Avatar Posted by Cameron Francis on in Web Design & Development

Every business regardless of size is faced with the question of how to drive the most profit at the least cost. And in today’s global market, the focus is shifted to the internet. There is hardly any life for businesses outside the Web. Your website is the ultimate face of your enterprise.

That is just how essential a website is. You must have it; unfortunately, creating one can be overly costly.

But that doesn’t mean you are forever doomed to remain without an online presence.

Many individuals and business proprietors have discovered the value of free online web templates. They use the free templates to create websites without incurring the exorbitant costs of website development.

Not all the free website platforms available online are great. But there are certainly a few pointers to the right direction. In a market where merchants offer identical products, the number of clients will tell who offers the best value.

That is why you cannot ignore Wix.com. Not with its millions of users all over the globe and well over 45,000 new customers joining every day.

What is Wix?

Wix.com is a top-ranking cloud-based web development platform with several millions of users all over the globe. It aims to make it simple for each business or individual to create a resounding online presence.

You don’t need any coding skills to get your site up and running:

  • Wix is optimised with drag and drop tools that allow you to build HTML5 as well as mobile websites.
  • A pool of third-party and native apps allow users to add functionalities such as e-Commerce, social plug-ins, contact forms, community forums and email marketing to their websites.

Perhaps you are wondering why and how it could offer all these services for free.

The platform is built on a freemium industry model. It earns its revenues through premium user upgrades. There are premium packages you must purchase to connect your site to your own domain, add e-commerce capabilities, remove their ads, get additional storage for your data and buy bandwidth.

Of course, any upgrade decision will depend on your preferences. Most upgrades are often implemented as the business expands. The impact may never be felt on the business bottom-line at that point.

The primary website templates are optimised with all features that you may require. You can get all sustainable features without the need for upgrades with these Wix templates.

Wix.com has offices in different parts of the globe. In Israel, they are based in Tel Aviv and Be’er Sheva; the United States in Miami, New York city, and San Francisco. Brazil offices are in Santana de Parnaiba and Sao Paulo. They also have offices in Vilnius, Lithuania and Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.

What makes Wix Different?

Wix stands out from many angles. Right from their landing page, you’ll learn their mode of business. It is made clear that the platform is free, but ‘hey, we need to make money too’ is a friendly and engaging statement that introduces you to their source of income: the premium upgrades.

You don’t meet such transparency elsewhere often.

With their quick tour option, you are led into a whole new angle of online presence. You will be provided with an easy guide to getting your site without the need for web design expertise.

Every need is catered for:

  • Business templates
  • Photography templates
  • Music templates
  • Creative arts templates
  • Online store web templates
  • Restaurant templates

There is no one who will not find a place at Wix.com.

Even more interesting is their diversity. Each category has multiples of different thoughtfully designed templates that leave you wondering how they knew what you would want with such exactness!

What are the Most Popular and Helpful Features that Wix Offers?

Wix’s web templates come with a host of features, some of which you may not find on any other platform. Some of these features are also available with other web templates, but you may have to pay expensively for them.

1. An e-Commerce Solution for Selling Items Online

For those who wish to run their businesses online, Wix.com provides an e-Commerce solution that supports any online trading requirements. You can sell items directly on your site with this feature. It is optimised for data security and supports various payment mechanisms.

Apps such as SellfyEtsy, and Ecwid make it easy to sell single products or whole collections from your website built on Wix.com.

Its e-payment solution provides for WebMoneySkrill, or PayPal integration so your money will always get to you. You may sit back and let your customers carry out their purchases through your site’s online shopping cart optimised for secure shopping and safe checkout. In addition, you are provided with the option for handling invoices. The InvoiceAsap app lets you send invoices right from your website, easily track payments, and be paid a lot faster.

2. Social Plugins for Social Media Integration

Your social media presence is taken care of. Today social media are among the most efficient free-to-market platforms available. Wix allows you to integrate your website with any social network you wish to promote your content or products. The whole integration process has been made easy and intuitive. No need for technical knowledge to do this. You just need the basics, and you can see yourself seamlessly through the process.

Now you can

  • Tap into the powerful traffic base available on Facebook
  • Draw a following on Twitter
  • Build an interactive community on Tumblr
  • Keep your audience engaged with apps such as Tint and Instagram Feed which allow you to share videos, pics, and much more

3. Friendly User Interface for Better UX

Graphical appeal, functionality, website loading speed, font and web layout all play a major part in determining user experience. Users will be more enthused by an engaging website. It is easier to create engagements on your site built on the Wix platform given its optimised features. The platform offers great selection of photographs and allows you to customise and choose additional images from their rich database.

