Thursday, October 7, 2010

I'm in Love! With Wix.com - Free Website Builder


A couple of months ago I decided I  needed my own website, even if all I used it for was a portal to my etsy shop. I wanted a site I could direct customers to that was all my own - my design, my information, my layout.

So, I started to look at all the website builders out there, free and paid. I looked and looked and looked and looked. Nothing offered me the kind of sophistication and functionality I wanted to design the website of my dreams without knowing any programming.

And then I found wix.com and my prayers were answered.  Wix is a free website builder that has literally thousands of flash - yes, flash!-  templates that you can make your own without knowing any programming and without any downloads to your computer.  And their templates are very  creative and high quality with  a huge array of options.

Customization is super easy. Wix uses a drag and drop interface. Move anything anywhere. You can add text, pictures, sound.  You can change colors, font, shapes.  You can add a ton of flash animations and effects.

And they have a bunch of cool widgets you can add to your site:  a player widget that allows you to add music, videos, video playlists. Set up links to your Twitter account and blog.  Insert a Contact Form that allows visitors to leave messages that get delivered directly to your email.  If you have a brick and mortar, insert a Google Map to direct customers to your exact location. And you can add as many html widgets (like,perhaps, an etsy mini) as you want.

OK, so you can build a website, design and customize it in any way imaginable and publish it to the web….for free! What more can you ask for? Oh yes, their customer service is great.  Believe me when I say this is the best website builder out there, free  or not.  I did an enormous amount of research before I decided on wix.

They also have several premium plans, from around $5 to $20/month.  I use a $ 9.95/mo plan that allows me to use my own domain name and removes the wix ads that come with a free site.

To get an idea, take a look at my website. I built it in a day and you can too.  You can have an uber professional looking site today, for free.  Have fun!


6 comments:

Unknown said...

that's a great website. I marked it for future use. Thank you for the link.

jdavissquared said...

Very nice! I signed up for a wix account a while ago, but I haven't set anything up yet. Thanks for the reccomendation!

Found you on etsy forums, I hope you'll come visit me too!

http://jdavissquared.blogspot.com
jdavissquared.etsy.com

Stefley said...

I can't wait to check that out! Thanks for visiting my blog!!

purseplace.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

You have a knack for finding great Etsy resources -- I'll definitely be checking back for more good advice!

Chelsea said...

Ah, I love this! Thanks for writing about it. (And thanks for supporting all of us on the etsy boards!) -Chelsea, buymelovestore.wordpress.com

thefinaltouch said...

I just love your blog and your new site. I have only read a couple blogs and I have learned so much!! Thank YOU!!!

 
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