Headline: Replace the default text with your site name or a short phrase about what’s coming.
- Subheadline: One sentence about what the site will be. Keep it simple — “A new website is on the way” is fine.
- Background: Change the background colour or image to match your brand if you have one at this point.
- Email signup (optional): SeedProd includes an email optin block. Connect it to your email provider if you want to collect early subscribers.
You don’t need the page to be polished — it just needs to look intentional rather than broken. A headline and a background colour are enough to serve the purpose.
Step 4 — Test the Page
Log out of WordPress and visit your domain in a browser. You should see the coming soon page, not the site itself. If you see the site, go back to SeedProd → Landing Pages and confirm that coming soon mode shows as Active.
You can also test in a private/incognito window while staying logged in on the main window — this lets you confirm the admin view and visitor view simultaneously. When building is complete and you’re ready to launch, go back to SeedProd and toggle the mode to Inactive. Your site goes live immediately. Run through your website launch checklist before disabling the page.
Practical Tips
Set the coming soon page up on the same day you install WordPress — not after you’ve already started building. It takes five minutes and removes any risk of accidental early exposure.
Keep the page content minimal. Your site name, one line about what’s coming, and possibly an email signup. Anything more complex than that is time better spent building the actual site.
If you’re using a brand colour or logo already, apply it to the coming soon page. It signals professionalism even before the full site is ready. If you don’t have branding locked in yet, a simple dark background with white text works cleanly in any context.
Common Mistakes
- Forgetting to disable it after launch. This happens more often than you’d think. Set a calendar reminder for your target launch date, and always verify the coming soon mode is off before announcing your site publicly.
- Using it on an already-indexed site. If your site has already been live and indexed by Google, putting up a coming soon page can cause ranking loss. Use maintenance mode for brief downtime instead.
- Leaving it up for months without a clear launch date. A coming soon page left in place indefinitely signals to search engines that nothing useful is there. If you’re building for longer than a few weeks, consider letting the site go live section by section instead.
- Blocking search engines in robots.txt as well. The coming soon page handles visitor access on its own — you don’t need to block crawlers separately unless you have a specific reason. Over-blocking can slow re-indexing after launch.
Coming Soon Plugin vs Manual Setup
It’s technically possible to create a coming soon effect without a plugin — by publishing a static page and redirecting all traffic to it via .htaccess — but this approach requires more technical setup and does not automatically show the real site to logged-in admins. You’d need to manage admin access manually.
For most WordPress builds, a dedicated plugin like SeedProd is the practical choice. It handles the admin bypass logic automatically, integrates with the WordPress dashboard, and can be disabled in seconds when you’re ready to launch. The free version is more than sufficient for a basic coming soon page on a new site.
Conclusion
A coming soon page is one of the first things to configure when setting up a new WordPress site — it costs nothing, takes five minutes, and protects your site from being publicly accessible before it’s ready. Install SeedProd, enable coming soon mode, and build without worrying about what visitors see in the meantime. For everything else involved in getting from a fresh install to a live website, the step-by-step guide to building a WordPress website walks through the full process.
Etienne Basson works with website systems, SEO-driven site architecture, and technical implementation. He writes practical guides on building, structuring, and optimizing websites for long-term growth.