Finding the right website platform for your brand is crucial if you want to maintain an active presence online -especially as a solopreneur or one-man-band. You need to have the perfect balance of a technically competent platform with the ability to create aesthetic design with ease.
‘Wix VS’ aims to break down the ins and outs of alternative platforms so you can make the right decision for your business.
Let’s get into it.
Design
Squarespace
Squarespace works off ‘content blocks’, meaning your design is limited to these blocks and stops you from being able to drag and drop design elements anywhere on your website. Alongside this, it encourages you to use templates and whilst this keeps your design neat you can fall victim to your site having no unique quality. This limitation will quickly become a hindrance if you’re wanting to create a custom design.
Wix
As design goes, Wix gets an easy 10/10 rating. It uses a classic drag and drop editor which means you aren’t confined to blocks and you can put your design elements anywhere. It allows users to customise every detail, giving you unlimited freedom when it comes to designing your website. I have yet to stumble across a design I can’t create using Wix, and it’s great for clients as they can add in all those little details that cement their branding.
Ease of Use
Squarespace
Even though it has a bit of a learning curve, Squarespace is designed for beginners. It’s simple, but sometimes not the most intuitive platform so be prepared to spend some time getting acquainted.
Wix
There's a few layers to Wix, which means you can learn as little or as much as you want. It’s incredibly simple to navigate and make changes across your site, without f*cking anything up with their handy autosave feature. It’s also perfect if you’re hoping to have your marketing department look after your website like they would social media, as they won’t find it difficult to learn basic maintenance.
SEO
Squarespace
This platform has its limitations but a few stand out as main contenders; page loading speeds, the code in certain templates creating template specific SEO problems and lastly there is no product data so your products aren't displayed on Google. The basics, however, are solid. We would recommend staying away if you’re a product based business or your marketing strategy will be mainly based on SEO.
Wix
Wix used to get a bad rep for SEO but now we have moved on from the dark ages, the platform works a charm. One of the main benefits is Wix’s SEO checklist, it makes it easy to cross off your keywords whilst working on blogging and backlinking at the same time without getting in a tangle. I recommend reading this tasty little case study that discusses Wix SEO and ranking on Google if you want to really get down and dirty.
Pricing
Squarespace
You get a free 14 day trial period with Squarespace, before the basic plan begins at $16 (£16) per month or $23 (£24) per month to begin taking payments on your website, however this comes with a 3% transaction fee.
Wix
Wix offers a totally free plan, forever, or their basic plan begins at $16 (£10.50) per month or $27 (£18) per month to begin taking payments on your website with no transaction fees. The free plan is an absolute must for us and our new clients to ensure they feel super comfortable using the platform before they go ahead.
Conclusion
Ultimately, these guys are really close but Wix has always won our hearts with its combination of design and SEO capabilities.
If this has piqued your interest or raised some questions, don’t be afraid to pop me a question or 3.