If you’ve heard of Wix, it’s presumably because of their enormous advertising campaigns, which feature A-list celebrities, pyrotechnics, and multimillion-dollar budgets. You’ll think of their platform as being speedy, exciting, and showy from these ads. They’re similar to the Apple of web builders in certain ways. This is the one for the hipsters. However, while it appears to be fantastic on the surface, it can be slow, difficult to SEO, and lacks a lot of customization options. However, we are often approached by those that have seen these commercials and want that for their website. While we have worked with a Wix website in the past we often, well, pretty much always will suggest moving it over to the WordPress site.
Our clients seem to think that the WordPress site will be hard for them to navigate to write their own blogs and such, but that simply isn’t true. We can use themes and plugins as well as drag and drop editors that are all free to use and easy to set up and use for our business owners that want a more hands one approach to their web design.
WordPress.org is more like Windows than Apple. A popular content management system that favors nerds and developers who can accomplish incredible things with it. While these notions have a grain of truth to them, we’ll find that they don’t always stand up. Hopefully, without any technical jargon or explosive marketing strategies, our entire breakdown below will help you see why WordPress is a better option.
What exactly is the distinction between the two?
Wix is an easy-to-use site builder with a variety of design options, making it great for portfolio-style websites. Building a large site isn’t a good idea because the editor slows down when there are too many pages. WordPress allows you to develop considerably larger websites, but it does necessitate a higher level of technical expertise.
The most significant distinction between Wix and WordPress is their technical approach: while all Wix products include hosting and tech assistance, WordPress is an open-source platform that forces you to do this yourself. You’ll need to choose a web host (cheap web hosting options are available) and install it on your own server. If there are any technical difficulties, it is also your responsibility. However, most hosting places are there to help. But, with the help of The SEO Chick, you don’t have to worry about these technical details. I will walk you through the steps and show you some options for hosting. I believe that the business owner should always be in control of their website, so I do not host anything on my own.
However, it appears like Wix has been attempting to move closer to WordPress’s territory and promote itself as a performance-focused website builder in recent months – especially if recent (failed) marketing initiatives are any indication.
Is Wix easier to use than WordPress in terms of ease of use?
Wix is actually one of the most user-friendly website builders available. Why? You don’t need to download any software, and you can make changes right in your browser. Their editor is totally drag-and-drop and extremely user-friendly, even for complete novices. If you wish to add new features, you can use their App Market, which allows you to do so with a single click. However, you have limitations and it isn’t great for SEO, which is how people actually find your website!
There’s also the ADI editor, which guides you through a Q&A setup procedure. You’ll get a first draft of your website based on your business in just a few minutes. You’ll have fewer options, but for someone on a tight schedule, this can be a good enough solution. Wix could be a good fit if you are not looking to rank your website but simply want something for people to go to for more information. However, most businesses won’t find a Wix website very useful and as they progress in the design, they will find the walls that stifle their creativity and design ideas.
WordPress is also recognized for its extensions and plugins, but installing and implementing them isn’t always straightforward. Similarly, the software as a whole necessitates a smattering of technical know-how, or at the very least the ability to follow basic tutorials. And when things go wrong (not if), figuring out how to fix them can be difficult. With the Gutenberg version, which included a building block editor, WordPress is attempting to move in a more user-friendly path. However, it is still a long way from being as simple as Wix.
All of this complexity can be overruled by the installation of a simple drag and drop website designer that is built for WordPress. There are a few of these designers but the most popular one that we use is Elmenator for WordPress which turns your WordPress site into a simple drag and drop that is easy for beginners. However, you don’t lose the overall customization and flexibility many people love about having a WordPress site. You also get better SEO than you would ever think about getting with Wix.
Design Flexibility Considerations
Let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of their designs and flexibility.
Nearly 1,000 (yes, 1,000!) free templates are available in Wix’s template library. They’re sleek, modern, and divided into sections (photographers, restaurants, blogs, and so on…). Wix, on the other hand, develops a separate mobile version. This is acceptable for Google (more on that later), but you may need to rearrange some items (using drag and drop) to make your site mobile-friendly.
