Introduction
Wix is one of the well-known content management sites. Serving around 10 million people throughout the world, this site meets up to 45000 fresh sign-ups each day. Wix came into existence in 2006. Since then, it has been the favorite choice among many other sites for its flexibility and ease of use. This quick web designer has got the handy drag and drop option to include all the features your website will need.
Anyone in need of a clean elegant website for their small business, restaurant, online store, blogs, or photographs can choose Wix with no second thoughts.
Wix also offers Wix ADI or Wix Artificial Design Intelligence. It is capable of designing an extraordinary website based on your needs. All you gotta do is just enter the basic details like the type of business you run, contact details, and the online appearance.
After your site is generated, you can also make changes. Wix ADI is suited for the users who are not the tech-guy type or the ones with busy business works. Even the bloggers with time constraints can go for Wix ADI.
Getting to Know Wix
Registration and Pricing
Before getting into registration, let’s talk about the pricing of the plans on this content management site. The price ranges from $18 to $56 per month. You can also opt for the Enterprise plans which come with custom pricing. Combo Plan is one of the preferred options for small businesses. It is fairly priced, i.e. worth $18 per month and can remove ads, and offers a custom domain name for a year. If you are planning to open a small online store, you can go for Business Unlimited which is worth $33 per month. If your store is going to be larger, then opt for the VIP plan that costs $56 per month.
Now it’s time to register your site. Enter the basic details like name, email, password and you will be directed to a couple of pages where you should select the appropriate options from the drop-down menu. As you move further, you will end up on a page where you can opt if you wish to choose the Wix ADI to set up your site. If you do not want to, you can set it up manually. Wix ADI makes it faster for you to create a website.
Templates
Click on the “Create a new site” option from the menu at the right top corner of your dashboard. You should now give details about your website so that the templates relevant to the purpose of the website will show up. There are over 500 templates in the Wix Repository. Even then, if you do not find that perfect template, you can use the search bar. The only limitation of the templates is that you will not be able to change the template once chosen. But you can make edits within the template. So make sure to choose the right template beforehand.
Frankly speaking, choosing the template in a content management site is the most important step to make your website look inviting to your potential visitors. This template will literally portray the visual as well the layout of your page making it functional. In short, the template partly describes your website as well as the intention of the same.
Builder Interface
To know about the features this page contains, just experiment with all the buttons because even when something goes in the other way, you can reverse it. The interface of this content management site allows you to edit, change and duplicate the design of the page. Despite being not very extensive, the edit feature permits you to alter the titles, images, and texts according to the chosen template.
To add or edit the position, types of page, or numbers, tap on the “Page” option found on the top left corner of the interface. At the top of the page, there are a lot of tools that let you add or remove pages, create customized options for your visitors, add applications, and many more. You can even schedule your posts for publishing or draft them with the options available here.
The “Design” option from the tools lets you make changes to the design of your template. It is highly recommended that you add the details of the company, portfolio, or blog to your page. You will actually be able to add these details to the preview of your page. You can simply click on any block, be it an image or text, to change or edit it.
If it is a text block, you can alter the text size, font style, or any text-related features. It is the same with the images as well. Click on the image block and make changes to it. A lot of images are available in the repository.
The “Add” option facilitates the addition of new sections so that you can add more information to your site.
Background
This content management site provides two sidebars with exclusive options for editing the pages.
Click on the “Background” option from the sidebar to your left. The left sidebar is for the addition of extra features.
The right sidebar allows you to delete, duplicate or rotate the additions. You can do this with the drag and drop feature as well.
Pages
Click on the “Manage Pages” option. You can find this option when you click on the down arrow.
Another menu will appear from where you can choose to customize an existing page or add a new page.
Apps and Widgets
There are more than 250 applications in the Wix App Market. Anything from quizzes to taking orders, all these applications will cover up for you. The free or premium icons on the app or widget thumbnail will let you know about their category of availability. You can choose the appropriate application.
Click on the “Add” option. From here you can either choose the available app or browse for the app of your choice to enhance the functionality of your eCommerce, blogging, and whatnot. To put it in simple terms, the apps can improve the functionality of your website as a whole. If you would like to alter the features of the core applications or widgets, you can do the same at an interface made exclusively for this purpose.
Blogs
If you are an avid blogger, you can integrate your blog with your website in a professional way.
The last option in the builder menu is a pen-shaped icon named “ Start Blogging”. Tap on it. This is for Wix Blogging which is sleek and eBay to use.
If in case, you require any blogging app to integrate with your Wix site, you can add the same via the “Add Apps” option from the builder menu.
E-Commerce
Wix is one of the best content management sites preferred often for small businesses.
Click on the plus icon from the menu bar to the left of the builder interface.
You will now see a list of additions you can make. Choose “Store” from the list. Wix will automatically provide you with the features like a gallery for your product, payment options, management options for the inventory for your eCommerce site.
Site Analytics and SEO
It is very important to make a check if your article is search engine optimized so that it becomes easier to receive visitors to your site. This might seem to be an advanced feature for beginners, but this part is prominent enough to collect traffic. Wix has already got SEO features which a lot of other sites may not possess. The SEO functionality can be accessed from the advanced menu in the “Site” option from the dashboard.
To your left, you can find Menus and Pages. Click on it.
Tap on the ellipses found next to the name of the page.
Press the “SEO Google”. All the SEO features are available here.
You can also check how your site is performing through analytics. This feature is available in the “Advanced Settings” under the SEO tool menu.
Domain Menu
This section is to brief the integration of a domain name with your Wix site. Wix site will ask you to do this when you click on the “Publish” button. For a professional domain name, you will need to upgrade your Wix site to a premium plan. To upgrade your site, click on the “Upgrade” button at the top of the page. Compare the price and the plan features before choosing the right premium plan for your Wix site.
Mobile Preview
Around 40% of the users are smartphone users. So it is prominent to make the mobile version of your site appealing. At the top of the editor, the icon for viewing the mobile preview is available. Wix Content Management Site is built in such a way that the changes done here in the mobile preview will not affect the desktop version.
Publishing
Once you are done with the entire content, have a look at the preview of your site. Now click on the “Publish” button to share your content with the audience. You can always edit your content even after publishing it with the “Edit Site” option under the “Manage Site” menu. If at all you have made any edits, do not forget to republish it by clicking the “Publish” button again.
Final Words
Wix is one of the most preferred content management sites to develop your own elegant website with the utmost ease. There are other CMS tools and E-Commerce tools you can choose to develop your business further. This article should have been of use for beginners. Wix itself has got the source for guiding the beginners. If you are still caught up anywhere between building the websites, the tutorials on the internet might help you out. Thanks for reading.