As recently even traditional companies are expanding into online areas, and creating a professional website is one of the key tasks for any business.
Statistics show that by 2040, online sales will account for about 95% of purchases made worldwide.
How do you stand out from the competition and build an effective but simple website?
The answer may be to use a leading website development tool like Wix. It allows you to create responsive websites that look great on both desktop computers and mobile devices.
But will Wix work in every case?
To answer that question, this in-depth Wix review covers every aspect of the popular website development tool: pricing, features, add-on modules (plugins and extensions), themes, SEO features, e-commerce, support, and more.
Let’s get started!
What is Wix?
Wix is a flexible website builder. It allows you to design highly customized websites. It is also one of the most user-friendly CMS systems available for both novices and experts.
Founded in 2006, Wix has quickly become a leader in its field and is now popular in almost every country in the world.
It offers users a structured, single platform for creating responsive websites and managing an online business.
In addition, it helps small business owners attract potential customers, build relationships with contractors, integrate payment gateways, and gradually grow their business with a well-built website. It also exhibits scalability, which means it can grow as your business grows, supporting long-term, long-term partnerships without the need for constant change.
Currently, Wix has over 330,000 e-commerce users and enjoys a user base of more than 150 million users. More than 21 million mobile sites currently use Wix, which says a lot about its multi-platform compatibility. Like Shopify, it is widely used across industries by both small startups and larger companies.
Overview of Wix features
Wix provides a range of features for professionals from a variety of backgrounds.
Here’s a list of some of them:
- Intuitive interface and drag-and-drop wizard
- Optimized view on a mobile device
- Hundreds of attractive templates
- Marketing tools
- Contact management
- SSL Certificate
- Marketing tools for social media
- Professional mailbox
- Wix app store
- Google Personalized Mailbox
- Analytical and reporting tools
- Social media buttons
- Text editor
- Free fonts
Wix E-commerce
Wix offers powerful online store development tools that allow you to create stunning storefront designs and grow your e-commerce business.
The e-commerce site builder provides features such as:
- cross-platform sales
- integration with secure payment gateways
- managing the complex execution of orders
- basket and payment optimized for conversion
- advanced marketing tools
- drag and drop function
- responsive Wix templates
Wix also allows site owners to post videos about the product.
This helps them to engage the customer in the mailing process and make the information about the offers available.
There is also a “Wix Multilingual” option that allows you to create versions of your pages in multiple languages.
One of the biggest expectations from an efficient e-commerce platform is its ability to deliver customer satisfaction. Wix allows you to sell everything from podcasts to crafts. Another option is the Wix Booking app, through which users make reservations online.
Blurry zoomed-in product images or distracting layouts can easily put customers off. Wix offers attractive and engaging templates to help you set up a professional online store. It also lets you add up to 15 product images.
For global businesses, Wix offers over 15 payment options including Stripe, PayPal, Square, and more. All Wix-enabled e-commerce sites are SSL-enabled to facilitate secure online payments.
While inventory management is not the best available on the market, it allows you to sell an unlimited number of products. It also allows you to instantly import products in bulk using a CSV file.
It also supports product management including inventory, automatically mark products as out of stock and track quantities. You can easily monitor all orders from your dashboard, set shipping and tax policies for products delivered to different areas of the world.
Statistically, about 70 percent of customers abandon a site after adding all the products to their cart. To help recapture some of that lost revenue, Wix offers an Abandoned Cart Recovery feature that helps you automatically send emails encouraging you to continue.
Wix does not offer multi-channel selling on platforms like Pinterest, Amazon, and Facebook. However, it is possible to integrate with any third-party app, such as Ecwid, to sell multichannel and add additional features.
Launching an e-commerce store with Wix is child’s play. All you need to do is:
- Register on the site or log in to an existing account,
- Choose from over 500 pre-designed templates,
- Use the drag and drop editor and other tools to create and customize your store design.
- add products to the shop,
- integrate payment and shipping,
- Choose a domain name and complete the e-commerce store design process.
Wix e-commerce plans.
For beginners, there is a free version that allows you to create an online store for free. However, if the user cares about payment processing – which they most likely expect – they need a paid plan.
The best features and benefits of Wix
2019. Wix has won multiple awards from FinancesOnline. It won the title of the best ecommerce software (“Best ecommerce Software”), received recognition from experts (“Expert’s Choice”) and users (“Great User Experience”).
