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Site Design & Promotion: Site or Pages Under Construction
Originally Published: 2006-03-12
Updated: 2006
Do you have "This site (or page) is under construction. Check back later." notices on your site? This article discusses why this type of notice is not helpful to your site or its audience.
There are very few instances that one can share this page is under construction
, coming soon
, or some wording about the page basically acting as a placeholder - devoid of any useful contents. If, or when, these are used within a Web site, their presences should only be for a short period of time.
The contents aren't written yet but I wanted people to know about that future content ...
Not as good of a reason as you may have hoped. For one thing, people surfing the Web are used to, and expect, new contents appearing on sites over time. In other words, a site always has new content coming therefore is continuously under construction!
The above is also not a good reason if sharing a link leading people to that placeholder page. Nothing can frustrate a person more than clicking on links, claiming to lead to them to certain information, and instead find themselves reading '... check back later'
. These kind of links, if you can't wait to insert them into other pages, should be commented out so they aren't active links being offered.
Commercial sites have to look professional to readers of those Web sites. Are these kind of pages, within a commercial site, having the person or company behind it appearing professional? Authority, or informational, sites may not have to look professional but they do have to be appear appealing and informative. How are these placeholder pages useful or sharing information with their targetted audience?
I am gauging, by site stats, if there is an interest before I write the contents ...
This is a poorer excuse, as the Web site's author has the page's future totally up in the air on if contents will ever be shared or not. At least the previous 'wanting to let people know in advance ...'
excuse left the feeling that those contents would appear on the site (eventually).
I will decide if I will or not based on site stats ...
isn't fair to the users that have expressed an interest in finding that kind of contents your site claimed to offer. All they had to do, to express that interest, is merely click on the offered active link. Only you let them down on not being able to locate that information but also expect your site's audience to check back to see if your stats helped you to finally decide if you will offer those contents?
Let's say you went to a store and saw an aisle sign saying Nails
. You say, 'How convenient, I need some nails and this will save me a trip to another store ...'
but, after going down the aisle, you did not find any nails but only a sign asking you to 'Please check back later'
. You didn't know the store owner was watching how many people turned to go down that aisle as a gauge on if there is an interest in his store carrying nails.
Would you be pleased or disappointed in the store owner using this method of determining if he would offer something? Would you go out of your way to "check back later" to see if he had any nails in yet or just go to another store you knew did have nails available? So where is the incentive for a Web audience to continuously check back for that page to appear versus locating another site that may meet their needs (in terms of that content)?
In Conclusion: Think before leaping
Many sites have put up placeholder pages, generally with good intentions originally, then forget all about those pages. Seriously, I know of one site that supposedly has been under construction
due to extensive re-design
and asking people to check back later
for the past 2 years.
If you are going to share a placeholder, or under construction, page then don't use the vague wording of Check Back Later
. How long is later
- one week, two weeks, a month, 6 months, a year, or longer? Remove the guess-work on the user's side by stating when they should return to view that particular content. If later
is one or two weeks, why the need to share an under construction
notice at all?
If unsure if there is an interest for particular content, then host a poll! There are a variety of scripts or free services available that you can use. This may be more effective in determining an interest than putting up, essentially, an empty page and checking the stats to see how many people visited it.