WordPress has millions of templates to choose from. First, we start by installing a website builder that will allow for drag and drop. WordPress on its own without a builder can be very complex and hard to work with. However, there are 100s if not 1000s of builders out there to choose from.
Furthermore, there are a plethora of responsive WordPress themes available online. Most of them are responsive and come free or for a small fee.
Adding an online store is referred to as e-commerce.
Wix has a separate online store section, as you may have observed. It’s a really comprehensive system, with numerous payment options, automatic taxes, and shipping options, as well as new features being added on a regular basis. What’s even better is that it supports digital items and is one of the more cost-effective e-commerce website builders. It’s also possible to create language-specific versions of your site too. This is useful if you have a multilingual store, but you won’t have complete control over the URL, which is inconvenient.
However, it has a few drawbacks that make it more suitable for small firms. Wix sites, for example, are notoriously slow to load due to their content-heavy themes, which isn’t ideal for shopping (and will hurt SEO). The larger the store, the worse things get. Their servers are also limited. This is what “hosting” is for WordPress sites which you can move, should you outgrow things. The more traffic the harder it is for the servers to keep up. The bottom line, if you plan to have a website with lots of traffic and sales, you probably need to skip Wix.
Wix is also not designed for very large stores because the navigation is confined to one sub-level, making it difficult to handle huge product catalogs. Finally, the functionality for multicurrency stores is limited — you can’t, for example, sell in other currencies.
Shopify of WordPress Ecommerce Sites
You won’t have any of these issues with a WordPress or Shopify website. That is if you utilize a third-party plugin; otherwise, there is nothing out of the box. The WooCommerce plugin is one of our favorites, and it should give you a decent idea of what you can accomplish with your online store: a lot, and pretty much anything with a little custom coding. The benefit is that it’s free, but you’ll have to pay for other features like Stripe credit card payment gateways.
Will I appear in search engines?
WordPress excels in this area as well, giving it a strong contender for the best website builder for SEO. You can customize the page title, alt attributes, and headings, among other things. You have total control over your domain names, extensions and can even do on-page SEO such as schema with ease.
We have two issues regarding Wix: despite the fact that your loading time is largely determined by your images, we believe it could be faster. Another issue we discovered is that when you submit photographs, they are automatically named.
Wix titles their images cryptically (for example, d4cccb26731e9mv2.png). If you have a business website that relies heavily on images and less on words this could really pose a problem with SEO. You can also only alter the URL of individual blog posts. You cannot alter the entire URL, so you might wind up with something like “wixsite.com/mysite/single-post/My-Blog-Post.”
Wix’s free plan does not allow for a custom domain, which makes it even more difficult to rank in search engines.
Aside from that, the Wix SEO Wiz is a useful tool for beginners learning SEO, well, sort of anyway. Built-in tools like 301 redirects and ‘SEO Patterns’ (which allow you to build up criteria for auto-generating meta titles and descriptions) are highly handy but certainly lack the luster you will get with WordPress. While this is a useful tool, it isn’t actually doing much for your rankings. These are VERY basic things that need to be done for SEO but they are just that, basic.
You have a few choices out of the box with WordPress, but for full SEO capabilities, we recommend using a plugin. For example, Yoast SEO is a free and quite powerful tool. Of course, there are other tools as well. But, these tools, again, only do the bare minimum in helping your website with SEO. You will need a skilled SEO specialist should you want to see an impact on your website’s rankings.
What is the most effective blogging platform?
Wix’s blog features are useful, allowing you to create categories, tags, schedule articles, and feature-related content. It’s a simple and straightforward UI that you’ll pick up on quickly. The layout editor isn’t as good as the website editor (no drag-and-drop), and the posting options are adequate but limited. However, all this coding to make it customizable takes up space on the server and will slow down the loading times of that website.
You may add pictures, galleries, videos, GIFs, and dividers, but you’ll need to utilize HTML for anything else, such as tables, which can be intimidating for newcomers. While we wouldn’t recommend Wix for serious bloggers. Well, to be honest, I wouldn’t recommend Wix for anyone that is looking at building a business-style website.
