How to Preview Your WordPress Website Before Going Live

As a WordPress expert with over 15 years of experience creating and optimizing websites, I highly recommend properly previewing your site prior to launch.

Taking the time upfront to test and validate your website will help you catch errors, boost conversions, and avoid potential disasters down the road.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore several techniques to safely preview your WordPress site before going live. I’ll share tips from my own experience for getting the most out of each method based on your unique needs and goals.

Why Properly Preview Your Website?

Before jumping into the how, let‘s discuss why previewing your site is so important.

According to Hubspot, websites with optimized design see a conversion lift of up to 400%. Previewing allows you to refine your layouts, content flow, and other elements to maximize conversions.

Additional benefits of previewing your WordPress site include:

• Catch errors early: Fix bugs, broken links, speed issues, etc. before launch. This helps avoid a buggy first impression.
• Improve page design: Make tweaks to alignment, spacing, sizing, and other stylistic factors.
• Confirm compatibility: Test plugins, themes, and features work cross-browser and device.
• Promote internally: Build buzz among your team before the big reveal.
• Gather feedback: Get input from stakeholders to help shape revisions.

Every website and business is unique. But no matter your specific goals, some form of preview helps set you up for success.

Using Coming Soon Mode for Private Previews

One of my favorite ways to preview a WordPress site is using a coming soon or maintenance mode page. This displays a temporary placeholder to visitors while you privately develop the full site.

There are a few ways to implement a coming soon page, but I recommend using the SeedProd plugin.

SeedProd has the most robust coming soon page builder for WordPress. Benefits include:

• Drag and drop editor for easy customization
• Beautiful templates designed to build hype
• Lead capture integration with email services
• Scheduled launch countdowns
• Access control for client previews
• Completely free options

To use SeedProd‘s coming soon mode:

1. Install and activate the SeedProd plugin.
2. Enter your license key under SeedProd » Settings.
3. Navigate to SeedProd » Landing Pages and click "Set Up Coming Soon Page".
4. Choose a template or start blank. Customize with the page builder.
5. Integrate opt-ins, social media, and other elements.
6. Click "Save" then "Publish" to make your page live.
7. Toggle the page to "Active" mode under Landing Pages.

Now your coming soon page displays to all visitors! You can privately develop the full site while visitors see your placeholder.

Pro Tip: Make sure you prevent search indexing of your coming soon page. After launch, you‘ll want your actual site content indexed.

Coming Soon Mode Benefits

Beyond a basic preview, some benefits of using coming soon pages include:

• Indexing protection while you develop
• Building hype and email lists prior to launch
• Client previews and feedback collection
• Gradual launch capabilities

Coming soon mode is great for completely new websites. But it can also be leveraged for major redesigns, big feature launches, and promotional events.

Get creative with your launch strategy!

Staging Environments for Preview Testing

Staging environments provide another way to preview your WordPress site in a live setting.

A staging site is an exact clone of your production site. You can create copies of both the database and files. This allows you to:

• Test changes in an identical environment safely.
• Push edits back and forth between staging and production.
• Preview new features and content internally before launch.

How to Create a Staging Site

If using managed WordPress hosting, many providers have 1-click staging site creation.

For example, Bluehost offers staging with a single button click. But if going the manual route, you‘ll need to:

1. Clone your database and files into a separate subdirectory (like staging.yourdomain.com).
2. Update your wp-config.php with new database credentials.
3. Install a security plugin like WP Staging to prevent indexing. This keeps your staging site hidden.
4. Log into your staging URL to preview changes before pushing live!

When to Use Staging Sites

Some instances where staging sites are helpful:

• Testing major page redesigns.
• Confirming complex customizations don‘t break things.
• Trying new plugins to ensure compatibility.
• Experimenting with new hosting configurations.
• Previewing theme options before activating.

Staging sites allow you to trial run changes in a safe yet live environment. I recommend integrating staging into your WordPress development workflows.

Previewing WordPress Posts and Pages

In addition to overall site previews, WordPress offers built-in options for previewing individual posts and pages before publishing.

