Many people ask us how to hide a WordPress site until it’s ready. They want to update their site’s design, but they don’t want visitors to see unfinished pages.
We usually recommend using maintenance mode or a coming soon page. This hides the site, so you can work on it privately.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to make your WordPress site private so you can work on it without interruptions.
How to Hide Your WordPress Site Until It’s Ready:
Why Hide Your WordPress Site Before It’s Ready?
Hiding your WordPress site before it’s ready keeps visitors from seeing incomplete content or design mistakes. It gives you time to finish everything privately so the site looks polished and professional when it goes live.
How to Hide Your WordPress Site Until It’s Ready
The easiest way to make your website private is by using “maintenance mode.” We recommend using the SeedProd plugin for this.
SeedProd is the best WordPress landing page and theme builder plugin. Its simple drag-and-drop builder makes it easy to create these pages quickly.
SeedProd can also help you hide your website while you are still building it. You can choose between “Coming Soon” mode or “Maintenance Mode.” You can even set it so that people who are logged in to your site can still see everything.
Let’s look at how to hide your WordPress site with SeedProd.
Step 1. Set Up Your New WordPress Website
If you’re creating a new website, the first step is to get web hosting. We recommend Bluehost for this.
Bluehost has affordable plans that include both web hosting and a free domain name. It’s officially recommended by WordPress and hosts over 2 million websites.
Bluehost is perfect for new WordPress users because it makes setting up your website easy. Plus, it gives you a free business email address with your domain name.
Siteground is another good option for hosting your website. Need more help with the first steps? Read our guide on creating a WordPress website.
Once you have your website set up, you’ll need to install a maintenance mode plugin.
Step 2. Install the SeedProd Plugin
Now, you’ll need to get a copy of SeedProd. Once you’ve created your account, head to the login page to access your account dashboard.
Click View License Key, Details, and Downloads as shown below.
Then, copy your license key and click Download Landing Page Pro to save the maintenance plugin to your computer.
Next, install and activate the SeedProd plugin on your WordPress site. If you’re not familiar with how to do this, check out this step-by-step tutorial for installing WordPress plugins.
Upon activating the plugin, you’ll see a page asking you to enter your license key. If you recall, you copied this when downloading the plugin.
Simply enter your key and click Verify Key.
Step 3. Create Your Maintenance Mode Page
SeedProd makes it easy to design a custom page that people will see while your site is hidden. This helps you keep visitors interested, even though your website isn’t ready yet.
You have complete control over the design of your page and can use SeedProd’s drag-and-drop builder to add useful elements, like:
- Email Signup Form: Get people to sign up for your email list so they’ll know when your site launches.
- Contact Form: Give visitors a way to get in touch and ask questions.
- Social Profiles: Show links to your profiles on social media so people can follow you for updates.
- WooCommerce Blocks: If you’re selling products online, you can add buttons, product grids, and more.
- Social Share Buttons: Let your visitors spread the word about your new site.
- Countdown Timer: Create excitement by showing people exactly when your site will be live.
- And Much More.
To start designing your page, click the “Set up a Maintenance Mode Page” button.
Next, SeedProd will ask you to choose a theme for your page.
Don’t worry – there are lots of themes and templates to choose from, so you’ll find one that fits your website. If you want complete control over the design, you can even start with a blank template.
Step 4. Customize Your Maintenance Mode Page
Once you’ve chosen a theme, you’ll see SeedProd’s drag-and-drop page builder.
Now, you can start customizing. Add new elements, change the design, write a message for your visitors, and even upload your own background image to match your brand.
Here’s a full step-by-step guide to putting your WordPress site in Maintenance mode using SeedProd.
Step 5. Choose When to Show Your Maintenance Page
Most maintenance mode plugins display only one maintenance page for the entire website. However, SeedProd is more advanced, allowing you to choose which pages to hide.
You may want to hide your entire site until it is ready initially or specific pages or posts in the future.
Understanding this feature will be helpful for future development. To manage where you display your maintenance page, go to the Page Settings in the SeedProd builder and click on Access Control.
Next, scroll down to the Include/ Exclude URLs section. This is where you can tell SeedProd how to hide your site.
Here’s what the different access control settings mean:
- Show on the Entire Website: This is the default setting and the best choice to hide your WordPress site until it’s ready. Anyone who tries to view any page on your site will see the maintenance mode page on the front end.
- Show on the Home Page Only: You can use this to show your new page only on the homepage of your website. All other pages and posts will still be in public view.
- Include URLs: Use this setting to choose specific pages for your maintenance page to show. For example, if you’re writing new content for one of your pages, you can hide just that 1 page and leave everything else on the site visible.
