Website Holding Page Tips - part 1

Website Holding Page Tips

– part 1

Many people don’t bother with holding pages, but they are definitely a worthwhile part of any online business

strategy.

This article is split into two and not only covers holding page design, but also related CMS and website SEO issues.

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First of all what are the circumstances where you might want to setup a holding page?

Some would say a holding page is just a temporary page, whilst waiting for the main website to come along.

Sure, but that is very much a web 1.0 viewpoint now

The reality is the landscape of domains is changing and so is the holding page.

With the price of domains being so cheap a holding page might be a temporary arrangement for a matter of weeks, but sometimes months while the long-term use of the domain is decided:

• When you will be building a website in the near future, but unsure of type of website.

• When you have purchased a domain to protect your branding, but the future use of the domain is undecided.

• Plus other reasons.

So the holding page could be the advanced guard of a website.

It shouldn’t be seen purely in a sense of a ‘coming soon’ mindset, but should be leveraged to add true value to your purchase from day one.

More of which will be covered in this two part article.

Possible you are building a portfolio of domains, but are undecided on the future of the domain, else perhaps you’ve brought a series of domain names to protect your branding at the top domain level.

There is no reason why a domain can not be used to help pave the way for a future website, else reinforce assets elsewhere, even if temporarily.

The type of holding page

When most people think of holding pages they think of a simple html file, with a brief piece of text, probably accompanied by a graphic of a work person with a shovel, saying ‘coming soon’, else ‘under construction’ – this is all very 1990s.

There are two directions you can go.

Firstly you can go the low maintenance route and use an index.php page and accompanying style.css file, else you can use a content management system.

It isn’t hard to create a ‘one page’ website with a content management system such as WordPress, but more importantly if you intend to have a full blown website there in the near future, starting to lay the foundations of your website, hopefully will save you time later on.

Whose to say that you should even have one page?

Perhaps you can already put in place a series of pages such as about, contact and home, even if they are the ‘holding’ pages, until more detailed content follows?

If you are looking for an example static holding page, we’ve already covered the topic before.

Be Bold!

Why not be bold and go further than others. Instead of a holding page with just text and perhaps an image or two, why not add an embedded YouTube video also?

Great for website SEO and perhaps helping you to further maximise your holding page.

To be continued…

In part two we cover text and holding page design tips.

A holding page is a great opportunity, I hope you are already convinced that your next holding page should be more than a sentence or two with a clip art image.

If you require a website designer, please get in touch.