Website development is an important stage in the life of any online business. After all, the number of sales and conversion depend on the quality of the online platform. There are many difficulties associated with choosing the right CMS. Today we will take a closer look at one of the most popular solutions that is used for these tasks – the Wix builder.
This Israeli platform has won the attention of millions of users thanks to its intuitive interface, rich templates and integration capabilities. Wix is perfect for launching both a simple landing page and a full-fledged marketplace.
In our review of the Wix website builder, we will look at the features of this CMS, its pros and cons, and also look at the main applications that this platform offers a lot.
For which websites is the Wix builder usually used?
This constructor is especially suitable in the following cases:
Small business card sites with static content. For landing pages, advertising pages and portfolios, Wix allows you to implement almost any design idea. For example, you can attract potential clients with an animated presentation of your services or products, insert videos, feedback forms, and interactive elements.
Blogs, online stores and forums. Rich functionality and plugins from the marketplace will help you create a full-fledged web resource of any type. For example, you can launch an online store, connect payment systems, and then set up analytics and traffic tracking for it.
Complex projects requiring individual development. The service allows you to create your own controls and insert scripts using the internal Corvid module. This is a code editor that extends the functionality of standard templates. The code for Corvid is written in JavaScript, so experienced developers can implement almost any project.
Wix is also well suited for beginners who are just starting their journey in web development. An intuitive interface and an abundance of ready-made design layouts will significantly simplify the process of developing your own Internet site for you.
Benefits of the Wix website builder
Huge library of professional templates for every taste. Minimalist, classic, and vibrant design themes for different niches are presented. All of them are adapted for mobile devices. They can be completely redesigned to suit your needs by changing the structure, colors, fonts or pictures.
Powerful visual editor with a wide range of capabilities. You can add and customize the position of blocks (dragged in drag-and-drop mode), add animation and interactive elements. There are also convenient tools for layout and positioning (for more advanced administrators).
Logo maker. The service will automatically select a picture to suit your topic, which can later be cropped, rotated, and added filters and visual effects. You can also select a picture from the internal library.
Marketplace with hundreds of useful extensions. There are ready-made modules for connecting an online store, blog or CRM system. You can also install extensions to connect a booking system for hotels, gyms or restaurant tables.
Advanced SEO optimization. The built-in assistant will help you implement internal optimization of the project even without special knowledge. Artificial intelligence will analyze the content and immediately point out errors that need to be corrected – where meta tags are not filled in, alt for photos, check whether promoted keywords are inserted, etc.
Development of your own mobile applications. Based on the constructor, you can create add-ons for iOS and Android, with which you can expand your target audience and increase brand loyalty.
Suitable for experienced developers. Although Wix has an intuitive interface that even a beginner can understand, it is also suitable for programmers with more advanced technical requirements. In particular, they will appreciate the Velo module, which allows you to connect external databases and create dynamic pages based on templates.
24/7 support. The technical support service works 24/7 and helps resolve any issues via online chat, email or phone. There is also a huge knowledge base with step-by-step instructions and video tutorials.
Regular functionality updates. The developers are constantly expanding the existing functionality – major updates are released several times a year with new themes, plugins and usability improvements.
Are there any disadvantages to the Wix platform?
A review of the Wix builder would not be complete without mentioning some of the disadvantages of this service:
Relatively high price. The basic Light package will cost at least $16 per month. It already includes the use of your own domain name, and also lacks Wix branding, but you won’t be able to create an eCommerce project on it.
Excessive editor functionality. A huge number of settings and widgets can frighten an inexperienced user who sees a CMS for the first time in his life. Careless actions can cause the layout to float and some functions to stop working. However, with experience, the situation can improve significantly.
Some of the applications on the marketplace are unfinished. Plugins from third-party developers are often not optimized for the current version of the designer, unless their author provides timely updates. For really useful and high-quality extensions, you will have to pay an additional $5 per month.
Slow loading speed. If you have a large amount of text, media content, or use many third-party scripts, loading on Wix will be significantly slower than on standard CMSs. To correct the situation, you may need to optimize images and enable caching.
Overview of the capabilities of the Wix website builder
Next in our review of the Wix website builder, we will look at its main functions. Working with the platform is as simplified as possible thanks to detailed instructions and tips for using all the tools, which can be called up by clicking on the “i” icon.