WordPress has always been primarily focused on blogging choices, which is why it comes pre-loaded with all of the tools you’ll need, such as tags, categories, RSS, and so on. Of course, the appearance of your blog will be determined by your theme, which means that unless you manually alter specific elements, they may break. Again, a little technological know-how can go a long way toward ensuring that you have the powerful blog you require. You can also, again, use a drag and drop system.
The block-based visual editor in WordPress, on the other hand, will allow you far more control over the structure and content of your blog than Wix’s — you’ll be able to add tables, galleries, columns, and much more. Whether you use a drag and drop website designer or not, this area is pretty easy to navigate.
Will I be able to get assistance?
Wix has good forums, phone support, and live chat. Wix also has articles and lessons that are especially useful for beginners. Expect some back-and-forth on the more technical topics, but they’ll get to the right answer eventually.
Simply put, there is no official support for WordPress. However, there are a huge amount of groups in different social media platforms full of people to assist. You might be able to find what you’re looking for via the community forums, but be prepared for replies to be hit-or-miss and often buried in a sea of comments. If you have a bit of money ($15+/month), you might potentially go with a WordPress-specific hosting company (Siteground, Kinsta, etc.). Basic support for common WP bugs is also available there. There are less expensive WordPress hosting solutions, but they come with even less support.
Your website designer such as The SEO Chick will be able to assist you with questions and concerns as well. We have a full line of designers on staff that help maintain and design new websites using WordPress all the time.
Enhance the functionality of your website using apps and plugins.
Wix features an App Market where you may find tons of methods to expand your industry-specific website among 300 free and premium apps. This is great news for things like hotel reservation systems, photographer image galleries, and business invoicing, to name a few examples. Some of these apps are built by Wix (such as Wix’s suite of business tools, Ascend by Wix), while others are created by unofficial developers.
Apart from the App Market, Wix Velo allows you to integrate JavaScript and APIs into your website. Experienced users, for example, can build custom interactions in this way. Keep in mind that you are stuck on the Wix servers and the more traffic, the more problems you will encounter.
Unfortunately, Wix does not have a solution for every problem. For example, WebsiteToolTester is a multilingual website that supports seven languages. While Wix has a multilingual site feature, it isn’t SEO-friendly and is difficult to utilize. Again, it may be adequate for little sites; but, Wix is not an option for many of our clients.
Plugins are what make WordPress so popular (e.g. social media, contact form, SEO, etc.). We’ve already mentioned WooCommerce, but it’s just one of the tens of thousands of ways you may customize a WordPress theme to suit your needs. Some WordPress plugins are free, while others might cost a substantial amount, similar to Wix.
To update/install them, you may require a little technical knowledge once again. WPML, for example, is a plugin that allows you to handle different languages in WordPress. It’s convoluted, and it occasionally causes issues with other plugins we use. It is, nonetheless, extremely potent.
Furthermore, because WordPress offers you full access to the code, if the plugin you require does not yet exist, you can simply hire a developer to create it for you.
Final Thoughts on Wix vs. WordPress
It goes without saying that the best website builder depends on the type of website you require. If you want a powerful solution that will scale over time, WordPress is the way to go. Furthermore, for constructing strong blogs, directories, multilingual sites, complex databases, and FTP access, it’s truly your only alternative if you require advanced functionality right now.
Wix, on the other hand, is better suited to smaller, informative websites that won’t have much traffic. This could be instructions on how to set up your product or how to assemble something.
Booking-based services (e.g. yoga studios, salons, online workout courses), hotels, restaurants, and event-based services (e.g. photography or wedding firms) benefit from the flexibility of WordPress that allows you to add on what elements you need. You can also custom name your images and provide image information within the image for better SEO.
The SEO Chick is always willing to speak with you regarding your current website and what we can do to improve the traffic and overall look and feel of it. If you have had a website that hasn’t produced a lot of calls and leads, it is probably due to the fact it isn’t being found in the search engines. This is where you will need an experienced SEO company such as The SEO Chick to help you out.