Wix.com Review

If you are going to build a website without any coding, it’s important to have access to great templates and Wix definitely has this covered – and they are included at no additional charge.  Wix offers over 500 professional looking templates and they are always adding more.

To get started creating your website, you can use the template wizard to narrow down your search, or you can choose the option to view all templates.  If you use the wizard option, you can easily switch categories.  In order to simplify the selection process, templates are broken down by industry, and then by subcategory within each one.  You can choose from business and services, music, entertainment, online stores, blogs, hotel and travel, restaurant and hospitality, photography, creative arts, design, retail and fashion, one-page sites, personal sites or you can start with a blank template.

Within each website template you have multiple options for page and content layout or you can start from a blank canvas.  You can use pre-designed color themes or you can pick your own colors.  The same is true for fonts.  Templates start with pre-set images but these are easily changed and Wix offers a large collection of 1000’s of free fully customizable images, clipart and icons or you can import your own. If you like the layout and format of a template that is filled with pictures that are “not in your industry” you can change the pictures to suit your needs.

While websites built with Wix will adjust to different platforms, none of the templates are what would be called fully Responsive Design.  In order to create a mobile version of your website, Wix offers a unique editor that will generate an optimized mobile website with a single click.

When you use the mobile editor, you have the ability to manually adjust the content that will appear on the mobile version of your site.  This makes it possible for you to move things around, to limit the pages that can be seen and to control the amount of content that appears on the mobile version.

You can also enable the “click to call” feature so that your visitors can easily contact you without having to dial the phone number.

As you are working in the mobile editor from the Wix dashboard on your desktop, you will be able to see exactly how the mobile version of your site will look to viewers.

While Wix does create a good working mobile site, if your goal is build a native App then Wix is not the tool to do it with.

Hosting

All of the Wix plans, including the free version, include hosting so there are no additional charges.  Wix boasts reliable hosting with over 99.9% uptime and uninterrupted service.  If you chose one of the Premium plans, your domain will be registered with Wix and connected directly to the hosting.  It is important to note that sites built using the Wix platform can only be hosted with them, not any other hosting provider.

Storage & Bandwidth

When choosing a platform to host your website, it’s important to take in to consideration whether or not it has the capability to keep up with your needs.  This is where storage and bandwidth come in to play.

Storage refers to the amount of space available to hold the contents of your website.  This includes the structure of your website (for example, the template used and the number of pages), the text content, images and graphics, as well as video and audio files (if they are actually stored on the server).

In simple terms, bandwidth refers to the amount of data that is transferred through your website, as well as the speed at which that data is transmitted.  This number is greatly influenced by the number of visitors to your site and the amount of time they spend on it.  When your site first gets going, you won’t need a lot of bandwidth.

Wix offers different plans designed to meet varying website needs:

• Free – up to 500MB of storage and up to 500MB bandwidth
• Connect Domain – 500MB of storage and up to 1 GB bandwidth
• Combo Plan – up to 3GB of storage and 2 GB bandwidth
• Unlimited Plan – up to 10GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth
• E-Commerce Plan – up to 20 GB of storage and 10 GB bandwidth
• VIP Plan – up to 20 GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth

With Wix, you have the flexibility to start small and upgrade to higher level plans as your website needs grow.  Wix keeps track of how much storage space and bandwidth you are using, and this information is easily accessible from the site dashboard. The first time that you go over your bandwidth or storage allotment, Wix sends you a message with no additional charges, so that you can make any necessary adjustments for the future.

One of the things that makes Wix a powerful choice for non-professional website builders is the availability of 100’s of applications that you can simply plug in to your website, many of which are completely free.  Some of the Apps are made by Wix and others are provided by other companies. As of this writing, Wix offers more third-party web applications than other website building platforms.

In addition to apps for social media, newsletters, communications, e-commerce, audio, video and photo galleries, blogs, SEO and traffic generation (all of which are further described below), Wix offers a wide variety of other plug ins that can add increased functionality to your website, making it more inviting and useful for your site visitors.

Wix makes it simple to add things such as forms, calendars, weather forecasts, Google maps, quotes, hit counters, polls, testimonials, QR codes and scheduling features into your website – with no programming or coding skills required.

All of the websites built using the Wix platform are search engine friendly and Wix guarantees that site content can be indexed and crawled by major search engines such as Google and Bing.  You also have the ability to individually add page titles, Meta descriptions and alt tags from the site dashboard.  When you are ready to have your site “seen” by search engines, you simply click a button during publishing.

In addition, Wix offers over 10 different apps that are designed to boost traffic, increase SEO and achieve higher ranking in search engine results, all of which will help you reach more customers and build your business.

Whenever you need help, Wix offers a 24/7 support center with several options including email, phone, a knowledgebase help center, forum support and video tutorials.

Wix has been building its database of questions and answers for years, so in most cases you can find what you need by using the support system which will walk you through your questions.  If you still need help, you can either submit a ticket to get an answer by email or you can request help by phone.  Unlike many other phone support systems, there is no waiting on hold for a representative.  Instead, you schedule a time for someone to call you – when it’s most convenient.

Another option for finding the answers you need is to visit the support forum where you can see questions that have been submitted by other users.  You even have the option of following the discussion.