A pop-up window will open with a brief description of the purpose of the desired tool and a link to the full manual. In the help section, you can also find the answer to your question using keywords.
The CMS structure is intuitive thanks to a convenient sidebar with all functions divided into categories. Let’s look at each of them in more detail.
Visual editor
Wix is equipped with a powerful visual editor with What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) technology. This means that the administrator’s work process is as clear as possible—he sees the same design and content that visitors to the finished resource will receive.
The editor supports drag-and-drop technology. Any elements and widgets can be moved by simply dragging the mouse. It is also possible to change the size of objects by dragging the dotted marker on their border.
When you select a block, icons appear to configure its parameters: design, data source, content display. For example, in the gallery, you can select a photo and set video playback rules. All options are designed as clearly as possible so that even a beginner can handle the setup.
Adding your own HTML
The team of Israeli developers pays close attention to security, so some restrictions are imposed on working with custom HTML and JS code.
External scripts can only be embedded in isolated iframe containers without access to the browser API. The same principle applies to the integration of third-party sites via the HTTPS protocol.
At the same time, there is a separate section in the control panel for setting analytics counter codes. The required script can be easily connected in a few clicks. But only an experienced programmer can handle more complex modifications of the source code.
Menu
The “Menu” section automatically displays a list of all static pages of the project in the form of separate items. Their display order can be edited by dragging and dropping, and the nesting level can be changed in the same way.
It is also possible to create additional anchor links to a particular section of the page and add external URLs. For each link, you can assign opening rules – in the active or new window. A separate item is intended for adding dynamic pages, the content of which is generated from databases or the cloud.
For all menu items, you can change meta tags, set visibility for Google, access rights for different user groups, layout and the main page of the resource.
Background
Here you can upload a picture, video, select a color for a solid fill, or use pictures from the media library. For videos, it is possible to load any custom videos as a background.
You can also enable the parallax effect. In this case, when scrolling, the background will move more slowly, creating the illusion of volume and depth. This is an interesting design solution that allows you to stand out from your competitors.
Adding elements
The following content types are available:
Text. A text editor helps you format and stylize your writing, write headings, product descriptions, user agreements, etc.
Databases. Goods can be loaded from various sources (supplier unloads, etc.). Thus, you can significantly expand the range of your online store.
Pictures. You can upload your own high-resolution product photos to the pages, use free stock images from Wix, or import photos from social networks.
Tables and lists. The designer allows you to quickly create stylized tables to display product attributes, stylized lists and much more. More than 30 functional templates are available in the library.
App Store
Numerous extensions will help expand the functionality, which greatly increases the capabilities of the basic version of the designer. The store offers more than 250 different add-ons for solving a wide range of problems: integration of forms and surveys, working with social networks, creating media galleries, tools for online stores and email marketing, etc. Extensions are grouped into categories for easy searching.
Most of the plugins were developed by the Wix team, the rest are integrations with popular third-party services. About half are available absolutely free, and some have both premium and free versions (with limited functionality).
Installing new applications is as convenient as possible – they are automatically added to the control panel. The plugin interface is stylistically identical to the Wix interface, so understanding them will not be difficult at all.
Photos and videos
You can upload your own media files in any popular formats. For convenience, Wix automatically optimizes the size of media files, which has a positive effect on loading speed. An extensive library of royalty-free stock photos and videos is also available. Library resources are regularly updated.
To improve media content, you can use integrated processing services. Thus, a photo studio allows you to crop a picture, adjust brightness, contrast, apply filters and effects. The video maker allows you to edit videos directly in the designer.
Blog
Using this section, you can set up a full-fledged blog with a news feed and publication of posts. From the feed you can create and edit posts, set categories for them, set up CNC links, add meta tags and media content.
Text can be formatted using the pop-up style panel. Several design options are available for displaying the post feed: classic (posts in a column), tiles, cards.
One of the unique features of the platform is the ability to create paid blogs by subscription, which allows you to monetize unique content. Also implemented is the import of ready-made blogs from WordPress and the ability to pull content from Instagram or forums.
Settings
The section contains a wide range of options for user configuration:
Connecting a domain name;
Mail settings;
SEO optimization;
Adding favicons and photos for social networks;
Multilingual;
Connecting analytics services;
Sharpening a photo;
Version for the visually impaired;
Mobile responsiveness;
Personalization of the 404 page.