Block Editor Previews

The block editor provides a basic preview of your content. But this is limited to your raw text and images.

To preview the full post or page design, use these options:

• Desktop Preview: View your content as it would appear on a desktop display.
• Tablet Preview: See your mobile design optimized for tablets.
• Mobile Preview: View your mobile layout on a phone display.
• Preview in New Tab: Opens a separate frontend tab with the full preview.

Testing across device sizes helps optimize conversions for mobile visitors. Over 50% of traffic comes from mobile devices.

Status and Visibility Settings

WordPress also allows previewing content using Status options:

• Draft: Save posts privately without publishing.
• Pending Review: Allow users to preview before public posting.
• Scheduled: Set future publish dates.

Using these settings allows granular previews of your content before officially launching it.

For example, allow your manager to preview draft posts pending review. Or schedule content to auto-publish later.

Previewing New WordPress Themes

Switching to a new WordPress theme is a major change. The Theme Customizer allows you to preview themes before activating on your live site.

To properly test drive new themes:

1. Install a theme from the repository or external provider.
2. Rather than activating right away, hover the theme and click "Live Preview".
3. The customizer will open with a live theme preview.
4. Click "Publish" only if fully satisfied with the look. Otherwise, close to cancel.

Using Live Preview is extremely helpful for visualizing themes with your actual content. It also allows previewing font, color, and layout changes before applying them.

The customizer is useful beyond just theme previews too…

Customizing and Previewing Existing Themes

Tweaking your active WordPress theme? The customizer allows previewing changes without impacting your live site.

To use it:

1. Go to Appearance » Customize in the WP dashboard.
2. Make styling changes like fonts, colors, layouts, etc.
3. Scroll down to see your site update in real-time.
4. Click "Publish" to apply edits or "Save Draft" to preview later.

This allows visually trialing changes and finding the optimal look and feel. I strongly recommend leveraging the customizer any time you modify themes.

Pro tip: Create a child theme before customizing so you don‘t lose changes during theme updates.

Building and Previewing Custom Themes

For the ultimate design flexibility and control, you can build fully custom themes using SeedProd‘s Theme Builder.

Benefits of building your own theme include:

• 100% personalized design.
• Consistent look and feel across pages.
• Better branding, conversions, and UX.
• Complete control over code and assets.

To preview custom themes with SeedProd:

1. Install the plugin and enter your license key.
2. Go to SeedProd » Theme Builder in your WP dashboard.
3. Select a starter template or start totally blank.
4. Use the intuitive editor to customize template files.
5. Enable mobile responsive previews.
6. Activate your theme once designed.

Having full context previews when building custom themes helps streamline development. You can visually confirm layouts, spacing, styling, and functionality as you build.

Previewing High-Converting Landing Pages

Landing pages are an important element for driving conversions. With SeedProd you can easily build and preview landing pages within WordPress.

Benefits include:

• Beautiful templates designed to convert.
• Drag and drop editing tools for rapid building.
• Mobile responsive design.
• Easy split testing.
• Conversion analytics.

To preview landing pages with SeedProd:

1. Install the plugin and add your license key.
2. Navigate to SeedProd » Landing Pages.
3. Click "Add New Landing Page".
4. Select a template or blank layout.
5. Customize your page with the builder.
6. Preview the mobile experience.
7. Publish your completed landing page.

Properly designed landing pages can lift conversion rates by over 400%. Previewing helps maximize your success.

Recap and Next Steps

Previewing your WordPress site is a must for catching issues before launch.

We covered several techniques:

• Coming Soon Pages for private development.
• Staging Environments for safe testing.
• Editor Options for content previewing.
• Theme Test Drives via Live Preview.
• Customizer for visualizing design changes.
• Building Custom Themes with real-time preview.
• Optimizing Landing Pages for conversions.

Pick the methods that align with your goals and setup. Previewing takes a bit more upfront effort, but pays off in the long run.

Did you find this guide useful? I welcome your feedback and questions in the comments below!