The rich variety of templates allows you to choose the best option that will create the best possible user interface. Your website is central to your business. The last thing you want to risk is having a dissatisfied community of customers.

A friendly user interface, however, insures you against such customer experiences. Wix helps you get a website that will be user-friendly to your visitors and bring great satisfaction.

4. Contact Forms for Interaction with your Site Visitors

Whether you wish to have people book services, register for events and classes, or schedule appointments; they can, right from your website with Wix.com contact forms:

  • Your users can request for support, get price quotes, and contact you with just a few clicks.
  • You can customise the forms on the template to suit your purpose.
  • You can make your own forms on the template provided.
  • You may also use communication apps such as toll-free numbers and live chat on your site.
  • You can create and build stronger customer relationships with reservation tools.

The contact forms allow for importing and managing contacts from a single place. These contacts include subscribers, site members, customers, and enquirers.

5. Optimised Mobile Interface

Most internet users today prefer to browse using a mobile device. Wix has an optimised selection of templates for the mobile interface. You can get a version for yourself that is automatically optimised for mobile viewing. A single click can get you your selection.

You will also get the top visibility in engines such as Bing and Google since you have one URL to use on all devices. Your visitors, therefore, will just see the same content and layout on all of their devices. All these have the option to reorder, resize, and hide the elements that may affect your mobile interface. The idea is to achieve a perfect interface for each device without compromising on value.

6. Intuitive Procedures for Easy Customisation

A good number of web designers today use webpage templates to create websites for their clients. Most people who opt for templates, however, remain those that have little or no knowledge of coding.

With its drag and drop option, Wix provides intuitive procedures that anyone can follow to customise a website easily. It is simple to change features such as text, layout, and images.

It is easy to edit text and graphics to let them fall well into place. There are also a variety of free effects, fonts, and colours to use. There are more than 17 features. Wix’s advanced editor allows you to enhance, retouch and edit images for greater results. You can make your website unique, from the background to colours, fonts to text, pictures and the layout.

There are virtually hundreds of templates with over 70 categories to pick. It doesn’t matter what kind of website you’re looking for – online store, portfolio page, personal, or business, you will find it there.

Even though there is no need for HTML editing, you can still add it if you like. You can embed HTML code into Wix’s window for easy editing of text. This way you can extend the functionality of your website.

There are unlimited pre-made or blank pages you can add to your website. It is also possible to create subpages to get your content beautifully organised. All these you can do in just a day, and add more features as your website grows.

7. Dedicated 24-hour Customer Support

Wix has a dedicated customer relations team that is available throughout the week, 24 hours a day.

What kind of support does Wix offer?

The platform offers two different forms of support:

Live inquiries – their customer relations team will have an executive on standby to attend to any customer queries
Wix.com site – provides an enormous knowledge base on more than 262 000 topics

Their servers are always up and will hardly present you with connectivity errors. The platform also has a strong anti-hack system guaranteeing a reliable, free hosting.

Any website hosted by Wix is safe and secure.

A Guide to Wix’s Website

There are a few basic elements you need to know about Wix.com. Here is a guide to the website.

  • First impressions – The site has been optimised for at-a-glance scanning. You get the full impression of what the site is about just from a single sweep through the website.
  • Templates – It has a huge selection of templates grouped into different categories. The home page presents the categories with the instruction to click and view more in each category.
  • Wix’s Blog – Wix’s website has a rich blog section covering various topics. Though there is an option to log into the site, you don’t have to be a member to view the blogs. Some of the articles cover details helpful for anyone who wishes to develop a new website. If you wish to start an online business, you will find a wealth of information here.
  • Videos – For those who would rather see a step-by-step guide on how to do something than read it in an article, the site has documented useful videos that will take you through the processes.
  • Wix Lounge – This online community- Wix lounge is the forum where developers in New York and San Francisco can meet up with others to discuss their projects and schedule meet-ups, project launches, networking events, and art exhibitions.

Conclusion

Now, building a website no longer needs to be a tedious and costly process. If you have been putting off building a website due to the cost, now is the time.

Wix’s free, easy-to-use tools and templates will assure you of a beautiful interactive website, even if you have never coded before.

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