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Wix is a hosting company that has changed the industry. It offers hosting not in terms of its capacity (e.g., how many gigabytes of storage it has, how many emails it can host, etc.) but in terms of functionality (e.g., it has a free web builder, a blog system, a payment system, a membership system, and so on), but is it suitable for your business website hosting?
First of all, not all websites are created for the same purpose. Consider an e-commerce website (something like Amazon) that displays many products for the customer to choose, pay, and ship. The e-commerce website differs from the gym’s, displaying necessary marketing information, membership payment, and booking. The two websites are also quite different from a website for a coaching business, where the focus is more on marketing information and getting customer information for lead generation.
Let’s examine what it offers before deciding whether Wix suits your business hosting needs.
The free tier plan offers a free web builder, some limited templates, and a 500MB space. You can’t use a custom domain name for this plan. Your website will be called https://<your_workspace>.wixstudio.com/<your_site_name>. You cannot use this plan to build a form (such as a contact form, sign-up form, and so on), so your only choice is to receive feedback from your reader/customer by publishing your email accounts.
The basic plan offers features similar to those of the free tier plan. However, it also allows you to use a custom domain. You can buy your domain from Wix or elsewhere and direct the traffic to your basic plan. It also enables form in your website and Google Analytics and advertising. The only thing that you can’t get is getting the payment from the website.
Starting from the Standard plan and above, you will have similar things to the basic plan but with the additional capability to receive payment online, manage membership, and manage sellable stocks. Each higher plan has more items to list on your website.
From the description above, you can see that Wix offers a few modules that may or may not fit your business.
The most basic one is attaching a custom domain to your website. You can use it to build a blog, earn money with an affiliate program, review products/services, and endorse. It also has the capability to create web forms, such as a simple contact page, subscription form, or sign-up form. You can use this plan to get a lead for a coaching business (such as yoga, pilates, or any well-being coaching), insurance, or investment business.
The standard plan offers the capability to receive payment in addition to the basic plan’s basic capability. This plan allows you to use your website as an e-commerce shop, event ticketing gateway, membership gateway, and more. This plan suits artists trying to sell their paintings, soap, handmade t-shirts, or even concert tickets. If you have limited items to sell, this plan will be suitable. The standard plan can also be ideal if you have a membership system, such as a yoga video tutorial. The surprising use of this plan is to build an online ordering system for your restaurant. I haven’t met anyone wanting to develop an online ordering system yet, but it is possible with a USD12 / month plan.
If you aim to beat Amazon regarding product variety, loyalty system, membership, and so on, you can choose a bigger plan.
If you are unsure what capability you need to build your website, please discuss it with me. I can help you make the perfect website for your business use case.
Posted in Hosting