# 5 Benefits of a "Under Construction" Page for Your Future Website

When starting a new project, some stages of the creation process can be very quick, such as creating social media accounts for example. In contrast, the development phase can sometimes take a few weeks, up to several months for the biggest applications.

Some companies reserve the domain name at the very start of the project, while others reserve it two days before launch.

What I recommend to all clients is to reserve the domain name as early as possible, in order to make the most of the domain's age (which is good for SEO), but not to leave it empty.

Creating an "under construction" page has many advantages, which I'll explain in this article.

To save you as much time as possible, I'm working in parallel on a simple but complete template that I'll make available to you as soon as it's finished!

The advantages

1 - User experience and branding

Just like in my article on the benefits of a good 404 page, you don't want your users to land on your host's default "under construction" page.

At best, they'll think you don't have a site online yet; at worst, they'll think they made a mistake, try several different urls, until they give up and keep a bitter memory of your company (even unconsciously).

An "under construction" page is first and foremost an opportunity to bring the visitor into your branding, showing them your logo, your colors, and demonstrating that your company thinks of everything, down to the smallest details.

You can even give them a feeling of "I was here first" by sharing a small piece of information that only people who visited this page will know!

2 - Informing the visitor

Rather than leaving the user in the dark, with no idea when the site will launch, a nice option is to add a countdown showing the remaining time (approximate).

This will both reassure users, and maybe make them want to come back once the site is online!

3 - Retaining future users

It would be a shame to do everything to avoid frustrating visitors without truly hooking the ones who are most interested.

To do this, your page must absolutely explain your concept, in a few words—this is what's known as a "catchphrase".

And if you've managed to capture your user's attention, all that's left is to add an "I'm interested!" button and open a newsletter sign-up form to keep the new subscriber updated on the site's launch (and more, if there's chemistry)!

4 - SEO

If your project generates interest, you might manage to convince other sites and blogs to talk about your project, and especially to add a link to your upcoming site.

You can start building your SEO even before finishing your site thanks to an "under construction" page, which you couldn't do otherwise!

5 - The maintenance page

There's a good chance that a few months after launch your site will need a major update.

Sometimes, these updates can take up to several hours before being fully available everywhere in the world, and it would be a shame for a user to arrive at that moment and be disappointed.

The ideal solution is to set up a very simple maintenance page, with the date of return to normal, to explain that the site is currently being updated.

And there's no better way to save time than to simply edit the text of your "under construction" page and reuse it in a maintenance context!

In summary

Your page should be very simple, follow your visual identity, and include:

• Your logo
• An explanation (saying the site is coming soon)
• A catchphrase
• A countdown
• A call to action (to your newsletter)

Congratulations, you've just created buzz around your future site, with just a few lines of code!