The 5 Best Ways to Make the Most Out of Your Wixsite

If you’ve been online for a bit, there’s a chance you may have heard of Wix. In fact, with 1.2 million users and subscribers in 2017, it is hard to miss. Wix is a website building platform launched by a team from Tel Aviv, Israel in 2006. In the past 11 years, it has become a household name in website design and development.

What’s so special about Wix? It’s all about power to the people. Instead of paying a web developer to make a website, you can do all the work yourself. From domain to hosting and design, you can create your own Wixsite in a few hours.

Even though it has a large user database, things weren’t always so great for Wix. Criticized for its Flash site creation and lack of support for SEO, Wix’s reputation was at stake in the past. However, they terminated their Flash site support in 2012 and put more focus on SEO, meaning that they are a great candidate for a website building platform.

Here’s a few great ways that you can use Wix to its full potential and make the most out of your Wixsite.

1. Explore the apps

A bare-bones website is better than no website at all. Instead of a static. stripped-down web presentation, you can take your Wixsite one step further. Just because you’re building the site yourself, it does not mean that it has to lack the functionality of professionally developed websites.

If you go to the Wix App Market, you can see a range of useful tools to improve your site. You can sort the apps according to various categories, such as Analytics, Chat, Social, and many more. We strongly suggest taking a look at the Must Have Apps page for inspiration if you’re wondering what to add to your current site.

wixsite app store

Bear in mind that many of the apps have free and premium versions, especially the ones built by Wix themselves. Before committing to Wix, it’s best to research how many of these you need for your future website. The monthly fees can quickly add up if you have a dozen paid apps running at the same time.

 2. Get your SEO game on point

A lot of the bad rap that Wix used to get in the past was because of SEO. Perhaps because of glitches in their own SEO system, or perhaps because WordPress as alternative has great SEO capabilities – or a combination of these reasons. Either way, mentioning Wix and SEO in the same sentence in the past did not bring up positive reactions.

Are things any different nowadays?

wixsite seo

Actually, they are. One of the critical ways to deal with on-page SEO is content. You can easily integrate a blog into your Wixsite and publish content as you desire. And when it comes to publishing, you have all the options of a modern content management system at your disposal.

First, when publishing posts, you can enter the page title and meta description. These are the two elements which will show up in search engine results. Mind your keywords and format the title and description with appropriate length, while keeping grammar and spelling in check.

wixsite seo settings

Search engines can read text, but they cannot decode images. This is why it’s essential to provide image descriptions that tell what exactly is in the images. These are called image alt tags, and can easily be added to your Wixsite.

If you have broken links or links you changed at some point in time, you may be harming your SEO efforts. This is easily fixed by adding 301 redirects, a feature you can use in Wix now. 

Finally, your pages need to have good structure. When crawling your site, search engines rank content according to importance. This is done using subheadings – H1, H2, H3 and so on. Make sure your relevant keywords are formatted within subheadings and placed strategically throughout the text.

As you can see, Wixsite SEO is not much different than SEO for other CMS platforms. The capabilities are all there – you just need the basic grasp of SEO to utilize them to their full extent.

3. Don’t forget about Wix mobile optimization

It’s a fact – the majority of web users at the moment are browsing using their phones. It is also a fact that not having a mobile version of your page is one of the ways to get moved down in Google search results. This means that it’s absolutely imperative to have a mobile-friendly site in order to get more visitors and leads.  

wixsite mobile view

Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to do this with your Wixsite. Once you choose a site template, Wix will automatically make a mobile version of the site. How cool is that? No additional coding or tinkering is required. Simply put, Wix scales down your desktop site to make it easier to view on phones and tablets. Once you enter the URL into your device, the site will recognize the source and switch to one of the two site versions.

One of the problems that happen with mobile optimization is that there’s too much content. Too much text and too many images will clutter the mobile site and make it slower to load and harder to read. This is why the company’s come up with the Wix Mobile Editor. 

wix mobile editor

The editor makes it easy to transition the site from desktop to mobile. What’s more, you can change site elements so that your mobile site looks different to any extent you want. This also means that you can edit the mobile site only – leaving out elements which prevent easy viewing.

4. Move to a paid plan

Lots of people will opt for Wix because it is free. Well – not completely free, it turns out. The free plan allows you to create a website, and that’s it. You won’t have your own domain, which ranks pretty high on the list of things you must have for a site. Second, the free plan means you will have Wix ads plastered all over your website.

The cheapest paid plan is aptly titled Connect Domain, and that is its main advantage. You can connect your domain, which you have to purchase elsewhere.

wixsite pricing plans

With the Combo plan, you can choose a domain and connect it to your Wixsite. The domain is free for a year but it will cost about $10 annually later on. If you’re just starting out with your site, this is the plan we would recommend. It offers 2GB of bandwidth and 3GB of storage.

You may be tempted by the upgrades that come with the Unlimited plan – 10GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. However, the 2GB of bandwidth in the Combo plan should cover you for 2000-3000 visitors per month on a site with a relatively simple layout. If you need more traffic, you can upgrade your plan at any point in time. Besides, ‘unlimited’ bandwidth isn’t all it claims to be.

At the moment of writing, Wix has a 50% discount with $6.25 per month for Unlimited instead of $12.50, which actually makes it cheaper than Combo, coming in at $8.50. This may change in the future but it is currently a deal you should not pass on. The price is available only for an annual payment, and you get two Premium apps for free. Speaking of apps…

5. Wixsite winners

Good artists copy, great artists steal. With so many Wixsites out there, why not take a look at what the competition is doing? Here are some great examples of sites we like. 

Chris Costello is a US-based director and cinematographer whose website looks stunning. The homepage sliders, transition effects, gallery, social media buttons – everything looks and feels well-made.

chris costello homepage screenshot

 Shortbread NYC is a store Wixsite made by Jenna Short. Once again, the stunning visuals will knock you out from the start. The galleries, transitions, icons and sliders look modern and function great. There’s a blog, recipe page, social media integration – the whole enchilada. On top of all, the site just screams character. And also makes you pretty hungry.

shortbread screenshot

For something completely different – Ladies of Lineage is a place for brides to be. This bridal boutique has an elegant visual template with lots of great elements. Alongside the blog and FAQ page, we’d like to point out the ability to schedule the appointments directly on the site.

ladies of lineage homepage screenshot

 If you’ve been thinking about creating your first site, a Wixsite just may be for you. These tips will ensure that you can create a great-looking, functional, optimized website at an affordable price.