How to make your under-construction page work harder

6-minute read

Why do you need an ‘under construction’ page for your website, even before you need a fully-functioning website?

Well, you’ve had your business cards printed, but your website isn’t ready yet. Do you just calmly wait until your site is online, or do get out there and start marketing yourself like there’s no tomorrow? Alternatively, your website is being updated, ready for you to launch the next exciting phase of your business. What do you do while it’s offline, shut-up shop and take a holiday? No.

You place an ‘under construction’ page at your URL, then people who visit won’t be greeted by the unhappy error icon and the message that the page they’re looking for can’t be reached.

An ‘under construction’ page is the online equivalent of having an answerphone taking your phone calls when you can’t. But, a well-designed page can do much more than just tell customers your website is on its way…

Why you need an under construction page for your website

There are several business benefits to this.

Courtesy: you're reassuring your customers that you’re there and taking the trouble to provide them with a welcoming message.

SEO: You’ll start getting visits from the search engine bots, which is the first step in marketing your business online.

Contact: You can offer a point of contact to customers so, even when your site isn’t yet running, you can still encourage people to contact you.

Social Media: You can also link people to your social media accounts which, again, can be an important part of your marketing.

Anticipation: You can include a countdown clock and create a sense of excitement about your impending launch.

Properly optimising your under construction page like this means that you get the maximum business benefit from it.

Don’t think of it as an excuse, think of it as your homepage, until your real homepage comes along. As such, it needs to have at least some of the connectivity and functionality of a homepage.

Of course, once your site is up and running, there will be occasions when pages need some maintenance, so these under construction pages can be employed to offer service to your customers even when those pages are being repaired or updated.

Where to find resources to create your under construction page

1: Image libraries

There are plenty of assets available for you to use in image libraries, such as the free Pixabay or the paid-for Shutterstock. Using a free photo editing tool like Pixlr X Editor or free graphic design platform like Canva, you (or a friendly graphic designer) can tailor the text in a graphic so you can, for example, offer people an email address to get in touch with you.

2: Template themes

Depending on how you will be building your website, you can download existing themes for your ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’ page. There are many WordPress themes, as well as a wide selection of HTML themes you can buy, which are very affordable and which bring with them a guarantee of compatibility and functionality. Some include a contact form, so your website can be working for you, even before it’s online.

3: Go bespoke

If you want an under construction page that reflects your brand to the nth degree, you can always hire a professional to create you a bespoke page. That way, your logo, colours, tone of voice and even elements like videos can be added into your page to give it the X factor.

3 enviable under construction pages

Let’s have a look at a few examples of how companies cleverly made the most of the opportunity to draw customers in, ready for the big opening day.

Bezar

The designer marketplace, Bezar – the name was intended to evoke both ‘bazaar’ and ‘bizarre’ – came up with a great money-making idea – the put a referral scheme right on their ‘coming soon’ page. They also allowed people to register ahead of their launch and offered visitors the opportunity to connect through Facebook. From a design perspective, this page leads with the logo, which is a great way for a start up to make an impression straight out of the gate.

Artmill

Artmill is a company that allows you to turn your own photos into elegant artwork for your walls. This coming soon page allows you to navigate around the bits of the site which are working – that’s a great idea for a soft launch – you can get your website up and running even when you don’t have all of your services and offers in place.

The other thing that is great about this page is that it follows the template of other pages on the site, so the ‘under construction’ page isn’t a special case, it doesn’t make you feel that you’re missing anything, it’s just like any other page on the site.

Finally, that customer support team popup is a stroke of genius – it encourages people to engage instantly.

DJ Kiss

This is the business website of JaKissa Taylor-Semple, the celebrity DJ and influencer who is better known as DJ Kiss. She’s one of the go-to DJs for after-show parties in Hollywood and New York City. As a personality, you’d expect her ‘coming soon’ page to feature a big photo of her. However, what makes this page something that any business can learn from is the countdown clock.

You can generate a real sense of anticipation with a countdown.

Where this page also wins is the invite to join her mailing list and the social media links, so you can keep in touch with her, contact her immediately if you can’t wait for the site to go live, and get reminded when it does actually go live.

Making your ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’ page work hard for you, like this, is the most sensible thing you can do while your website is out of commission for repairs, or being updated.

It’s all about giving your business as big a head start as possible.

Hosting for your under construction page

If you’d like to talk to us about hosting and getting your website under construction, you can check out our range of affordable hosting deals and, if you need any help or advice, you can chat to our support team, who will talk you through your options and explain the benefits.