Toolbar
We should also highlight the toolbar, where you can change the size and position of elements, align them relative to other blocks, enable the developer panel, and also activate the JavaScript API to expand functionality.
Themes
The library contains more than 500 templates, grouped by categories: online stores, business, photographers, music, restaurants and cafes, tourism, medicine, education, communities, events, portfolios, blogs, beauty, fashion, art, etc.
When creating a new site, you can select the theme you like, filtering by date added or popularity. The selected design cannot be changed in the future, so you should approach this responsibly.
One of the significant advantages of Wix is its high-quality design templates, which are available at no additional cost for use. The library is periodically updated with new design options (30-60 per year).
Overview of popular applications from the Wix App Market
In our review of the Wix service, we’ll look at some striking examples of useful applications to get a general idea of its capabilities.
Multilingua
Using “Multilingua” you can make a web resource multilingual. This way you can add any number of language versions. For each of them, a separate copy of the site is automatically generated, preserving the entire structure and settings. You can make all changes from a single interface.
Content will need to be translated manually. But most theme texts and widgets are automatically displayed in the desired language. If desired, they can also be edited.
Pro Gallery
The application is designed for creating professional photo galleries, on the basis of which the administrator can organize a paid photo bank or image store.
Using the built-in editor, you can adjust the quality, sharpness, protect pictures from downloading, and insert social network buttons for sharing photos. There are also extensive options for customizing the gallery display:
Structure and size of thumbnails;
Spaces between individual photos;
Saturation of collages;
Photo orientation (horizontal or vertical).
Cinemagraphs
The background library features a collection of cinematic GIF animations with smooth transitions on a variety of themes. You can also attach parallax effects, appearance/disappearance animations, and changes in transparency when scrolling to many elements. This gives the site dynamism and makes it modern.
Integration has been implemented for photographers and owners of popular Instagram accounts – importing photos into Wix galleries and posting backlinks on the social network.
Forum
The extension is designed to connect a full-fledged forum with sections, subsections, and topics for discussion. This is an excellent tool for creating and developing online communities, interest groups, and supporting brand clients. On the forum, visitors will be able to leave messages, comment on each other’s posts, and share experiences and knowledge.
In addition, the possibility of moderation is provided – the administrator can ban a forum participant or issue a warning to him or restrict his rights. You can also customize the design and structure of the forum based on ready-made templates.
Music
The add-on is aimed primarily at musicians, labels, producers – anyone who wants to promote their musical creativity online. It allows you to upload individual compositions, entire albums, and create playlists. Content can be made available for free listening, tracks can be sold by subscription or for each download.
The application has a convenient music player that can be placed anywhere on the site. Dozens of options are available to customize its appearance, as well as control playback.
Events
Convenient functionality for organizers of events – concerts, seminars, parties or entire festivals. You can create both one-time events and entire event posters with a schedule for several months in advance.
The administrator can send out invitations to guests, create lists of participants, and also sell tickets online through connected services for accepting transactions. There is also a ready-made widget for posting information about upcoming events.
Online booking
The Wix Bookings module makes it possible to turn your website into a platform for booking various types of services. You can arrange registration for personal (haircut, consultations) and group (fitness, dancing) classes, booking hotel rooms, renting apartments and much more.
The ability to create an employee work schedule, set the cost and duration of sessions, and accept online payment via PayPal has been implemented. A widget with a customizable design and displayed information on services is available to visitors. It can be placed anywhere on the page.
Video
Provides everything you need to work with video content – from publishing videos to monetizing video services. You can upload your own video files up to 15 GB in popular formats (MP4, AVI, MOV). Interaction with the largest video hosting sites has also been implemented – importing content from YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook.
Based on downloaded videos, you can create thematic video channels and video services with a subscription fee to monetize the content. In addition, there are tools for collecting viewing statistics and organizing email campaigns to attract subscribers.
Hotels
Free service for activating a full-fledged online booking system for hotel rooms, hostel beds, and apartments.
It provides a convenient setup wizard, integration with Booking and Airbnb, email distribution to clients, and connection of payment gateways. The extension works especially effectively when paired with the Wix Ascend analytics module for tracking key metrics.
Restaurants
For restaurateurs, Wix has provided three different additions:
Reservations. Used to organize online table reservations with flexible rules, auto-confirmation and email notifications to clients.
