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Free Website Builders – Pros & Cons

Jan 9, 2020

Wix is promoted as a free website builder, but before you jump with any DIY, consider it may not be as easy or free as you’re lead to believe.

PROS:

Wix does a great job of promoting their platform. Clever Wix videos entice potential clients, offering a free, do-it-yourself (DIY) interface that is easy to learn, making it easy to create your own website fairly quickly.  But, it’s like the Hotel California – it’s deceptive, you can check in, but in essence you can never leave because you can’t take your website with you even when you are ready to move on.

CONS of using Wix:

  1. Ads on the Free Plan – the free plan has Wix ads displayed on the website and does not allow you to connect your own domain which pretty much forces users to upgrade to a premium plan.  So right away, if you want a professional website you need to upgrade.
  2. Not 100% Mobile Friendly – Wix templates aren’t constructed using responsive design.  This means that Wix websites are prone to usability issues when it comes to layout, with parts of the web page going missing off the screen. Also, Google ranks mobile friendly websites higher than non-mobile friendly websites. Wix doesn’t meet this criteria.
  3. No Website Ownership– if you build your website with Wix, you will have to stay with Wix as long as you want to keep your website. This is a big deal.  It means you don’t own your website, they do.  This is a tremendous issue, and eventually you will have to build your own website – hence another website.
  4. No Website Code Access – you don’t have access to your own website files or source code, nor can you edit the code. You are unable to export data if you decide to leave WIX.
  5. Wix Has A Slow Load Time – their website code is bloated and it takes a long time for Wix websites to load.
  6. Can’t Switch Template –choose your design carefully, because once you’ve picked a template, this can’t be changed.  Certainly, you can edit the elements of the template and customize it for your needs, but it is not possible to choose a new design. This also means you can’t update your website to a modern, fresh design a few years down the road.
  7. No Live Chat or Phone Support – building a website is NOT as easy, simple or intuitive as Wix makes it appear and when you get stuck or need help, you can’t get assistance quickly.  And an actual web developer isn’t interested in helping. So you’re more on your own than you realize and therefore, will not end up with an attractive, functional website that looks professional….even after investing hours of your time.
  8. Website Statistics– Website owners usually like to see how well their site is performing and the best way to do this is with Google Analytics or a few other similar tools. Unfortunately, in order to use them with Wix you need to upgrade your plan. This doesn’t come as a freebie and can be incredibly annoying at times since it is something as simple as a Google API connection!
  9. Poor SEO – The link structure that Wix uses is weird. In every single Wix site URL, you will notice a # or “hashbang” which is being served through javascript, and in turn is not readable by search engines. This makes Wix sites very difficult for Google to crawl (read: won’t rank highly). This is a huge negative. Another feature that needs improvement is that of sitemap creation. Sitemaps tell the search engines how your site is structured to make the indexing (or ‘crawling’) of your pages easier. With Wix you would have to use Google Search Console to manage your sitemap.

CONCLUSION:

Wix is a short-term gain – long term pain solution.  They hook people with their free and easy slogans, but in reality you’ll end up spending more time and money for a website that you will never own and never be able to upgrade/modernize 5-years down the road.  My recommendation is to work with a professional web developer.  Doing so will provide you with the best outcome – a website you will own, you can expand and update, create optimal SEO and have an end result of superior website performance and conversion.