Wix versus WordPress Comparison

N.B (The opinion below is that based by the author). 

Some of the smaller details of this blog post may have been superseded with Wix developments, but overall my sentiment is still the same as I’ve seen it happen so many times… If you know what you’re doing for digital marketing, Wix may be a good solution, but if you use it to throw up a basic website without learning a bit about digital marketing basics and SEO you are likely to be putting up a website which may cost you more in lost revenue than the money you saved by not hiring a professional….but everyone has different circumstances and finances.

1. Does Wix Makes It ‘Easy’ To Build A Website?

So if Wix makes it easy to build a website why is that a negative? If you approach building a website as an ‘easy’ task then you’ve started off on the wrong foot. I like to think I know what looks good but if I tried to design a brochure it would look shocking – I’m not a graphic designer and would never pretend to be one, so why should you pretend to be a website developer when your business depends on your website?.

If it was ‘easy’ to build a website that works then there wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands of blog articles about search engine optimisation (SEO), content structures, on and off site reputation management and conversion optimisation.

Personally I think most companies, particularly small to medium ones, do not spend enough time on their website brief. Quite often it’s because they don’t know what to ask about or the web agencies don’t take the time to ask the right questions. Business owners shouldn’t necessarily know what questions to ask – your business is your speciality, you should be able to trust your web developer to ask the right questions.

Wix makes it easy to jump right in, throw together a web page and publish it. Before you do that you need to stop and think, and work out what your business needs for your online presence.

You need to consider how your content is going to be structured, what image sizes you upload, what page titles you will use, the header text for each page, the calls to action that appear in search engine results (SERPs) as well as conversion optimization. As well as that you need to ensure you have implemented some online tracking so you know how it’s performing, and set up essential Google tools to get insights from your website that may drive your marketing decisions.

Yes, I’ve seen expensive websites without Google Analytics installed – a fundamental oversight you shouldn’t really get when spending thousands of dollars. I’ve also had someone call me to make their website more visible. They spent £100 on their website with some random overseas company. How much business has that ‘cheap’ website cost them? It probably turns out the website has cost them thousands in lost business – there’s a worked example below.

This is why it shouldn’t be ‘easy’ to build a website. What looks good doesn’t necessarily perform well.

2. Wix Hides Complexities
Wooooaa! That’s another benefit I hear you shout! Hiding complexities in website development is not necessarily a good thing. Wix makes it easy to design websites like brochures and they’re not. What you see isn’t what Google sees. Although Google does take user experience into account it’s mostly around content and mobile friendliness and things like that. One of the most basic elements Google cares about are how your page titles are structured and what they tell about the page, yet for a few Wix websites I’ve seen, there is no attention paid to this despite Wix supporting SEO settings for pages.

Google doesn’t really care if your button looks nice, or your image is stunning. The search result below is quite typical when you don’t know what to do. There’s no call to action in the result, and the description doesn’t say what the page is about. If this is one of ten similar results I’d probably click on a more enticing one.

Improve Google Search Ranking – Bad Example

By hiding these complexities it makes it very easy to get really proud of your new website and go and shout about it to the world. You better keep shouting as that may end up being the best way to get your website found as Google may not find it.

You need to be aware of all the trickier bits that make up your web presence like SEO, off site business listings, reviews and more. A recent chart by specialist company MOZ showed your website only makes up an element of your online presence – there’s backlinks, business listings, citations and your website. Without all of those you may not get found by your customers, so unfortunately your pretty Wix website will fall short of the mark.

I’ve seen briefs and quotes that don’t reflect the most basic functionality a company needs, and they often treat SEO as an ‘optional extra’. It is not. It’s essential and often implementing simple steps will make a huge difference to your visibility.

3. Wix Hosts Your Website
If your website starts performing slower than normal a decent web host is a good place to start. If a website is based on one of the open source content management systems like WordPress or Silverstripe there’s a whole bunch of hosting companies wanting your dollar to host your website. Some are great, and some are bad.

Generally I don’t like the idea of using a proprietary content management system whether it’s a platform like Wix, or one developed by your agency. If you fall out with the third party or outgrow them you’ll more than likely need to start again. Whilst WordPress isn’t the only available platform, I’ve had business owners ask me if it’s a decent option or does it ‘only’ get used by bloggers? Techcrunch uses WordPress and Mashable used to use it – I can safely say their sites are probably bigger than yours.

When you develop your website using Wix you have no place to go – they host your website and you can’t go elsewhere, which brings me to the next point.

4. You Cannot Migrate Your Wix Data Elsewhere Easily
So you get lucky and your website is performing well and you want to add features to it that aren’t supported within Wix, or want a major overhaul. Essentially you’ve outgrown your website.

If this happens it is very difficult to move your content away from Wix. If you have a WordPress based website you can keep all your content and apply another theme, or a customized theme (which is effectively a layout). Your website looks completely different but you don’t have to re-enter your content. There is still work to be done when you switch themes as they all have their own way of working, different image sizes in different slots, but you can keep all your content.

If you think you may outgrow Wix, maybe a full web development is outside of your budget right now, but remember to factor in that potential cost in the future.

5. Wix Isn’t Free – It May Be More Expensive Than You Think
Wix is a very attractive initial platform as the base offering is free. It’s a very effective sales technique that gets customers in the door. Mailchimp uses a similar technique but even Mailchimp doesn’t allow you access to automated email sequences in their base offering – this is an essential part of email marketing.

With the free plans you have Wix branding on your site, and the little icon shown in the browser bar will be a Wix logo. You also can’t add in Google Analytics tracking until you get onto a premium plan.

When you start adding functionality Wix has an ‘app store’ so you can choose which apps to use. There’s loads of apps to choose from and many start with a ‘freemium’ offering with more functionality provided at a price so head back to that website brief and factor in what you want into your costs.

The largest cost of using Wix for many people is a hidden one. It’s the cost of websites built by users who may not know what makes a website really work, therefore it doesn’t get found, or it doesn’t function well. That lack of functionality is probably costing you business.

I compare this loss of business to a garage owner who had a cheap website built several years ago. It couldn’t be found. When a new website and offsite business listings were put live he was inundated with work. If you imagine he built that website in Wix (like some of his competitors have) without understanding the important elements of search engine visibility, the scenario below is an extremely conservative estimate of the amount of work lost :

Average workshop job is £200
One job a week comes through a new website = 52 x 200 = £10400 per year
Old website was live for 4 years = 4 x 10400 = £41600
That cheap website has cost him £41600 in lost revenue during 4 years.

In the UK, the average car repair cost in 2011 was £305.56, and I can safely assume that more than one job per week is brought in as a result of being found online. You can then consider the ongoing total customer value with regular servicing, road fitness tests and more, it’s perfectly feasible to think that this cheap website cost him a lot more than the face value.

5 customers per week at £305.56, over 4 years is £317,782.40 in lost revenue due to a bad website, and this is without value added upsells.

Using Wix may cost you £317,782.40 in lost revenue.

Summary
It is possible to build a decent revenue generating website using the Wix platform. The biggest problem with Wix is it makes it easy to create a website that you think is great and it has given a lot of people the perception of having a good website when that’s far from the truth.

Websites are not brochures and they shouldn’t be treated that way.

To bring revenue from a website you need to think of it as an online presence, ticking all the right boxes, and investing time and money to get it right.

If you would like independent help with your website brief, or want a health check done on your online presence, get in touch today. Our advice is always free.

[Darren Craig] 2019