Restaurants Menus. Designed for creating stylish online menus with prices, photos of dishes, and integration with Foursquare.
Restaurants Orders. Provides comprehensive functionality for accepting orders for food delivery online, tracking order status, sales analytics and a discount system.
Ascend
This is a CRM solution that helps automate the entire cycle of working with a client without the need for external integration. The service provides the following features:
Omnichannel communication. All correspondence with clients from online chats, web forms, email and instant messengers, as well as data on telephone conversations are available within a single interface.
Email marketing. Ascend allows you to launch triggered and regular mailings, connect your Gmail account, customize your email templates and use existing ones, as well as divide your audience into segments.
Customer database management. The system can store contacts, history of interaction with clients, and also import information from external sources.
Marketing automation. You can send notifications about pending purchases, ask for feedback after a certain amount of time has passed since the order was completed, and much more.
Analytics and reporting. The admin panel provides statistics on conversions, traffic sources, user behavior, and also provides a heat map of clicks.
Your own mobile application. With it, you can control the sales of your online store from anywhere in the world, even without access to a desktop computer.
Logo Maker
Creating a memorable logo for your business is now easier than ever with the built-in free Logo Maker extension. Its user-friendly interface allows you to develop a brand name from scratch that reflects the essence and values of the company.
For ease of use, the following are provided:
Rich library of fonts, icons and graphic elements.
Intuitive control of colors, size, transparency of the image and other parameters.
Ability to experiment with different options without limiting the number of attempts.
Saving the final layout in the required format.
ADI
ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) is a unique platform development that allows you to automatically generate a website design based on user responses in a short questionnaire.
To use Wix ADI, just specify:
Niche and subject of the resource;
Name and basic information about the company;
Goals of creating an Internet resource;
Preferences for design and color palette;
Data about location, contacts, social networks.
The system itself will find available information about your company on the Internet and offer several design options to choose from, and then place it when creating the layout. Thus, the new site is immediately filled with relevant content.
One of the main advantages of ADI is the high speed of website creation – the finished design is generated in just a couple of minutes. You don’t have to spend hours developing a structure, selecting templates, and adding content manually.
Another advantage of the service is the intelligent approach to generation. The system analyzes the specifics of the business niche and the characteristics of your company in order to offer the most suitable color and stylistic solution.
Is ADI a full-fledged alternative to the standard editor?
No, ADI and the standard Wix editor perform different functions that complement each other. ADI allows you to automatically generate a design based on administrator data in a matter of minutes. This is a great way to quickly get a basic layout of a resource, especially if you have no experience in web development.
But at the next stage, it makes sense to go to a regular constructor to refine the structure and add content manually using all available tools.
Corvid
Corvid is a development platform that allows you to expand the functionality of Wix CMS sites using JavaScript.
Main features of the add-on:
Creating your own web applications and integrating them into the website;
Development of dynamic pages and forms for data collection;
Access to the Wix API for content and user management;
Connecting cloud databases to store information.
Thanks to Corvid, professional developers can create resources for clients of almost any complexity with individual functionality. At the same time, technical specialists receive a ready-made platform with hosting without wasting time on the backend, and their customers have the opportunity to save their development budget.
Corvid application scenarios
Due to integration with databases, Corvid allows you to:
Add interactive elements whose behavior changes depending on the visitor’s actions. For example, tooltips or animations.
Create dynamic pages with a constant template and updated content from the database. This is useful when posting for directories, job listings or news resources.
Use data from the database as a source of content for sections of the web resource, which allows you to update information on them without direct editing in the admin panel.
Place web forms to collect information from users and then save the results to the database.
SEO promotion of websites on the Wix platform
This CMS has a built-in step-by-step search engine optimization tool called SEO Wiz. At the first stage, you need to enter basic information about the business – brand name and description, type of business (offline or online), indicate the physical address and up to 5 key queries for which you want to promote.
Based on this data, a detailed checklist is generated with recommendations for optimizing a specific Internet resource. It may include dozens of items:
Adding meta tags and headings;
Optimize ALT and TITLE for images;
Eliminating broken links (404 errors);
Setting up a site map and indexing;
Checking usability and loading time;
Fixing errors in content markup;
And much more.
And for each item there is not only a description of the problem, but also a button for quickly going to fix it in the designer.
