Wix: Jack Of All Trades, Master of Websites
I just read an article about Wix being the Jack Of All Trades, but Master Of None – and, I disagree.
Wix may be trying to be a lot of things, but there is one thing that Wix has mastered, the Website Editing Platform. Wix's WYSIWYG editor is unlike anything else on the market, and it's way ahead of it's time (or maybe everyone else is behind the times, hard to say which!)
As a Website Designer for over 18 years, I have worked in nearly every website platform that existed since the internet went mainstream. I used Dreamweaver and Flash to build custom websites using code, graphics and Flash elements. I've used Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, Squarespace and other platforms over the years. And guess what? None of these platforms compare to Wix's website editor. Wix's WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor is incredible. Working is Wix is like designing in InDesign, or Photoshop, or Powerpoint vs. designing in Word. You can actually "design" in Wix – you can add and move elements around the webpage at will, and you also have nearly full control over how the same elements look on mobile. It's amazing. The first time I used Wix was in my heavy Wordpress-designing days, and I had a Photoshop file that I was going to provide to a developer to convert into a Wordpress theme. My husband had told me about Wix, as he had a friend from his band-playing days that had recently built his band website on Wix and was raving about how easy it was to use. So, I decided to check it out. I took the website design I created in Photoshop, and decided to try to build it into the Wix platform. To my surprise, in just a short afternoon, I was able to replicate my Photoshop design in Wix perfectly! I was stunned. It couldn't be this easy. I continued to build out the client's website pages in Wix, and they loved it. I was even able to train them how to make simple edits or add pages to their site, or adjust the mobile layout as desired.
With Wix's website editor, I truly was blown away, I had never been able to develop a website design with such ease before. I started to build more websites in Wix, and as I learned how to master the platform, I realized there was no other platform that even compared to Wix. I ended up building picklewix.com because I wanted to get more clients who were interested in designing their websites in Wix. At the time (about 8 years ago), Wix was still nay-sayed in the website design and advertising agency community – they all believed that Wix was a amateur platform and was not as good as Wordpress.
I will say, at the time when I started working in Wix, there were a lot of limitations – Wix had recently converted from a Flash-based website editor to HTML5, and there were still a lot of missing essentials including custom page URLs and SEO features. But, within a year of working on the platform, Wix started to add these features along with a lot of other improvements, and continues to do so to this day. Wix has a great Facebook forum and Wix Marketplace community – and they actually LISTEN to us designers, letting us vote on feature requests and interact with their development team to keep improving the platform. Unlike Wordpress, Shopify, and other platforms that have stagnated over the years, Wix had made leaps and bounds in improving and adding to their platform. Yes, it's true that they seem to be diving into all sorts of directions (Logo Designer, CRM, and Editor X), they continue to remain true and improve their main jewel – their Wix Website Editor – which still remains in 2021 (in my humble opinion), one of the best website editors in the business – hands down.
Now, I do say that designing a Wix website does have a learning curve, but what platform doesn't? With a little training, nearly anyone can edit a Wix website easily after it's built. As an expert Wix Designer, I help work with small businesses and non-profits to develop beautiful, functional Wix websites, and then I train the clients on how they can manage and edit their websites over time. I also offer Wix SEO training – to show clients how to use the Wix platform to excel in search engines like Google. Wix websites perform exceptionally well in searches and SEO if optimized correctly. Wix websites are also so easy for people to edit and keep updated, that they naturally do well with SEO if content is being added regularly. I have tons of clients who are so excited about their Wix websites after being on Wordpress or other platforms, as they can easily update and add to their websites without having to do any updates or maintenance - they love their new Wix websites! Make sure to check out some of the Best Wix Websites that we've designed recently.
So, while Wix may be diving into a lot of directions, like Google, they are a growing company. They invest back into their growth, they're always trying to improve and be better. That's a sign of a good company. I've seen Wix making big strides in the ecommerce arena, which is good, as I believe currently that is one of the biggest limitations to the platform – ecommerce. I have some clients using their ecommerce Wix Stores platform, but it is limited so it's not the best fit for every ecommerce solution currently. But, as with the SEO and other features, I see Wix asking the public for what we want, and working on improving and adding functionality – so I believe that their ecommerce platform will rival Shopify and other ecommerce platforms in the very near future. Just wait.
I hope that Wix continues to listen and grow it's platform over time. I think what Wix is the master of the WYSIWG website editor platform, it allows for flexible custom design by designers without the use of code, which is a game-changer in the world of CSS and responsive themes. On Wix, you can custom design every page to your liking, where on other platforms (Wordpress, Squarespace, Shopify, etc), you are limited to the homepage and subpage theme templates unless you are good coder. Wix allows for design freedom – and, as a graphic designer and website designer, I'm in love with their platform.
I hope that other platforms like Wordpress and Shopify take Wix's lead and start adding better WYSIYG editing to their platforms. I do love Shopify for ecommerce, but really wish that they had a better page editor so we had more control over each page's design. But I think it's coming (if these platforms are smart).
So, is Wix the jack of all trades? No.
But they are most definitely masters of the website platform in 2021.
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If you're looking for a website designer, feel free to reach out for a free estimate.
I will make recommendations on the best platform for your needs, whether it be Wix, Shopify, Squarespace or other platforms. I design websites that suit the needs – and for nearly 90% of my clients, Wix is the perfect platform. Be assured that I will make an honest recommendation of what I think is best for your needs.
