The Honest & Embarrassing Truth About My Website
Updated: Nov 6, 2020
Half a plug for myself, half a plug for wix.com. All of it eventually draining away my dignity.
Since setting up my website a couple of months ago people have been constantly telling me how stunning and professional it looks. While I like to take most of the credit as a creative graphic design genius, a lot of it is up to the website builder I used, Wix. Here's a quick rundown on my website and why I decided to use Wix.
Why I Wanted a Website
I wanted a place to post book reviews and poetry. I wanted to build up my internet presence to gain a following. Why? Book publishing. Yup, if you want a book agent or to be published, you pretty much need to have some kind of internet presence. A following is even better. This means they can put less money into marketing, because you already have a market.
Next up, I wanted a platform to potentially sell any books I might write. I'm still on the fence on whether to self publish or go through traditional publishing. There's some great videos comparing the two on YouTube, but I would recommend the ones I hyperlinked above. Jenna Moreci is hilarious. Either way, I can sell my books on my site as one way to get them out there. I could also go as far as make merch, but that's really not my thing.
I also wanted a platform that would allow me to start my own freelance editing and writing platform. This would require being able to set up forms for quote requests. I also wanted it to look really professional and have the ability to add testimonials.
Why I Chose Wix
Wix has over 150 million users worldwide, and God damn it if they didn't get most of them from their ads with famous people making websites. What are they making websites for? They never really say. The Karlie Kloss ones were particularly confusing to me.
Who is she? What is the point of her website? Why doesn't she just use Instagram? This just looks like Instagram, right? Also, that computer set up looks hella unergonomic.
Anyway, the reasons I chose Wix were:
It seemed like the most legitimate website builder I could find, and I didn't work at the Commerce Commission for three years to get played.
It had good reviews and many people said it was easy to use.
I could make the website for free first before deciding on upgrading to the premium sites. They then offer a 14 day money back guarantee. I would recommend this to Karlie, she really should just be using Instagram.
Review of my Wix Experience
It feels weird writing a review on a website using said website, but here are my thoughts.
The Good:
Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) is incredible. It basically quizzes you on your aesthetic and what your site is for and designs it all for you. It's actually a little bit awe inspiring, and it's FREE! I changed a few stock images and added my own graphic designs from another company and was pretty much good to go.
Vouchers. If you're patient you should never have to pay full price for premium memberships. I'm patiently waiting for my next email for a discount on eCommerce upgrades. I've had a couple of offers before but didn't take them up because I wasn't ready to take online payments.
The Blog Manager is very easy to use. You can add GIFs, videos, images, and maybe even some words! I started by writing my blogs in Microsoft Word and then copying and pasting them into the blog editor. What a waste of time that was. No, it doesn't have quite the way of picking up spelling and grammar errors as Word, but if I want to be a professional editor, I should probably stop relying on that comfort.
There are heaps of stock photos to use that don't look cheesy or even much like stock footage. Most of these are free to use.
Wix has a quote, invoice, and receipt creator tool built in. I wish I had leant this before I made templates for all these in Microsoft Word...
I like how I can set up a contact and quote page without having to give out my email or phone number. This means I don't have to pay extra for the Wix mailbox and just use my Gmail account, but customers don't know I'm being cheap and using my gmail.
The Bad:
I really can't figure out how to do an ad campaign (so maybe the above GIF is redundant). I can make the emails, but I want them to be sent automatically, like when I blog for example. This doesn't seem possible. It might be if you pay extra for the full version of Ascend. This brings me to my next gripe.
So. Many. Add ons! Ascend by Wix can be made pro so you can do more ad campaigns or something (I don't know, this doesn't interest me right now). You have to pay extra to get a Wix mailbox that uses your domain name if you paid for it through Wix. This is very annoying, as I would like to attach the domain name that I should own (but I guess Wix does?) to my Gmail account.
Wix ADI can be really slow sometimes. I'm unsure if it's Wix, my cheap computer, or crappy New Zealand internet.
Conclusion
Yes, I have a heading titled conclusion. It's my blog space and I'll be lazy if I want to. Overall, yes I would recommend Wix to people wanting to start a website for either a business or even just as a blog space. The free version is fine if you don't mind Wix adverts and having Wix in your domain name. Upgrading to not have the ads is cheap enough, and if you want to further upgrade in the future like I'm planning to, any money you've already paid gets deducted from your bill.
Want to try Wix?
Yes, we have arrived to the plug section of this blog. I have an affiliate code for Wix. They might have 50% off some of their premium plans. If not now then they will inevitably!
But only check it out by using this link.
P.s. Can I just point out that while writing this on Wix, it hilariously kept telling me that Wix wasn't a word. Might want to fix that Wix!