I recently had a customer come to me because he wasn’t happy with the site he had created at Wix. Budget was a concern and that is why he had chosen to create the site himself with Wix. However, once the site was up, there were problems that he couldn’t fix.
Page Editing/Creation
The client found that WordPress was even easier than Wix. The WordPress editor is very similar to word processors like Microsoft Word and if you have familiarity with that, it is easy to work with WordPress. He found that both WordPress and Wix made it easy to add your own images and videos, and link to other sites. He said the blogging/posting function is much more robust in WordPress. For instance, it offers the users ability to control how many posts appear on a page, to categorize posts (SEO friendly), and to allow visitors to leave comments or not. Wix doesn’t do any of this regarding blogs.
SEO
One problem he encountered with Wix was trying to optimize his SEO. With WordPress, it is much easier to manage key words, page titles, meta descriptions, and to tag images. He felt that with Wix, you needed a lot more programming knowledge to figure out how to add SEO code. He felt that WordPress had a user friendly interface and it was much easier for a non-technical person to add these things.
Also, with Wix, there was no way to block spam referring sites. Even Wix’s tech support could not help with blocking the spam bots and only suggested that he filter those spam bots out through Google Analytics’ filters. With WordPress, we simply added a plugin that blocked them.
Pricing
This is why many people choose Wix, but it is not free (unless you are willing to have ads on your site).
WordPress is free, but you will still need to pay for your own hosting, which, if you are a small business you can get for around $4/mo from Siteground. You will also need a domain name which is usually $12-15/year. There are lots of free themes out there, but a better theme will cost you.
Here is the site before and after:
Before
After: NYWorkSpaces.com
Click the images to see larger.
Of course, I realize I’m biased, so here is a more unbiased write up here:
http://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/wix-vs-wordpress/
I don’t agree with everything they’ve said, but it will give you more of the full picture. I basically agree that if you’re not very picky and you don’t want to deal with any technology or maintenance, then Wix might be for you. But if you want to be able to create the site you want with robust functionality and options, choose WordPress.
Do you have experience with both Wix and WordPress? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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