Here are the key traits that put him ahead of his peers:
1 – Wix Editor.
The Wix editor is easy to use. Importantly, it adapts the design to your website and gives you full control over its appearance. It also gives you the option to start from scratch and choose from over 500 responsive, pre-made templates.
The drag-and-drop feature makes personalizing the sites you create particularly easy. It allows you to play around with the available elements, gain valuable hands-on experience and try out different combinations before choosing the right one.
The editor is designed for people who want to create websites on their own, even without specialized knowledge. A characteristic feature of Wix is that it allows you to do things according to your own idea.
It also keeps updating its customizable features. Recently (in the wake of the pandemic), badges were introduced to help businesses get their message across. They allow users to post visualized information about opening hours, online availability, order taking, and more.
The editor also allows you to renew your SEO strategy, helping to increase your site’s visibility in search engines.
For example, it allows you to change URLs to help modify search rankings.
What’s more, the editor automatically optimizes the on-screen content for different devices such as mobile phones, desktops, laptops and tablets, making it compatible with multiple platforms.
The editor also allows you to add a new dimension to your project by adding animations, videos, images and unique scrolling effects that can work in multiple ways.
For example, you can give a new look to your website using effects such as parallax, reveal or zoom. Increasing the expressiveness of the presented content allows you to use more than 100 built-in fonts, which you can supplement with your own.
All in all, the extensive functionality of the Wix editor is impressive and sets it apart from the competition.
2 – WIX app store.
The Wix app store is another amazing feature that provides apps for business development. All these apps allow you to add different functionalities and allow you to personalize your website more.
There are over 300 apps available in the store for a variety of purposes – from event management software to SEO tools that improve search engine rankings and online survey tools.
With an in-store event management app, you can comprehensively manage your preparations throughout the event (including during the before and after) and focus on the event.
The app can also help you with many other activities. Some of them are:
- Live Chat with Customers. With a carefully selected strategy, you can engage customers 24/7 and comprehensively address all their needs.
- Customers also like to communicate with their peers. The app gives customers access to a forum where they can chat, brainstorm, and solve problems.
Wix market also provides an app to help you easily set up your online store.
The online store allows you to sell up to 10 products. Additionally, the premium plan provides access to many other features such as abandoned cart recovery, bitcoin acceptance, direct bank payments and more. The app allows you to sell on the website, but also on Amazon and Facebook, which multiplies the number of potential customers.
3 – Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence).
Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) is a unique platform that enables the use of artificial intelligence for web design.
It is also a direct competitor to the traditional Wix editor. However, Wix ADI is a faster and smarter version of the Editor and has many advantages.
It minimizes all of your own work and helps you get your website up and running faster than through an editor, where you design each element by hand.
ADI asks a few simple questions to assess the business requirements and immediately designs a remarkable website accordingly. The questions usually include choices regarding features, functionality and the intended name of the site.
The user still has control over the look and details of the site they are customizing.
For example, he can easily add a new section to his website. In this, click on the “Add” option and select “Section to page”.
Sometimes more pages are needed for a site or the need arises to add multiple sections to a single page. This can be done in two ways:
- Create a one-page website with multiple sections,
- Create a multi-page website.
This means that you can segregate content and customize it on your website as you see fit.
In addition to this, there are many more options for modifying the physical appearance of the site: modifying fonts, themes, text, colors, and more.
ADI also allows you to add animations to parts of your site.
This feature is extremely helpful because statistics show that videos and animations process 60,000 times faster than text, which proves to be very useful when businesses are trying to communicate with potential customers in a short amount of time. They can also increase the conversion rate by almost 86%.
Not many website builders offer the option to add animations or the ability to increase conversions, so Wix excels in this regard.
In addition to this, it allows you to integrate your existing online content with ADI.
Here are some of the key features of Wix ADI:
- Content tailored to your website,
- original and unique web designs,
- mobile-friendly,
- gives clever tips,
- allows you to customize colors and fonts,
- SEO compatible.
However, ADI also has some disadvantages. First, the user cannot use templates when using ADI. Second, ADI relies on a set of questions and answers as a consequence of which it designs a website. It also limits the number of applications and features that can be added, which distinguishes ADI from Editor.
When using ADI, access to the Wix mobile app marketplace is also limited. Unlike Editor, you don’t have the luxury of choosing from hundreds of apps. In addition, you can’t directly manage specific URL pages.
4 – Email marketing.
