Over the past few years in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, Wix has cemented its place as a leading website creating platform offering people a chance to create free personalized websites in a few clicks. People who wish to have more customization abilities to improve their website can do so through the platform’s paid packages. And while every concept has its advantages and disadvantages, we will look into this major success story in detail through this article.
photo/ Simplu pixabay user
Wix – a web platform for auto-website creation
Firstly, Wix is a web platform focusing on website creation and hosting, and their main selling point is it’s easy and free to set up a personalized website. Many people have embraced the idea, with the latest statistics announcing 76 million users around the globe. This platform has grown from what was just but a dream by Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan into a huge entity headquartered in Tel Aviv.
Revolutionary Drag and Drop Technology
Probably the key to the success story, drag and drop technology allows you to seamlessly pick an element and place it at the desired location on the interface. The company has enjoyed success ever since being listed on the stock exchange in 2013.
Setting up your website takes a few minutes and does not require any technical know-how; a few clicks and 2-3 drag and drop, and you’re good. Wix also has an App Market which will help you boost your site with important facets like the integration of a contact form, newsletter, live chat, among others. And while this is a great deal, premium packages are available for those who wish to access comprehensive features.
So, why choose Wix? Here’s why;
- The platform is easy to work on, and you don’t need HTML and CSS knowledge to customize colors, create layouts, and add text.
- Professional website with numerous templates designs that are offered for free
- Wix allows you to create and host your website on their cloud saving you the hassle of finding a host
- The App Market has numerous applications to help you customize your website
- Wix websites are in HTML5. Their loading time and referencing is good
- The platform’s paid packages offer an amazing price/performance ratio
And while the platform has seen tremendous overhauls, some significant disadvantages still exist. They include;
- Zero access to code and database. Once you decide to stop hosting your site on Wix, you won’t access any information from your website.
- Limited flexibility – it’d be very difficult to fully customize your site with high-end functionalities
- Stuckness – it’s very difficult to migrate your Wix site to another website platform like Magento or WordPress
- While on the free offer, you’ll have to keep up with banner ads on your site and a domain name doesn’t look very much professional.
If you’d like to expand your business (instead of being a small business in the future) and fully customize your website with more enhanced functionalities, we recommend you to hire a website development company. In this case, 2Easy is able to bring you the right company to build your ideal website.
Some key features on Wix free plan:
In Wix free mode, you’ll be able to;
- Personalize and alter the appearance. You can add parallax effects and different background images for each page.
- Communicate with visitors. Through the contact form, surveys, newsletters, the RSS feed subscription, you can communicate with visitors. You can also propose social network sharing buttons and comments.
- Rely on the amazing effect of the media. You can create numerous galleries, import photos and videos from your social networks, and enjoy a full-screen video on the home page.
- Add more amazing features. Easily add a search engine, Google Maps, a visit counter, and a countdown to a specific event.
- Integrate marketing functions. Include popups to capture the attention and incorporate Adsense advertising to generate extra revenue.
Technical Aspects
Design and Template
With over 500 templates, Wix classifies the models by category and then subcategory based on the activity; fashion, health, catering, beauty, among others. You can choose to display new, popular, or blank templates for ease of selection.
Page Editor
With Wix, imagination is your only limit. Add pages and organize the tree structure of your pages as you wish. After you’re done with the creation phase, use the drag and drop function to add content (images, text, galleries). You can also edit the name, title, and subtitles at this stage.
3rd Party Applications
The Wix App market boasts of over 150 applications to help you customize your website. Use the MailChimp for you emailing solutions, Callback to allow visitors to ask you to call them back, and many others. And while a few of this are free, most of the external applications are not.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
To optimize your site for search engines, there’s an SEO tab on each page, the basic tools to edit the title, meta description, and keywords. Sitemap.xml files and the robot.txt file are generated automatically and cannot be modified. Wix also offers you the possibility to configure 301 redirections.
Third Party tools integration
Linking your website to a Soundcloud or Spotify account is much easier than you thought, and so is adding social networks like Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook. Premium package holders can enjoy more comprehensive tools such as Google Analytics.
Wix for an e-commerce site
Regardless of the template you’ve chosen, you can enjoy e-commerce. To add an online store, start with an e-commerce package which offers the WixStores tool allowing you to create the online store, configure payments, manage orders, and so much more.
Advantages of Wix ecommerce site
- Offers choice among various payment methods
- Great product presentation
- In-built basket management and addition of discount codes
- Easily set delivery costs per item
Disadvantages of Wix ecommerce site
- Credit card payments not accepted
- There are only two variations per article
- Manual sending of order validation emails
Different Wix Plans
- Connect domain at €408/month- domain name, 500 MB storage, and 1 GB bandwidth
- e-commerce at €24.90/month excluding promotion. You’ll get a domain name, 20 GB of storage, and unlimited bandwidth
- Combo at €12.90/month excluding promotion for a domain name, 3 GB storage, and a 2GB bandwidth storage
- Unlimited at €22.90/month excluding promotion for a domain name, 10 GB storage, and unlimited bandwidth.
Our Take and Advice !
Good for basic small business
Wix is indisputably one of the best website creation and hosting platforms. It doesn’t require HTML and CSS knowledge and is free. The premium package offers an amazing price/performance ratio and allows you to customize your website further, communicate easily with visitors, allow visitors to tell you to call back, track sales, and manage orders.
And while Wix offers different categories and subcategories, companies with a wide range of categories grouped into different sectors may find the customization to be limited. The website remains basic, and the inability to access the source code of the site makes it completely impossible to add the personal touch to differentiate your website from the competition. The platform is designed mostly for non-technical profiles.
Great barrier for business expansion and further customization
If you would to expand your business in the future, you have to understand that Wix is not a platform with extended flexibility. Being said that, you are not allowed to add functionalities easily according to your business needs. The possibility of customization of a Wix website is limited. Since the platform is specially designed for general public ( people without technical knowledges), you can’t expect it will open up its source code for fully customization.
Difficult to stand out from your competition
As Asia is a highly competitive market, especially in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Without the openness of the source code, it is impossible for web developer to enhance your website as to make it outperform your competitors. If you choose to use Wix, your website will remain simple and basic, you may not be able to position your company differently from others.
If you’d like to expand your business and fully customize your website with powerful functionalities, we highly recommend you to hire a website development company to achieve your business plan. In this case, 2Easy is able to bring you the right company to build your ideal website.
What Sets 2Easy Apart from Competing Platforms
- Clients receive recommendations only of high-grade professional services, not freelancers.
- Service providers go through stringent quality checks and extensive matching criteria before they are connected with prospective clients.
- 2Easy evaluates the client’s industry and working techniques before making the right recommendations of service platforms that match requirements perfectly.
Users can request 2Easy for quotes from web development, e-Commerce website, and PWA development companies free of cost.
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Author: Edward Wix