A coming soon page Divi visitors see in place of your unfinished site takes four moves. Build one page in the Divi Builder, install a free plugin such as Divi Coming Soon, select that page in the plugin’s options, and test it while logged out. The plugin sends every visitor to that single page while you keep working on the rest of the site.
The problem is simple. A half-built Divi site is public the moment WordPress is installed. Visitors land on sample posts, placeholder text, or broken layouts, and search engines may crawl all of it. Divi has long left this job to third-party plugins, so most people end up searching for a plugin or a template.
This guide walks through each step in order, with the settings to click and the checks to run. It comes from the team at Divi Hat, which has spent about 10 years building websites with Divi. You’ll also learn how to confirm the page sends the right status code and how to take it down cleanly at launch.
What a Divi coming soon page needs before you start
A Divi coming soon page is one designed page that every visitor sees while the rest of your site stays out of reach. You build it like any other Divi page, then a plugin redirects traffic to it.
Coming soon page vs maintenance mode
Both do the same technical job: they send visitors to one page. The difference is the message. A coming soon page belongs to a site that has never launched, so it should sell the idea and collect emails. A maintenance page belongs to a live site that is down briefly, so it should say when you’ll be back.
Duration matters more than the label. Google recommends a 503 status code for temporary downtime, so crawlers know to return later instead of treating the page as your new content. Step 3 shows you how to check which status your setup sends.
The label on the page matters less than how long it stays up and what status code it sends.
What to have ready
Gather these before you open the builder:
- Admin access to WordPress, with the Divi theme active.
- A headline, a one-sentence promise, and a launch date.
- Your logo and brand colors.
- An email form connection, if you want signups.
- A staging copy or a test window, because plugin compatibility with Divi 5 can change between releases. Check the plugin’s listing and test before relying on it.
If you don’t want to start from a blank canvas, Elegant Themes released a free Coming Soon Pages layout kit as part of its Divi 100 series. It works as a starting point for a Divi theme coming soon page.
Step 1. Build the page in the Divi Builder
Your coming soon page is an ordinary WordPress page built with Divi. A coming soon landing page has no special type, so you design it first and connect it later.
Create the page
- Go to Pages > Add New and title it "Coming Soon".
- Click the button to use the Divi Builder and open the Visual Builder.
- In the page attributes, set the template to Blank Page if your setup offers it. This removes the header and footer, so visitors don’t see a menu of links that lead nowhere.
- Publish the page. The plugin needs a published page to select.
Hide the menu and footer on this page, because every link on it leads to a site you are hiding.
Choose the content
Keep the page short. One screen on mobile should carry the whole message. These modules cover what a pre-launch page needs:
| Element | Divi module | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Headline and promise | Text | Says what is coming and for whom |
| Launch date | Countdown Timer | Gives visitors a reason to return |
| Signup form | Email Optin | Builds your launch list |
| Social links | Social Media Follow | Offers another way to keep in touch |
| Contact line | Text or Button | Lets clients reach you now |
A ready-made hero section also saves time. Divi Hat’s Divi hero sections are built for Divi 5. There are 75+ of them, and each is easy to edit. Drop one in, replace the copy, and add the countdown below it.
Step 2. Route visitors to it with a plugin
To show the page to visitors, install a plugin that redirects traffic. The free Divi Coming Soon plugin from Divi Life does this with one setting.
Install Divi Coming Soon
- Get the plugin from Divi Life’s Divi Coming Soon page.
- In WordPress, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, choose the file, click Install Now, then Activate.
- In the admin sidebar, open Divi > Divi Coming Soon Options.
- Type the name of your Coming Soon page and select it.
- Click Save Changes.
From that moment the plugin redirects all traffic to that one page. It covers coming soon, under construction, and maintenance mode uses.
One plugin, one selected page, and every visitor lands on the same screen.
Use Divi Assistant instead
If you already run Divi Assistant, you don’t need a second plugin. Activate it, open the Maintenance Helper tab, go to the Coming Soon Mode subtab, and enable the setting. It then shows a Divi layout to visitors.
| Divi Coming Soon | Divi Assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the setting lives | Divi > Divi Coming Soon Options | Maintenance Helper, Coming Soon Mode subtab |
| What you do | Type and select your page, save | Enable the setting and show a Divi layout |
| Best for | A single-purpose, free setup | Sites that already use the plugin |
For a new site, Divi Coming Soon is the leaner choice. Choose Divi Assistant when it is already installed.
Step 3. Test it as a visitor would
Testing means loading your site the way a stranger does. This matters because logged-in admins usually see the normal site, so you can’t judge the redirect from your own browser.
Run the logged-out checks
Open a private window and work through this list:
- Visit your home page and a deep URL such as
/about/. Both should land on the coming soon page. - Load the page on a phone. The headline and form should fit without side scrolling.
- Submit the email form with a test address and confirm it arrives in your list.
- Check the countdown date.
- Purge your caching plugin, host cache, and CDN. A cached copy of the old home page is the most common reason the redirect appears not to work.
Check the status code
Open Chrome DevTools with F12, go to the Network tab, reload the page, and click the first request. Read the Status Code. A 503 tells crawlers the downtime is temporary. A 200 tells them the coming soon page is your real content.
Take a three-week build as an example. A 200 for a few days costs you little. Across three weeks it can leave a thin page indexed in place of your home page. In that case, ask the plugin author what status it sends, or switch tools.
Check the status code once, because it decides whether Google treats your page as temporary.
Step 4. Launch the site and switch the page off
Launching means removing the redirect and confirming visitors see the real site. Do it in this order so nothing lingers.
Turn the redirect off
Deactivate the plugin, or disable the coming soon setting in Divi Assistant. Then clear every cache again and reload your home page in a private window. If you still see the coming soon page, the cache is the cause. Test one deep URL as well, because a stale redirect can hide on inner pages.
Clean up the page
The page itself is still published. Set it to draft, or reuse it as a launch announcement. Keep the email list you collected and send the launch message to it. If you added a sitemap to Google Search Console during the build, check that it lists your real pages.
Switching the plugin off is not the finish. Clear the cache and verify in a private window.
Ready to launch
A coming soon page in Divi comes down to four steps: build one clean page, route visitors to it with a plugin, test it logged out and check the status code, then switch it off and clear the cache at launch. Keep the page short, keep the downtime short, and verify everything as a visitor.
Once the placeholder is live, the real pages are next. If you build Divi sites for yourself or for clients, the Divi Hat membership gives you premium Divi 5 layouts, hero sections, and child themes with unlimited website usage. It is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it on your next launch.
