Thinking about setting up a website? Maybe you’re a freelancer or small business in search of a platform to help you sell. Or perhaps you’re looking for a way to blog your thoughts to the world. Either way, a website is what you need to get your message out there. The good news is that you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars or possess extensive technical web skills to build an impressive website.
As a leader in website creation, Wix provides cloud-based development software that allows anyone – no matter their skill set – to set up their ideal website. The easy-to-use editor allows users to build hassle-free, professional websites. Perfect for small businesses, freelancers, or individuals simply wishing to express themselves, Wix has the highest public recommendation of any website building platform.
Wix is renowned for creating the first Microsoft project to be hosted externally and released under an open-source license. Since Rob Mensching released the first version in 2004, Wix has developed 10 other versions, the most recent in 2019.
Why Build a Website?
A personal website can give you a competitive advantage when it comes to job hunting. A personal website is also space where you can be creative and share your opinions, creations, and expertise with the world. When you build a personal website, you can maintain control over your narrative and image and build your personal brand.
Meanwhile, budding freelancers and small companies need websites because – quite frankly – business prospects will expect you to have one. A website provides proof of your skills and allows you to sell yourself and showcase your products or services. You need a website to compete. With a website, you’ll gain credibility and market yourself as an industry expert.
These statistics speak volumes about the importance of having a website:
- According to Search Engine Land, 30 percent of consumers won’t buy from businesses that don’t have websites.
- According to Forbes, 97 percent of consumers search online to find local businesses.
- According to Entrepreneur, 75 percent of buyers judge someone’s credibility based on their website.
Who Can Use Wix?
You should be able to present yourself or your business online, even if you’re not a computer wizard. When you use Wix, it doesn’t matter how much web experience you have. By adopting the user-friendly Wix interface, anyone can build a website to promote their business, share their creations, run an online store, or start a blog.
Beginners can choose from more than 500 designer templates and use the drag-and-drop website builder to customize as many elements as they desire. Elements include video backgrounds, scroll effects, and animations. Meanwhile, experienced web users can start their website from scratch using Corvid – a comprehensive web development platform.
How to Build Your Wix Website
Building a Wix website is easy, and you can do it by following five simple steps:
- Sign up for a free website builder, and select the type of website that you need. Wix offers template categories for an expansive number of niches, including health and wellness, portfolio and CV, sports and nutrition, business and consultancy, and creative arts.
- Flick through the extensive collection of HTML templates, and select one to customize. Use the drag-and-drop tool to choose between hundreds of design features, such as text, galleries, videos, and vector art. Alternatively, you can answer a short questionnaire, and Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) will instantly build you a personalized website with custom text and images.
- Tailor your website by adding an online store, blog, members’ area, or a community facilities booking system. You can add these features at any time.
- Use the Mobile Editor to personalize your website for mobile use. Mobile traffic accounts for more than half of all website visitors. We always have our phones handy for research when we need a product or service. That’s why Wix automatically creates a mobile-optimized version of your website. From there, you’re free to adapt the layout as you see fit.
- Complete a second short questionnaire about your website, location, and keywords to generate a free SEO Wiz plan. You can use Wix’s advanced SEO tools and integrated marketing solutions to maximize your organic traffic and make sure that your website is easy to find online.
Further Customizing Your Wix Website
Customize your website by creating a logo that reflects your brand. Answer a few questions about your business or personal style, and the Wix logo maker will instantly create a customizable logo design for you. You’ll have full commercial rights for any logo that you create.
You can make your site even more credible by getting a custom domain name. Your Wix domain comes free with your site, but you may choose to make your brand stand out and help drive traffic to your site by buying a custom domain. You can also use a domain in your email address, social media channels, and email campaigns.
Wix E-Commerce
If you sell products, you’ll need an e-commerce plugin to allow customers to shop. The Wix e-commerce builder enables customers to feel safe with secure online payment transactions. The e-commerce software includes an online store builder, custom storefront and cart, multichannel sales, and secure payment solutions. Your e-commerce system will also detail shipping rules and global drop shipping through Modalyst, which allows you to sell your products anywhere in the world. If you have an online store on another platform that you’d like to transfer to a new Wix site, you can easily migrate your product catalog as a CSV file.
Blogging With Wix
Blogging is one of the best ways to share your expertise and establish yourself as a trusted source of information. When starting a blog, decide whether your goal is to inform, persuade, or entertain. Include practical, actionable advice, and share step-by-step instructions to demonstrate your knowledge. Keep your content purpose and audience in mind, and always finish with a strong call to action.
Spice up your blog posts with attention-grabbing titles to draw readers in and clear subheadings to help people navigate your articles easily. Readers are also drawn to content that has plenty of white space and is easy on the eye. Use bullet points and numbered lists to make your content easy to read, and break up your content with infographics, photos, and videos.
Before naming your Wix blog, run a quick online search to check that no one else has already used that name or a similar one. You don’t want your blog to get confused with another. Your blog can be a stand-alone website or an extension of your main website, and you can connect your Wix blog to your Wix website domain.
Wix SEO Wiz
Wix comprises several built-in features to help your website and/or blog rank well. Free SEO features include:
- Speedy load time: Websites load instantly for users around the world.
- Mobile optimization: Webpages perform well, no matter which devices visitors use.
- Google indexing: Google lists sites in search results within 30 seconds of content publication.
- Hosting: Wix encrypts data over HTTPS connections and uses SSL certificates.
- Structured data: Schema markups enable search engines to understand which content can be displayed as rich results.
- XML sitemap: Wix keeps sitemaps up to date, enabling search engines to crawl all webpages.
- Robots.txt files: Wix produces robots.txt files so that search engines can crawl webpages.
- Canonical URLs: Only relevant content will rank in search engine results pages, and canonical URLs avoid duplicate content penalization.
- Default meta tags: Wix predicts metadata for search engines; you can change meta tags at any time or allow Wix to save you the effort.
You can also generate an SEO Wix plan – a personalized set of SEO tools and insights into your SEO performance that’s specific to your website.
Wix Pricing and Plans
In addition to free website templates, customization tools, and web hosting, you can upgrade to a Premium website and enjoy even more features. Wix offers a variety of premium pricing plans. From basic plans to advanced business plans, you can upgrade your website to enjoy the following benefits:
• Additional bandwidth
• Additional MB storage
• Connected domains
• Removed ads
• Free domains
• Ad vouchers
• Site booster app
• Visitor analytics app
• Professional logo
• Social media logo files
• Priority response
• VIP support
Get Started With Wix
Wix users can create and boost their web presence with easy-to-use software that comprises social plugins, e-commerce features, marketing tools, email applications, contact forms, and community forums. Wix enables freelancers, businesses, and individuals to customize their websites endlessly, creating highly tailored designs using the drag-and-drop builder. It’s easy to join Wix’s 150 million active users by creating your professional website for free. Should you need particularly advanced or niche web, blogging, or SEO services when building your website, the Wix Marketplace is full of certified freelancers and agencies to meet all budgets.
