Now, there could be any reason for which you want to put your site in maintenance mode.
The most common reasons are.
- You wanted to update your website (WordPress mostly).
- Install or update plugins, or maybe you want to install a new theme.
- Or maybe you’re like me, trying to do something interesting with your website (and you don’t want to reveal that Creative nature of yours to your visitors).
Whatever might be the reason, this post is going to make the whole process super easy for you.
And one of the best things to do is to have a fresh backup of your website, all the time.
The best Hosting providers offer daily backups to your websites. But you can also take a backup manually. Here’s a step-by-step guide on website backup.
And good Hosting providers also offer 1-Click staging.
The staging is a duplicate of your website, so, a free hand to do anything to your website (staging site), without messing up the original website.
Well, if your hosting provider doesn’t provide staging, you can use a staging WordPress plugin.
I will discuss two methods here, first by using Elementor Page Builder and the second method uses SeedProd Pro.
1. Elementor Page Builder
Yup, Elementor can be quite handy when it comes to designing the interface. It’s a drag-and-drop page builder to create pro websites easily.
We can create a maintenance page with Elelmentor, and there are a lot of pre-built pages available.
Step-1: Creating a New Template
To create a new page, go to the sidebar, then Templates >> Add New, and click on Add New Template.
Select template type, and give it any title.
Then, click on Create Template.
Step-2: Editing with Elementor
Now you may want to hide the title for that click Settings, in the bottom right corner.
Then check the Hide Title bar, and turn it to blue.
From the editor, click on Add Template icon (next to the plus symbol).
On templates, there are a lot of options to choose from. In the search bar, add your search term.
Click on the template (a magnifying glass icon will appear) to see the demo, and then click Insert.
Now, do some editing, if required, and once satisfied, you can publish it.
Go to the bottom right side, and from their click on Publish.
Step-3: Putting on Maintenance Mode
Now go to Elementor >> Tools.
From the top section, click on Maintenance Mode.
Then choose the Mode (Maintenance in our case).
Set Up Roles to Access
We can set rules for who can access the website.
For, Who can access choose custom, here click on all the user types you want to give access to your website under down mode.
If you leave the options to Logged In, then every logged-in user can access your website.
Select the Template
And then select the Template.
Click on Save Changes.
How Search Engines will work now?
For Coming Soon mode, search engines will receive a 200 code, and on Maintenance mode, they will receive a 503 code.
Now, your website visitors will see a Coming Soon (or whatever you chose) page.
And one more thing that you will notice is a red section in the top area, that says Maintenance Mode On. To deactivate the mode simply click on the red button.
2. SeedProd Pro WordPress Plugin
SeedProd is a plugin for under construction, coming soon, and under maintenance websites. It’s super easy to use. Let’s create a maintenance page to showcase to our visitors.
Step-1: After installing and activating the SeedProd plugin, you have to enter your license key to activate all the features.
Step-2: Now, from the right sidebar click on the Page, which is under the SeedProd tab.
Once there, you will see three different sections, Coming Soon Mode, Maintenance Mode, and 404 Page.
You will see an inactive bar (under every section), activate the Maintenance Mode, and click on Setup a new Page (I created a page before, so it’s saying, Edit Page).
So, there are quite a few options to choose from. Choose any pre-built page, or start from scratch.
I’ll pick up the Down Maintenance Mode. Click on the tick arrow. You can also preview the page with the magnifying glass sign.
A new editing panel will open, like Elementor. Here you can add different sections to your page, drag, and drop.
Once you are satisfied with the page, go to Save from the top bar (it’s a drop-down menu) and click on Publish.
And your website will now show the page that you just created.
3. How to Unpublish the Maintenance Mode?
To unpublish the maintenance mode page. From the same (Editor) page where you published your page go to Save (in the top bar) and click on unpublish.
But to completely deactivate the mode from your website, go to Pages (from the right sidebar under, SeedProd) and deactivate the mode with the bar under Each section.
Then, visit your website to see everything looks fine. Here’s a thing, your browser will have your website’s cookies stored, for this, visit your website in incognito mode.
Here you have it, now you can successfully activate and deactivate different modes on your websites.
