Your thoughts on WIX?

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I am looking to get into web design. I heard about WIX and thought that this site might put me out of business, however I don't think the average person will be able to figure out how to use it. I didn't spend much time but in the little bit of time I tried even I was confused and just gave up.
 
Wix and the scores of other build-your-own website services do have an effect on the demand and pricing of web development and as far as I can see this is only going to go in one direction.

This is one that that puts me off web development. Seems to me that the thing that sets developers apart from these sites is the ability to produce something they cannot. That is usually either good design or special functionality. For good design you need to be a designer or at least work with one.

If all you do is put together the usual smart-looking small business websites then those services are definitely part of the competition.
 
Whenever I see a business website that was made with Wix, Weebly, or GoDaddy's "Website Tonight", I think "There's a business that cuts corners on the most important things". Anyone that is serious about business and the image being portrayed should get a real website.
 
I set up a customer on this site and it seems to load slow. However it is much easier to use for some with no HTML experience. It is kind of like wordpress but much less popular.
 
I am looking to get into web design. I heard about WIX and thought that this site might put me out of business, however I don't think the average person will be able to figure out how to use it. I didn't spend much time but in the little bit of time I tried even I was confused and just gave up.

Wix and other sites with similar online tools are able to create decent websites with a bit of work, but they still are not for the average business person. Why? Most peps don't have graphics design and editing skills and/or the tools to they'll need. And then there's the creation of the original artwork/pictures in the first place. If you're stuck on using their website tools thou, plug away for a day to see if you can catch on. If not, perhaps rethink being a site designer, or try to break through with dogged perseverance... or go take classes in any number of related courses having to do with site design.

Designing websites from scratch with an offline toolset (not anything like Wix) is (at least) another couple levels of complexities deep and requires a whole lot more from you both technically and artistically. Think of the skills it takes to make a great gourmet meal in a professional kitchen as offline site design, and Wix as going to a restaurant and just ordering whatever you want already prepared and served up to you with a mouse click.

Personally, I find using Wix relatively pleasant, sometimes limiting, only occasionally frustrating, but in the end results can be made presentable enough in a reasonable short timeframe (days to a couple weeks). Moreover, the wealth of tools and applets available that can be integrated into a site almost without effort on your part can help set apart your work from the typical 'calling card' business site made by a friend of a friend of a business owner. Without a doubt, Wix tools are absolutely head and shoulders above the multitude of online template driven 5 page website builders out there. Moist of those are kindergarten web builders that aren't worth signing up for even if free.
 
Without a doubt, Wix tools are absolutely head and shoulders above the multitude of online template driven 5 page website builders out there. Moist of those are kindergarten web builders that aren't worth signing up for even if free.
Out of curiosity what are some of those OTHER sites you are speaking of?
 
So those others, I'd rather just categorize without names. Google knows them. And it's just my internal ranking as I searched around, nothing more. It's fresh in my mind because I recently needed to create some sites and had decided it was finally online or nothing.

Ditching my own $$ development tool, I signed up for many trials, and was getting depressed. Tools were limited, painful to navigate and use, including my own registrar and hosting vendor.

I tried to build a quick and dirty site in each one I signed up for. It was a good exercise that often ended in frustration. After a while I signed up for Wix, and it was right away a lot more what I wanted. Certainly different strengths than my desktop tool, but it has a community and is dynamically improving, had a social and SEO component I wanted, and I think actually made some attractive sites in the end. It's also nice to use. Of course I could add things but it's the best I've found yet. I'd love to find something "better", I don't have an allegiance to any one.

But back to the 'others'; To me they fell into groups like this. One type is the template driven site that allows you to modify text, pictures, and colors, period. Then ones with more flexibility in object placement and properties, including proprietary, perhaps extra cost add-ins, plus decent templates. Then Wix and (others) use a modern object based free-form or templated format. Best - Wix has has a growing proprietary and 3rd party app and services pool that can easily add some cool functions - that otherwise would need manually put into the html, and actually that's easy too.
 
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Wix does a good job. The more you know about websites do's and don'ts the better your result will be.

Google doesn't like Flash, java and such so avoid those templates and you will do well.

You still have to know how to organize and present your data in both an attractive way and one that google bots finds reasonable.

Not everyone is your customer but some people want DIY, others want to spend $500, still others want to spend $2000 or more. I wouldn't let Wix prevent me from doing websites, it is just another tool like front page or anything else.

Today anyone can buy brilliant templates for $59 and with minimal skill can make fantastic websites. Not every user is willing to find them and use them so there are still customers out there.

Don't confuse the tool with the end product, nor assume that the website customer is monolithic.
 
I think services like WIX have their purposes. However, there are so many limitation that I could never recommend it.
 
My site -www.rcswichita.com- was built with Wix. It is really easy to use and changes are easy as well, with that said, it loads weird on some older browsers and seems to load slower sometimes. I will say if you want to build your website yourself and do not know html or word press this is probably the easiest site builder I have came across. I get a lot of compliments on my site but my customer base is a older generation so there isn't much critical critiquing going on.
 