- Exclude URLs: This setting does the opposite of Include URLs. It hides the entire site except for the pages you specify. Choose this to keep certain pages accessible while hiding the rest.
Allow Access to a Hidden WordPress Site
What if you need to give access to someone who can’t log in to your website? There’s a pretty simple solution.
In the Page Settings area, you can create a secret access link that lets people bypass the page hiding your WordPress site.
On the right-hand side of your screen, you can create a secret phrase added to a unique bypass URL.
Then, you can send this URL to anyone you’d like to have access to your site without them seeing the construction page.
It’s also possible to add a password to your landing page. This will let you grant access to specific people, such as clients.
You can follow this guide to learn all about password protection in WordPress.
Below the Bypass URL section is the Bypass by IP area. This allows visitors from specific IP addresses to bypass your landing page automatically.
All you have to do is add each IP address on a new line in the field provided.
Step 6. Hide Your WordPress Website Until It’s Ready
When you’re happy, it’s time to publish your page. To do so, select the dropdown arrow next to the Save Changes button at the top-right corner and click Publish.
SeedProd will then show a lightbox popup notifying you that your page is live.
Then, you can click the See Live Page button to see what your maintenance page looks like.
Here’s an example from a page we created on our test website:
Now let’s enable your maintenance page, which you can do by heading back to SeedProd » Landing Pages, then turning the Maintenance Mode toggle from the Inactive position to Active.
Congrats! You’ve hidden your WordPress site.
How Do You Turn Off WordPress Maintenance Mode?
If you’ve followed the steps above to set up maintenance, you will eventually want to disable it.
To turn off WordPress maintenance mode, go to the SeedProd settings page by clicking the SeedProd icon in your WordPress dashboard.
Then, click the toggle under the Maintenance Mode section to turn it from Active to Inactive.
Now, your site is no longer hidden from website visitors.
What if you don’t want to use a plugin to set up a maintenance page? We have instructions for that next.
Bonus: Hide Your WordPress Site from Google
Sometimes, you might want to hide your site from search engines like Google. This means your pages won’t appear in search results.
Here are a few ways to hide your site from Google:
- WordPress Settings: You can often do this directly within your WordPress website settings.
- Use a Plugin: WordPress.org offers plugins that can help you manage how search engines see your site.
- Edit Your Site Files: This option is for advanced users only, as it requires editing your website’s code.
Let’s take a closer look at the 2 easiest methods.
Hide Your Site in WordPress Settings
This method stops search engines from adding your website to their results. People won’t be able to find your site using Google, but they can still visit it if they have the direct link.
Here’s how to do it:
- Go to your WordPress dashboard.
- Click on “Settings.”
- Select “Reading.”
- Check the box that says, “Discourage search engines from indexing this site.”
This tells search engines that you don’t want your site to be public just yet.
Hide Your Site From Google With a Plugin
You can also use a WordPress SEO plugin to hide individual pages or posts from Google while keeping the rest of your site visible.
We’ll use a popular plugin called All In One SEO for this:
- Download and Install: Get the All In One SEO plugin from the WordPress plugin directory and install it on your site.
- Edit a Page or Post: Go to the page or post you want to hide and click “Edit.”
- Find the All In One SEO Settings: Scroll down below the main editor until you see the All in One SEO settings area.
- Check “NOINDEX”: Look for the section labeled “NOINDEX this page/post.” Check the box.
- Publish Your Changes: Save or update your page or post.
This tells search engines not to show the selected page or post in search results.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I password-protect my WordPress site?
To password-protect your WordPress site, you can use a password protection plugin or adjust the privacy settings under Settings » Reading. This lets you set a password so only people with the password can access the site. For more details, check out this ultimate guide on password-protecting WordPress.
How do I create a staging site in WordPress?
To create a staging site in WordPress, you can use a plugin like Duplicator. It allows you to create a duplicate of your site that you can work on without affecting the live site. After making changes to the staging site, you can push them to the live site when you’re ready.
Get Started with Hiding Your WordPress Site
You now know the simplest methods for making your WordPress site private until it’s ready for public viewing.
SeedProd’s drag-and-drop page builder makes it easy to hide your website in minutes, with no coding required. And the best thing? It’s one of the easiest ways to increase your conversion rates.
Ready to make your WordPress site private?
We hope you found this guide helpful. If you’re interested in more helpful WordPress tutorials, check these out:
- How to Make a Sales Page With WordPress (Step-by-Step)
- 6+ Best Photo Gallery WordPress Plugins (Expert Pick)
- How to Customize WordPress Post Excerpts (Without Code)
Thanks for reading! We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to leave a comment with any questions and feedback.
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