Wix offers one of the most impressive email marketing services compared to other website builders. Businesses can create and share newsletters, sales promotions, invitations, and product updates and present them to more than just their potential customers.
Users also get access to a wide range of backgrounds, colours, and fonts, allowing them to customize and control the aesthetic aspects of the emails they send.
The wizard also offers users plenty of templates to use in case they don’t want to create their own.
One of the main advantages of Wix is that it is easily integrated with any third-party platform. You can also easily add third-party email marketing platforms such as AWeber, ConvertKit or GetResponse to your Wix site using HTML code.
This feature makes it easy to access all your contacts with seamless, built-in integration. With the right settings, you can easily display all email addresses collected through your website and from third-party providers like Gmail and Outlook in a single database. Adding social media buttons to your email newsletter is also no problem. The wizard also includes a highly detailed statistics dashboard to measure the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.
The dashboard consists of three main areas:
Email statistics show the number of messages delivered, open rate, click-through rate, and more.
Here’s an example:
It also displays the email rejection rate and the number of spam complaints, if any. In this example, the delivery rate is very high, but the open rate needs improvement. You can draw conclusions based on your business and the factors you want to improve.
There is an “Advanced Statistics” feature that identifies clicks from a variety of devices, including mobile, desktop, tablets and more.
A detailed breakdown of the numbers in an email campaign helps you make better decisions, improve customer service standards and increase sales.
Here’s a quick overview of all the email marketing features in Wix:
- numerous email templates with customizable styles
- social media tools
- tracking statistics
- possibility of manual template selection
- Easy synchronization of contacts
5. Velo from Wix.
The Velo engine is another unique feature of Wix that helps users create advanced web applications. It helps users create dynamic, compelling websites and apps from scratch.
Corvid is essentially a serverless, open-source development platform and code editor for creating professional applications. What’s more, it’s completely cloud-based and you don’t have to worry about deploying it on-site because Wix does it automatically.
To use Crovid, all you have to do is:
- Log in to your Wix account ,
- Open the editor,
- Enable Corvid in the editor.
You can also add JavaScript code to your Wix site to interact with existing APIs. This provides a high level of customization for your site.
Corvid’s automation level is also worth mentioning. You can use it simply to schedule recurring tasks and run pre-defined code at specific intervals.
Corvid allows you to integrate your site with Wix Data, allowing you to access the extensive collection of built-in Wix databases. If for some reason you need to access a database that is not in Wix, you can use an external SPI database and freely access any external databases you need.
Once connected to the database, you can, for example:
- link your data to different elements of your site,
- capture user input,
- dynamically create pages.
Wix Corvid also allows you to add a built-in IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that allows you to code directly in the Editor.
The IDE can perform a number of functions such as:
- minimizing CSS code,
- Minimizing JavaScript code,
- Packaging JavaScript files,
- Enabling database management.
Above that, Corvid also acts as a site monitoring partner.
The site monitoring feature allows you to collect statistics on various aspects of what is happening on your Wix site, including tracking site events in real time and linking to Stackdriver from Google. In some cases, it also allows you to connect to third-party monitoring tools for analytical research.
Wix Corvid is especially helpful for beginners because of its highly automated features. In addition, it offers many online videos, tutorials, forums, and blogs for information, making it even easier to use and understand.
Here’s a quick summary of all the Wix Corvid features:
- Built-in IDE,
- It works serverless,
- Integrated databases,
- SEO Compatible,
- Clear front-end design
- Wix Secure Cloud
6. Integration with Google Analytics.
Wix, like many other website builders, provides easy integration with Google Analytics via unique GA code.
It’s an easy process and all you need to do is follow a few simple steps. To get started all you need to do is:
- Log in to your Google Analytics account
- Click on the “admin” option at the bottom of the screen
Consequently, the following window opens:
Then select the “Tracking Code” option at the bottom of the middle section and copy the content. Now just paste it into the text editor under “Marketing Integrations” and click the “Connect” option to access Google Analytics.
This feature allows you to track your company’s important metrics / KPIs, including number of visitors, pages viewed, visitor location, dwell time, CTR, most frequently used keywords to find your site, and more.
It also gives you more detailed information such as how to maintain your website or increase customer engagement. In addition, it helps you plan the changes you can make to improve your business on a strategic and tactical level.
7. Wix SEO
Wix comes with professional SEO tools to help any website rank better and improve its visibility.
