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Why Wix Isn’t Really Free

If you are starting your own business, one of the main aims for you is to keep costs down. More money in your pocket means more money for the business. Simple enough! But what if Free isn’t really Free? In this article I’m going to explain why a ‘Wix Free Website’ isn’t what it says it is:

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1. You Can’t Use Your Own Domain

When you create a site in Wix or any other ‘site builders’ for that matter, you will incur a charge if you wish to use your own domain. Your own personal domain is a vital part of your business, not just for your professionalism but also for your SEO and branding purposes. If you were going to give your website address to someone, let’s say you have a new steakhouse, that you’ve called ‘Happy Grillmore’. Which domain sounds better? Is it the ‘Free’ domain name given to you by Wix, which would be along the lines of happygrillmore.wixsite.com? Or your very own, professional domain listed as happygrillmore.com? I know which would look better on a business card!

2. Number Of Pages Are Limited

For the less tech-savvy folk out there, you have companies like Wix, that will take advantage of the fact you don’t know how it works. As an example of this, Wix will limit the number of free pages allowed on your website. Why, I hear you ask? It’s simple really, by limiting the number of pages included on your plan, they can sneak in a monthly fee of say ‘only £4.99!’ What’s a fiver really? To me and you, not much but let’s say there are a million businesses using Wix, that’s roughly £5m per month for something you should have for free. That’s some turnover for a free product, wouldn’t you say?

3. Storage Is Incredibly Limited

That means your content is limited as well as the amount of pages. So say goodbye to the idea of having large images or videos, it’s just going to eat away at your already limited amount of storage. But wait, there’s a way to fix that. Yep, you guessed it! You have to pay for it. If you are active on your site, that is if you write blog articles and add content on a regular basis, it’s going to cost you more money as you do so.

4. Limited Bandwidth

If you are expecting a serious amount of traffic or would even like to be prepared for a spike in traffic, forget about it! Your free website has limited bandwidth, so you can only have a limited amount of visitors to your site at once. If you plan to use your website to grow your business, you NEED traffic. Don’t worry, with Wix’s Free plan… nope, sorry! The only way to get the bandwidth you need is to pay for a monthly subscription.

5. No Favicons

It may seem like just a small and trivial thing to the average Joe but a Favicon is a big part of a business’ brand image. A favicon is the little icon that appears on your browser tab (imagine your Gmail icon when you have emails open in another tab). Your business will not look professional with a Wix favicon, that is unless you pay a monthly fee to use your own. Something that will also take seconds to change.

What’s My Verdict?

Simple really, it’s a hoax! They claim that something is free and it’s simply not. I don’t like dirty, underhanded tactics when it comes to business, so needless to say these type of companies disgust me. They are undercutting other businesses that actually offer a cheaper service in the long run. No customer contact either so the local economy suffers at the hands of another faceless corporation.

When you pay for a service you should see a return on your investment. If something is being offered free of charge and you end up putting your hand in your pocket for it, then guess what? That’s not Free!! You’ve been robbed…

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Why Choose McCabe Graphics?

Well you don’t have to 😀 But, I’ll leave you with this. Not only is a ‘Free Wix Website’ awful to look at, they are awful when it comes to SEO. Your ‘Google Ranking’ as it’s most commonly known, will suffer incredible setbacks. It’s basically non-existent, the practice they use is everything that Google says you shouldn’t do! You’ve got a website so why wouldn’t you want people to see it? If you want a website that is found on Google without any problems, has a favicon, is mobile-responsive and much more then get in touch with me today! Thanks for reading. Please share the love and tell your friends 🙂

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September 28, 2016