Faced with the ever-expanding list of options for building your website using a dedicated platform rather than a web designer, you might find yourself with some questions: Which platform provides the best value for money? What features are included? Are they beginner-friendly?
A popular choice for novices, and number one in our best website builder list, Wix is a code-free building platform that offers an all-in-one solution to designing and hosting a professional website or portfolio online. In this Wix review, we’ll discuss the platform’s key features, its ease of use, and its value for money to determine whether it’s the right website builder for you.
Wix review: Plans and pricing
Wix offers great value for money, with both a free plan and a variety of upgrades—plus you have the option to pay monthly, yearly, and bi-yearly.
When you create a free website, Wix includes free hosting to get your site online, with 500MB of cloud storage so you can upload photos and other files to your site. While this plan may suit beginners looking to create simple websites or portfolios, upgrading to one of the Premium plans includes up to 50GB of cloud storage, removes Wix ads, and implements tracking and analytics. All Premium plans include a 14-day cancellation policy and the option to connect a free custom domain name for a year, enabling you to tailor your site address so that visitors can effortlessly find it. Premium plans also include vouchers to advertise your site on Google and Bing.
The cheapest Premium option is the Combo plan – $18/£8 a month on a flexible monthly subscription, or $14/£6 a month if paid upfront for an annual commitment. However, this plan only includes 3GB of storage space, and doesn’t come with ad vouchers or e-commerce integrations. If additional storage or e-commerce are among your feature priorities, the Business Basic plan ($28/£16 a month, or $23/£13 a month paid annually) would be more suitable.
While not the cheapest on the market, Wix offers brilliant value for money by providing a free plan and affordable options for those wishing to upgrade.
Wix review: Features
Wix provides a one-stop platform to build and host your website online without any prior technical or coding knowledge. There are a variety of features to aid the building of your site – here are a few of interest.
Design flexibility
Wix provides over 500 free ready-made templates for websites in categories like business, portfolios, and blogging. While some are lower quality than others, the variety, and the ability to customise each block, make Wix a favourite for those wanting personalisation without extensive coding. All themes are mobile responsive, too, so you don’t have to worry about your site warping on a smaller screen.
The platform also sets itself apart from competitors by supplying an innovative design solution: Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI). This feature generates a bespoke site in minutes, tailoring it to match the user’s needs – a great solution for those lacking time or technical skills.
SEO integration
Wix’s industry-leading SEO offering is unrivalled, with tools like mobile-responsive pages, optimised headings, and image alt text included within your website. The platform also helps to ease beginners in – the interactive SEO wizard creates a tailored plan dedicated to boosting your ranking on Google. Just answer a few questions and Wix takes care of the rest, providing a step-by-step plan for optimisation.
There are also hundreds of additional functionalities in the Wix App Market, including Rabbit SEO, which suggests keywords and helps optimise pages to make them discoverable. These tools and more offer a beginner-friendly solution to making your website discoverable to new clients.
Improved mobile app and blog SEO
Wix makes a point of adding all new feature updates to its dedicated blog page, and in 2021 alone, there have been numerous software releases. Useful updates include advanced SEO settings for any blog posts you create—you can now control how your posts are displayed on social media, plus utilise advanced SEO meta-tag customisation.
The new and improved Wix Owner mobile app now enables you to track analytics, chat with site visitors, and seamlessly run your website on the go. You can also see how new and existing members are engaging with your site and when, helping you to optimise your site efficiently.
Wix Review: Interface
Getting started and using the platform is incredibly straightforward. Ease of use and simple navigation are cornerstones of the Wix interface – the simple drag-and-drop, click-to-edit blocks and lack of technical jargon enables beginners to jump straight in.
During account creation, Wix provides questions to determine which site is best for you. Once you’ve selected the purpose of your site, you're then presented with a suggested collection of themes, pages, and widgets. You can opt to fully create and design your site independently or use Wix ADI to generate a custom-made site.
Editing on the dedicated Wix app is also relatively simple – the interface echoes that of the desktop, and whilst it’s slightly more time-consuming, you can still customise many features on the go.
Wix review: Support
All Wix plans come with 24/7 customer care – users can benefit from email and phone assistance, social media outreach, articles, forums, and a dedicated support centre.
An innovative feature that makes Wix a solid favourite is the on-page support; if you’re unsure of something, you can simply click the question mark while editing and receive a solution instantly.
Wix: Is it right for me?
Overall, Wix is a brilliant platform for beginners creating websites and portfolios. The accessibility of the free plan is ideal if you’re not ready to commit to Premium, and upgrading your plan at a later stage is simple. The user interface is responsive and easy to understand, and innovative solutions like the SEO Wiz and Wix ADI make optimizing and designing your site quick and painless.
While Wix has received some criticism regarding slower site performance than some of its competitors, this doesn’t seem to present problems for smaller sites. The paid plans may be slightly more expensive than some competitors, but the variety of tools and integrations included give Wix brilliant value for money.