The good news is that setup is easy. You just need to answer a few questions about your site, location, and anticipated keywords.
Wix’s built-in SEO features make your sites stand out on the web, as soon as they hit the web. They provide fast loading times that help retain customers. According to statistics, 57% of customers leave a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. Websites can achieve a 24% increase in sales by working on SEO.
Even Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites. This is where Wix’s SEO tools come in handy.
In addition, Wix can create and maintain accurate XML sitemaps that make it easy for search engines to track your site and display it higher in search engine rankings. Another important feature is that it creates a unique Robots.txt file that allows search engines to instantly tag and locate.
Wix creates individual meta tags for each site by default. Each meta tag accurately describes your site’s content to search engines, making it easier for them to find relevant information.
Here’s a quick overview of all the advanced SEO features from Wix:
- Fast charging time
- Optimization on mobile devices
- Google fast indexing
- Secure hosting
- XML Site Map
- Robots.txt
- Default metatags
- Canonical URL links
Some features including adding 301 redirects, setting canonical URLs, editing social media page information are basic issues for any search engine. Wix is one of the few website development software that comprehensively solves all these tasks.
Wix plans
Wix is reaching out to users with a “free Wix plan” that you can use for free as needed. However, the free plan has some limitations. For example, it displays ads that can’t be removed unless you switch to a paid plan. It also doesn’t give you access to a custom domain name.
Annual plans instead of monthly plans allow you to get discounts that range from 17% to 33% depending on the plan you choose.
Some facts about Wix
- Registration – Simple, consisting of 3 steps.
- 500 Themes- Wide range of options for every domain.
- Good SEO features – Answering a few questions guarantees your site is optimized in 30 seconds. Plus the ability to blog.
- Cross-platform compatibility – site on PCs, tablets, mobile devices and laptops.
- SSL certificate – added to every WIX website.
- Personal domain – its ownership comes with a premium plan. Free domains and hosting come with each annual subscription. The cheapest is $156 for the annual “Combo” plan.
- E-commerce features – the greatest online store capabilities among leading website builders, including Squarespace and Weebly.
- Ease of use – very simple and intuitive interface that requires no coding knowledge.
- Payment integration – via PayPal or credit cards.
- Drag and drop editor – create sites from scratch with no prior experience.
- Google Analytics – company performance and room for improvement.
- Third-Party Integrations – connect your own website to marketing tools and widgets to extend the functionality of your site.
Advantages and disadvantages of Wix
Here’s a definitive overview of all the pros and cons of Wix.
Advantages of Wix.
Here are some of the advantages that make Wix stand out from its counterparts:
- Users can create their own custom domain names or import the ones they already have on Wix.com. This helps you build your own brand and stand out in the marketplace.
- “Logo Maker” from Wix allows you to design personalized logos for your business based on a few questions about your preferences and business domains. You can customize them by changing colors, fonts, sizes and more.
- All Wix websites have a built-in SSL certificate to ensure security and data integrity.Managing all your contacts in a large company can be difficult. Wix lets you manage them all on one platform.
- Wix creates password-protected pages so customers can have exclusive access to them.
- Wix allows you to set up and implement custom tax and shipping policies anywhere in the world.
- Wix automatically updates the software when there is an update.
- Offers customer support via phone, live chats, and emails. There is also an extensive knowledge base and call back services.
- Wix provides integration with multiple payment gateways to instantly process payments, send invoices, store receipts and track payment status with customers and suppliers.
Disadvantages of Wix.
- Wix doesn’t allow you to copy content from one theme to another, making it difficult to switch between templates.
- The free plan includes a “Wix” watermark. This may affect potential branding efforts.
- Wix does not provide analytics tools for free plan holders. It doesn’t give you access to detailed data that helps businesses make informed decisions and understand statistics like CTR, open rates, number of visitors, and more.
- Wix makes it difficult to move websites to another platform. The whole process is complicated, time-consuming and expensive. So, it will be difficult to export your website to another provider in the future.
Wix Summary
Wix is a popular website builder for small and medium-sized businesses, start-ups and individuals who want to highlight their online presence.
It’s also worth noting that over 50% of Wix’s employees focus on research and development. This ensures that websites run smoothly with minimal hindrances.
We highly recommend Wix to companies that focus on selling tangible and digital goods and want to build a simple website without an IT specialist.
All in all, the intuitive user interface, customer support, and ease of maintenance are important features that make Wix one of the most preferred website development tools.
