Displaying a maintenance page on your site instead of the actual content is disappointing and frustrating at the same time. But it is necessary especially if you have something to do on the back-end.
Although almost everything on your site can be done without taking it down, there are still things to do that often requires you to take down your site.
Take for example, when you are transferring your site to live, or changing servers, oftentimes, this requires you to put your site to maintenance.
Do take note that if your business is an online store, make sure that you inform your customers first before taking your site down to avoid the loss of your customer’s orders.
Things You Need to Make a Maintenance Page
1. Valid Reason – Of course there has to be a valid reason why you are taking down your site. Never undergo maintenance unless absolutely necessary.
2. Maintenance plugin – We are currently using WP Maintenance Mode for the maintenance efforts of our site. You can activate it by downloading the plugin and then activating it.
After activation, on the WordPress Dashboard, click setting > WP Maintenance mode. Here you can change your image, choose a design option, message for your clients, and more.
Tips on making a Maintenance Page
Although maintenance pages can be somewhat similar in terms of the message they give, they also need some of the following.
1. Be short and sweet
Instead of giving all the details as why your site is down, make it short and straight to the point. That way, you can avoid confusing your clients and users by delivering the message clearly.
Here are some examples:
Atlassian
2. Compassionate
It is frustrating for a site, that you want to eagerly see, be down for maintenance. Create a maintenance page that understands this frustration and supplement it with understanding words like “sorry” and “We will fix the problem as soon as possible.”
An example of this is:
Github
3. Humorous and Entertaining
Another way is to be humorous and entertaining. Due to the maintenance, some people will get frustrated or annoyed from wasting their time. Slap a little bit of humor in there and it will surely make a difference.
Few examples are:
Product Hunt
Flckr Maintenance Page
4. Familiarity
Sometimes, people have been visiting your site so often that they recognize your brand from miles away. You can use this familiarity and give the maintenance page a “familiar” feel to it to keep the users feel at home when visiting your site.
An example of this is:
Apple Maintenance Page – Plain, Clean and Familiar look
5. Countdown
Truth be told, some people wait for a site to go up. And that waiting can turn to frustration when you don’t know when it will go back up. A countdown is a solution to that.
Create a page that has a time span on it and bring the site back up at exactly that time. Your clients will appreciate it as they won’t have to wait hours on end for a site that takes a whole day before going live again.
An example of this is:
Etsy
5.5 Progress and Updates
Lastly, progress and updates. Its good to see a site that is under maintenance being updated from time to time. That way, you know that the work they are doing to their site is constant.
Also some sites use social media platforms to inform their users about updates and progress of their maintenance.
Additional Tips
Choose the least busy time when undergoing maintenance. For example, undergoing your Christmas decor online shop to maintenance just few days before Christmas is a bad idea.
Also, send updates to your clients and users about when are you going to undergo maintenance, how long will it take, and other details so they can prepare for it.
A Few Words
Taking down your site for maintenance is not a rare scenario. It does happen even on big brands. Just make sure that you keep your visitors updated, and more importantly, make sure that you will get it back as soon as possible.
We hope this article helps your site be creative, insightful, and beautiful.
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