Websites have to undergo regular maintenance and all the good companies do this to make sure that they get the perfect site which works according to the modern standards. While many people think that it is hard to find programmers who will help in maintaining the website and do the regular updates, the hard part is yet to be uncovered. What happens when your website goes for the maintenance all of a sudden and whoever comes to your website gets to know about it? Well, it certainly is irritating and unwanted.
Like websites notify their clients with WordPress coming soon pages, it is important that you let them know about the downtime and maintenance too. Some web owners delete all the files which is very harmful because the pages become unreachable for the bots too. So, it is better to use WordPress plugins that can won’t have any negative impact on the site and let you do the regular maintenance job.Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode is one such plugin that allows you to create such pages with ease and get the job done in no time. Here, we will see that how you can notify and prepare them for the downtime and use this plugin to your benefit.
Announce the schedule
Start by announcing the schedule. Let the users know about when the downtime will start and when it will end. State the timings clearly and be sure that you have everything planned and a team that can get things done in timely manner. Especially, if you have a dynamic website where users come and interact a lot, you have to be extra careful. Minimize the downtime and enhance the efficiency and performance of work team. Create a maintenance page with the given plugin and use a clock based theme to keep things ticking.
Give them a reason
People hate it when you just tell them that the ‘website is going down for maintenance.’ They are looking for a reason and you are the one who has to answer that why the website is going down for the maintenance. Be sure that you state the purpose clearly and provide your audience an information about why there will be a downtime. You can use the text box available to you in the themes for providing the reason of the downtime.
What areas are affected?
While some of the information may be confidential, it is important that you let the users know about the areas and features of the website that will be affected. Like applications, you should help user in understanding the updates and going through the website without having and issues. Tell them about the improvements that have been made and how the current version is different from the earlier one. List it clearly on your maintenance mode about what impact the update will have on your site.
Apologize
And lastly, when you are planning for the downtime, apologize to your audience in advance. Be humble in your approach and even if you are using WordPress plugins to announce the downtime you should make sure that there is an apology in your message. While the downtime may seem a necessity, it can cause irritation. So, be sure to apologize on your maintenance page.