203 – The Showdown: WordPress vs. Wix
Announcements
Is there a plugin for that?
With more than 50,000 plugins in the WordPress repository, it’s hard to find the perfect one. Each week, I will highlight an interesting plugin form the repository.
For more great plugins, download my 50 Most Useful Plugins eBook.
upPrev is a plugin that will allow a small slideup box appear at the end of an article. This can be the previous article or a random one and there are several different animations for the box to appear including fading in/out or fly in.
WordPress vs. Wix
Over the next few weeks we are going to dive into some of the other CMS’s that are out there to see how WordPress stacks up to the competition. We know that WordPress is popular as it powers more than 20% of the web, but is it the easiest to use?
Today we look at Wix. It’s an all in one platform where they advertise that you can set up your website for free. In order for it to actually work as a website, you’ll need to upgrade your account.
First disadvantage is that Wix only allows a password with 15 characters.
Next is a somewhat hideous ‘Pick a Template’ page. First choose a category and then template area. Not visually appealing at all.
The themes look nice and the sub genre look very appealing. I could choose between Bakery, Tapas, Steakhouse, and more. Each theme has the ability to view (look at demo) or edit (choose template for site).
Once I launched the perfect theme, a YouTube video autoplayed letting me know the details about the HTML 5 editor. The video pointed out several really cool things.
- Edit anything by clicking on it
- Pages are organize by the way they are displayed on the menu
- Plenty of page templates are available
- You can change the entire look of your site with built in color palettes
- You can add new items, like Facebook like buttons and drag them exactly where you’d like them to appear
- How to preview and save my edits and changes
- Add custom functionality with Wix App Market. Most items are free, but some are monthly charges
Other things that I noticed while building my site:
- Page templates already have content on them. Not need to figure out how to get your site to look the demo
- The site has a black bar across the top with several options, view desktop or mobile layout, undo, redo, copy, paste, and Quick Search
- When saving my site it saves to dustin799.wix.com/site-name-here and must be less than 20 characters
- After publishing, a small popup prompts you to upgrade your account
- After dismissing, another popup says ‘Promote Your Site’ with two buttons for Twitter and Facebook
Two Big Disadvantages
- Can’t download Wix
- No way to export your content
Thank You!
Thank you to the following people for using my affiliate links. As you know I make a small commission when someone uses my link and I want to say thank you to the following people. For all my recommended resources, go to my Resources Page
This week I want to highlight Gravity Forms. It’s the most highly recommended plugin on the Matt Report podcast.
It’s the first plugin that I purchased. I was in awe of the ability to drag and drop contact forms and the ability to create exactly what I needed in a form; including conditional formatting.
Call To Action
Don’t switch to Wix:)