In addition, another useful module is integrated into the platform – Wix Turbo, which significantly speeds up the operation of the resource. This is critical for both behavioral search ranking factors and conversion. Turbo implements a whole range of solutions:
Large-scale global CDN network, including tens of thousands of servers around the world. It allows you to select the server closest to the user to download scripts and styles, reducing delays.
Content encryption and dynamic loading technology. Images and media are cached and loaded into the page code not immediately, but as you scroll the screen, which makes the site lighter.
Optimize and minimize the size of JavaScript files, which increases system performance.
Ability to disable unused template functions, which reduces the load on the server.
Builder for online stores on the Wix platform
In addition to regular Landing Pages, you can create your own online stores on Vicks using a separate widget. It provides the ability to sell both physical and digital goods, connect filters, and payment gateways. You can also add your own coupons, discount system and connect analytics.
The module is suitable for launching a small or medium-sized online store with an assortment of up to several hundred items. The service will allow you to create beautiful landing pages with products. However, do not forget that the designer works using WYSIWYG technology, which will significantly complicate the mass pouring of products.
The “My Store” widget consists of four sections:
Online store management
This section presents all the main options for managing the operation of an online store:
Control panel. Sales statistics, profit data, and information about the most popular products are available here. There are also notifications about new orders, recalls and stock balances. In addition, here you can get recommendations for improving conversion and a checklist of current store tasks.
Product catalog. Here you can find product cards for which the system allows you to add an image gallery, characteristics and prices. Products can be sorted by collection, availability and type (physical or digital). It is also possible to set the amount of inventory for each product, as well as fill in meta tags.
Orders. At this point, the history of all purchases is available with details on specific products, contacts and form of payment. Filters have been implemented by date, client, amount and processing status. The manager can change the status of orders in one click. There is contact information for communicating with customers for each order.
CRM system. Using the built-in Wix Engage extension, you can maintain a customer database, send mailings, and issue invoices for payment. This module also provides the ability to segment audiences, send triggered email campaigns, and provides various marketing automation tools.
Promotion. Here, the site administrator has access to an SEO checklist with optimization recommendations. Also in this section you can create promotions and coupons, set up email and SMS mailings to subscribers.
Settings. This section regulates the acceptance of payments (more than 40 payment systems can be connected), delivery methods, as well as taxation for legal entities and individuals. In addition, the rules for returning goods and the privacy policy are set here.
Pages
In this section, you can configure the SEO parameter, limit access for unauthorized users and indexing for main pages, and also link it to the general navigation of the site. You can also choose or modify the layout for the main page, product card, cart, checkout page, etc.
Elements
You can add it to the site here:
Galleries and product sliders. Displays products uploaded to the online store in the form of a grid or slide show.
Widgets for individual products. These are miniature cards with an image, price and a button to place an order.
Chats, feedback forms, comments on products (via third-party applications).
Learn more
Here you can find links to the Wix Help Center, Technical Support forum and a series of articles on the designer blog dedicated to e-commerce. Technical specialists of the service provide round -the -clock technical support in English. Other languages are also available, including Russian and Ukrainian.
To seek help, it is necessary to fill out the form by indicating the subject of the request and describing the problem that has arisen in detail. If there is no finished solution, the system will offer to contact specialists by phone or email.
Also, the Platform users are available “Reference Center”. This is a special section on the designer’s website, containing answers to frequently asked questions and detailed instructions for working with various modules and tools.
The tariff plans of the WIX service
The basic version of the Wix makes it possible to create sites on subdomains like Yoursite.wix.com with limited functionality and advertising of the platform, however, without temporary restrictions.
To post a site on your own domain and access to advanced capabilities, several tariff plans are provided:
Light ($16/month). Suitable for creating simple orinite sites, landing pages and small promo sites. The tariff has already included hosting, visual designer, 2 gigabytes on the data storage server and free domain name for the year.
Core ($27/month). It expands the affordable size of the storage for data, and also opens access to the Ecommerce tools (the ability to add goods, use the basket, carry out e-mail mailings and much more).
Business ($32/month). Suitable for large sites. This tariff plan allows you to add up to 10 administrators’ accounts, and also offers more advanced marketing tools for website promotion.
Enterprise. This is an unlimited plan with access to all premium functions, as well as the ability to add several sites as part of one account. Also, a personal manager is allocated here for a more quick solution to all emerging issues about working with CMS.
