AI Summary
Do you want to learn how to customize a password-protected page in WordPress?
Customizing locked pages allows you to encourage more visitors to become subscribers of your site. Plus, it’s a great way of utilizing the space to promote other services or pages on your site.
In this guide, I’ll walk through how to password-protect a page in WordPress using the built-in feature, then how to customize it with SeedProd so it looks designed rather than bare.
When Should You Customize a Password Protected Page in WordPress?
There are various scenarios where using a custom password-protected page is a good idea. For example, if your site is still under construction, locking your pages with passwords allows only authorized people to access these for testing purposes.
Another common situation where password-protected pages come in really handy is when you want to restrict some of your pages to paid subscribers only.
The default WordPress password-locked page has a very basic design that has a password field and has a design based on your WordPress theme. This is what a standard WordPress password locked page looks like:
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to add additional elements like custom buttons, widgets, forms, and other elements using the default WordPress editor.
But to make this considerably easy, we’re going to use a special plugin for WordPress called SeedProd. As the best page builder plugin for WordPress, SeedProd allows you to create password-locked pages that look super awesome without requiring any code!
How to Password-Protect a Page in WordPress
Before you can customize anything, you need a locked page, and WordPress has this built in so you don’t need a plugin to get started.
Open the page or post you want to protect in the block editor. In the settings sidebar on the right, find the Summary panel and click Visibility (it usually reads Public). Choose Password protected, type in the password you want to use, and update the page.
Anyone who visits that page now sees WordPress’s default password prompt, and only people with the password can view what’s behind it.
The process is quick and free, but the prompt itself is plain and carries none of your branding. That’s exactly what the SeedProd method in the next section takes care of.
How to Customize a Password Protected WordPress Page with SeedProd
To turn that plain lock screen into a page that looks designed, I use SeedProd. It’s a drag-and-drop page builder with built-in access controls, which means you can design a locked page and set its password in one place. The steps below walk through the whole setup.
Step 1: Install the SeedProd Plugin
To get started, install and activate the SeedProd plugin on your site. If you’re new to adding plugins, this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin walks you through it.
Once it’s installed, grab your license key from your SeedProd account. You’ll find it under the Downloads tab in your account dashboard.
Now, open your WordPress admin dashboard and head over to SeedProd » Settings. Here, enter your License Key and click on the Verify button.
Great! Now that SeedProd Pro is active on your site, you can do all kinds of exciting customizations.
Step 2: Create a Coming Soon Page
SeedProd has a coming soon mode which comes with settings for access restrictions. With these access restrictions, you can easily set a password for your page.
To build a coming soon page with SeedProd, click on the SeedProd menu item within your WordPress sidebar.
Now, click on the Set up a Coming Soon Page button.
Here, you’ll find a huge variety of templates to choose from. You can pick any that you like, but we’re going to use the Conference Webinar Page template for this example.
After selecting the theme, you should now see the SeedProd drag and drop builder which lets you customize the page in all kinds of ways.
Step 3: Customize the Password Protected Page
When you’ve selected your template, you can customize your password-protected page using dozens of different kinds of blocks visible on the left-hand pane.
You can simply drag and drop these blocks on the right to add a new element such as a form, social media icons, giveaway contests, and more.
Since we want to add a password field that allows users to access the the locked content, we’re going to drag and drop the Custom HTML onto the page.
To do this, simply search Custom HTML in the search field and place this block as per your desired spot on your password-protected page.
Now, click on the block on the live editor to access its settings. Here, paste this code in the Custom HTML field:
seed_bypass_form msg="Enter passcode" button-txt="Login" return="https://yourwebsite.com/welcome"Note: Make sure to enclose the above code in square brackets when pasting in the Custom HTML field.
The code above creates a standard password field, but you’ll need to slightly edit it in order for it to work perfectly on your site. Here’s what each of the three parts of this code means:
- msg: This tag specifies the text that appears within the password field. By default, this is set to “Enter passcode”. You can edit this text if you’d like to, but it’s not necessary.
- button-txt: This tag controls the text that appears on the button that leads to your password-protected page. Again, you can edit this text but it’s not required.
- return: Within this tag, you need to provide the URL of the page you want users to access with a password. Make sure to enter the correct link.
You won’t see the actual password field until you preview the page, so don’t worry if it looks like plain text in the builder. Before we preview, there are a couple of settings left to sort out, so click Save at the top-right to keep your work so far.
Step 4: WordPress Password Protected Page Settings
In this step, we’re going to set the password that users will need to actually access your protected content. On your SeedProd page builder, click on the Page Settings tab (3rd option from the top-left).
Now, select Access Control from the menu on the left. Then, within the Bypass URL field, you can enter any password that you want to set up.
It’s important to note that the password you choose will also be your bypass URL. This means that if you want a user to directly access this page, you can simply give them the bypass URL to it.
You’re almost there! Scroll down to the Include/Exclude URLs section and click on the Include URLs options. Then, paste here the link to the actual page that you want to be hidden behind a password.
And now it’s time to publish and activate our new custom password-protected page!
Step 5: Publish Your Password Protected WordPress Page
Now that we’ve customized the page and configured the settings to our liking, we can move ahead to publishing it. Click on the downward-pointing arrow next to the Save button to expand the menu and then press Publish.
You will then see the following message popup.
Now, return to your SeedProd dashboard and press the toggle switch so that the status reads Active under the Coming Soon Mode.
Your custom password-protected page is now published!
Excellent! If you’d like to customize a password-protected form page, then see the steps below where we use WPForms to accomplish this.
How to Customize Password-Protected Form Pages
You can also create and customize a password-locked form page on your WordPress site. This is very useful if you want to restrict form access to only logged-in users or those that have a password. For details, please see this guide on how to build a password-protected form.
FAQs About Customizing Password Protected Pages
These questions come up a lot when people set out to customize a password-protected page in WordPress. Here are the ones I hear most often.
Can you change the look of the default WordPress password page?
WordPress doesn’t offer a built-in way to restyle its default password prompt. The simplest route is to replace it with a custom page built in SeedProd, which is exactly what the SeedProd method above walks through, and it takes no code.
What is the difference between a private page and a password-protected page?
A password-protected page is visible to anyone who has the password, while a private page is only visible to logged-in users with the right role, like editors and admins. Use password protection when you want to share access with people who don’t have accounts on your site.
Can I password-protect my entire WordPress site?
Yes, and it’s a common use case. The easiest way is with SeedProd’s coming soon or maintenance mode, which locks the whole site behind one page. We cover every option in our guide on how to password-protect your entire WordPress site.
Can I customize the password reset form too?
You can. The password reset screen is separate from the content password prompt, but it’s just as customizable. Take a look at our guide on how to customize the WordPress password reset form.
Next, Create Your Own WordPress Theme
Do you want to create a WordPress theme that looks exactly like the way you want? Thankfully, you no longer need to be a developer to build your own WordPress theme. Check out our detailed guide on creating WordPress themes without code for more information.
Also, if you’re looking for an easy way to grow visitors to your site, you can look into sending push notifications from WordPress.
Create a Password Protected Form Now
Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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