Maintenance Mode — Keep your messes behind closed doors

When you add plugins to a WordPress website, or make changes to the theme, or perform an upgrade, things can go horribly wrong with the appearance of your design.

When I’m about to do something that could potentially make my design look ugly, I slip my website into Maintenance Mode. Then, if someone happens to visit the site in the 10 minutes or so that I’ve taken it down, they’re greeted with a splash screen explaining what’s going on, and when things will be back to normal.

I’ve been using the Maintenance Mode plugin for a long time. It’s very plain – here’s what it looks like when you put your site into Maintenance Mode…

It does the job, but today I discovered a much more attractive option…

It’s called !Wartungsmodus and it comes with a range of different styles for your Maintenance page. Here’s the one I’ll be using, because I have a thing for cute cyber monsters…

But there are others. Here are a few more:

(Yes, it has a German version, but the same style has an English version.)

And even a plain Jane version…

It’s quite simple to use – here’s the interface…

So, if you want an attractive way to cover up your maintenance work on your WordPress site, just install !Wartungsmodus and enjoy!

And if playing with plugins isn’t something you find fun, why not hire me to install it for you? For just US$20 I’ll install it for you and show you how it works. Just contact me if you’re interested.

If you have any questions at all about Maintenance Mode plugins, just ask me in the comments or contact me privately.