How to Preview Your WordPress Website Before Going Live

July 21. 2022

Allowing your WordPress website to go live without a thorough preview first is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Even the smallest oversights such as spelling errors or minor design flaws can have a huge impact on your website’s user experience. Therefore, if you take your time and check everything in detail, you can ensure your website is completely error-free.

We at WP Full Care fully appreciate how important this step is so we’ve prepared a detailed guide to help you learn to preview your website before hitting publish. Now let’s get to work!

Simple tips to help you preview your WordPress website before going live

There are several ways to preview your WordPress website as well as its’ separate segments before making it available to your visitors. For this article, we’ve selected the following:

• Preview your pages and posts before hitting publish
• Use Coming Soon Mode to preview your WordPress website before going live
• Preview changes by creating a staging website

Preview your pages and posts before hitting publish

In order to provide you with a real-time preview of your posts and pages, WordPress makes use of an intuitive block editor. It does not, however, show how a post or page may seem on your website, with your headers, sidebars, and everything else on the page included.

But block editor does have a preview feature and allows you to preview your post or page by simply clicking on the “Preview” button. It’s in the top-right corner of the page. In the content editor, you’ll also be able to see previews for Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile. Simply select the device type you want to check out and click on “Preview in the new tab“.

It really couldn’t get much simpler than this and the best part is that WordPress is only getting better. Check out what’s coming in WordPress 6.0 and you’ll see for yourself!

Use the Coming Soon Mode to preview your WordPress website before going live

When working on a new WordPress website, it’s always a good idea to leave the site in the “coming soon” status. Even though your visitors will be able to see a legitimate “coming soon” page while you’ll still be able to access the admin area and work on your website in the background. This way, you can ensure your website looks great before going live without having to worry that visitors will see anything you don’t want them to see.

Use the SeedPro plugin to create a landing page

The best way to set up a “coming soon” page is to use the SeedProd plugin. The best part is that, in order to create a landing page, you can use the free version. Once you install and activate this plugin, simply go to SeedProd and click on “Landing Pages“. Then, all you have to do is click on the “Create a Coming Soon Page” button and you’re good to go.

After doing this, you’ll be prompted by the plugin to select a template for your “coming soon” page. SeedProd offers plenty of gorgeous coming soon templates that are specifically designed to help you boost your sales. Once you select a template, you’ll access the page builder which is quite simple to use. As it allows simple point-and-click editing and dragging-and-dropping of new elements it’s suitable even for beginners.

You can even add a sign-up page for your email list and use it to boost your visitors’ enthusiasm around the changes you’re preparing for them. To do this, switch to the content tab after completing the page design. There, you’ll be able to connect your email marketing tool and expand your list. You can even use it to build excitement around your website launching and send promo emails to people who signed up.

Once you finish making all the changes, click on the “Save” button and then on “Publish“. But fear not – nothing is yet active on your website. To do this, you’ll need to exit the page builder and go back to “Landing Pages“. Here you can click on the slider below the coming soon page box and only when you do this, your landing page will become visible to your website visitors.

Preview changes by creating a staging website

It’s not a secret that many WordPress experts practice creating staging websites that allow them to test and preview changes before making them live. A staging website is basically a private clone or duplicate of your website. You can use it for testing and previewing your modifications on your live server while keeping it hidden from your visitors.

There are plenty of WordPress plugins to help you duplicate your website. However, only the best ones will give you the option to make any changes you make on the staging site instantly visible on your live site with a click of a button.

One of the plugins that allow you to do just this is Bluehost which is one of the world’s leading web hosts and an official WordPress hosting provider. And the best part – one-click staging sites are available for all WordPress users at this company. So once you have the Bluehost plugin installed and activated on your website, you’re ready to build a staging site for testing your website.

To do this, simply select “Create Staging Site” under Bluehost » Staging from your WordPress Admin Panel. The plugin will then create a staging site for you and all you have to do is click on your staging site to switch over. It’s now easier than ever to make changes to your staging site and have them immediately reflected in your live site preview.

The WordPress admin bar will display a red “Staging Environment” message to help you distinguish it from your actual site. Once you’re happy with all the changes, simply click on the “Deploy All Changes” button and you’re good to go!

In conclusion

We hope our article helped you learn how to easily preview your WordPress website before going live. Keeping your website fresh and in good condition is hard work but it’s also something you definitely don’t want to skip. Otherwise, it will quickly reflect the decreasing number of your website visitors. To prevent this from happening, reach out to WordPress pro and leave your website in their experienced hands. You’ll quickly realize you’ve made one of the best decisions for your business!