I would love to know what thos limitations are? Any help please?

Well, for example if you want to use a specific non standard layout, or even change current template this becomes a problem. Or how about custom SEO work like combining and minimizing javascript files. Or adding specialized forms and installing server side code perhaps in PHP. Not to mentioned eCommerce capabilities that are even more limited since there is no ability to query the database.

Again, services like WIX are great until the user needs something custom that is not supported. At that time users are stock in limbo having to choose between redoing their entire website in a new platform or live without features they need.
 
My site -www.rcswichita.com- was built with Wix. It is really easy to use and changes are easy as well, with that said, it loads weird on some older browsers and seems to load slower sometimes. I will say if you want to build your website yourself and do not know html or word press this is probably the easiest site builder I have came across. I get a lot of compliments on my site but my customer base is a older generation so there isn't much critical critiquing going on.

Nice site, but there are few small issues. For example I don't see any web analytics installed which would help you to better analyze traffic and SEO. There are several html validation errors (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=rcswichita.com) can that be corrected in WIX? Also you are not using header tags (h1 to h6) which could enrich your content for SEO purposes.

By the way like your Linux box.
 
Of this type of site, Wix seems to be the best and most usable. There's also Weebly, Yola, Moonfruit, Homestead etc.

For someone who wants to provide simple sites for those with simple needs, either programatically or in design, they're fine. I believe, with some learning on the platform and some sales skills you could make a reasonable full time living just selling Wix sites.

However, I have serious concerns about their hosting speed, the fact that you are completely tied to them - no moving hosts, no transferring your existing site and no downloading your database (if you have one). Not to mention the fact that everything they do is proprietary so all those plugins to do ANYTHING that you can get for Wordpress or Joomla can't work with any of these platforms. Oh yeah, no email! Forgot that one.
 
....snip....

However, I have serious concerns about their hosting speed, the fact that you are completely tied to them - no moving hosts, no transferring your existing site and no downloading your database (if you have one). Not to mention the fact that everything they do is proprietary so all those plugins to do ANYTHING that you can get for Wordpress or Joomla can't work with any of these platforms. Oh yeah, no email! Forgot that one.

I can't comment on WIX specifically, but with Weebly you don't have to use them as your domain registrar. In fact, it may be to your advantage NOT to. That way you can use the email provided by your registrar, and just point your DNS records to the Weebly servers for site hosting.

As far as hosting speed is concerned, this is Weebly's claim:
With Weebly, your website is served across our entire server infrastructure that powers millions of websites and pageviews per day. If your website is featured on the CNN.com, it won't cause as much as a hiccup in the performance of your website, or the other websites hosted by Weebly.
So far, I've never had a problem.

You are correct that the lack of portability and the proprietary nature of these type of services can be a problem. But with the feature set that is currently available (and growing all the time), for many it can be a worthwhile trade-off....especially for the $5 or so per month that I pay for the "Pro Account"....which adds even more features. Sure, there are times that I would like to have a fully managed linux VPS, but I don't really need it. :)
 
My site -www.rcswichita.com- was built with Wix. It is really easy to use and changes are easy as well, with that said, it loads weird on some older browsers and seems to load slower sometimes. I will say if you want to build your website yourself and do not know html or word press this is probably the easiest site builder I have came across. I get a lot of compliments on my site but my customer base is a older generation so there isn't much critical critiquing going on.

Hi Eddie,

Give me a call we will go for lunch some time. :)
 
Wix has H1-H6 tags but it is up to the user to watch the video for the proper use of them. Some users want a pretty picture, later they might learn about onsite SEO.

Wix has analytic but it must be setup just like knowing how to select keywords but the fact that you are not web page aware does not prevent you from starting your website.

Many people like a site to send their own customers too. This is easily accomplished. Later they can learn about SEO, and other tools. Wix has a way to add raw html and apps to the site for any reason. There are also eCommerce plugins, shopping carts ect.

I think you can see some horrible sites and some nice sites but it lowers the bar for people to get started. I have seen some really horrible professionally paid sites too. If you do not know enough to make your own site with wix then you do not know enough to ensure that your web page developer knows what he is doing and is giving you a quality product.

You cannot compare a non professionally designed site to a web development company in business for 10 years and blame wix for being less than what experienced pros should be able to do, that is silly.

But if you took the time to learn Onsite SEO, key terms for your business, write good content, take your graphics from other media projects you have or create new, you can get a very good result.

Plenty of paid 5 page sites look like crap and they were supposedly done buy a pro. So within the professional sites there is a large variation from crap to glow. You cannot blame HTML, CSS, PHP, ect.... it obviously has to do with the knowledge and skills of the user.

2 years ago I would not even be able to tell if I hired a website designer if they were giving me a good product or not....who knows maybe I still cannot but I am a few years experience down that route and if I have to learn it for my own company, being in consulting, I might as well learn it to offer clients and create another income source.
 
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