The internet is awash with millions of websites; some selling, educating, or entertaining. One thing they all have in common is they’ve been designed and developed using a web design platform/software. It may seem that there are just as many web hosts as there are websites and it can be difficult to choose which one is best for your business. The two most popular web platforms, in our opinion, today are WordPress and Wix – we’ll leave Shopify out of this conversation, if you’re building a large e-commerce store we’d highly recommend Shopify.
To help you learn more about these two platforms and possibly choose which one is best for your needs, here is a little comparison to get you started:
Price: The cost can be a huge contributor to how a business owner chooses which platform to build their website. WordPress is free for a basic site (not including hosting fees) and users pay for what features they need instead of a bunch of perks that they don’t. Oftentimes WordPress can come across as overwhelming and sites like Wix, that provide simpler design steps but a monthly fee (instead of the once-off build fees of WordPress), will be easier. Because of these monthly payments, Wix can get rather expensive overtime and it isn’t straight forward migrating to another platform.
Features: Wix can be easier to use for first-time website builders, however, there can also be many limitations. Builders are restricted to choosing layouts based on the choices available on the site. Building a layout from scratch can actually be far more time consuming that with WordPress as there is a learning curve regardless. WordPress comes off as overwhelming because everything a website needs to succeed is there. There are widgets and apps for everything, including marketing and design, many of which are free to use.
Google Rank: When it comes to Google, brands need to keep in mind that which website platform you choose will impact how your brand shows up in Google search results. Our opinion is Wix cannot out rank a well built and optimised WordPress website, the code bloat and structure within Wix limits how the site ranks within Google’s algorithms. WordPress, on the other hand, is the most popular web hosting platform in the world and you can build/code your website however you wish to optimise code and how Google’s algorithms see your website – overall giving your WordPress website a boost in search rankings if implemented correctly.
You may have noticed that we’ve tended to lean towards WordPress in our points above, and you’re right. We find WordPress to be customer-friendly, cost-efficient, and an easy to use CMS. Websites can be fully customised based on your brand’s requirements. Once your website is built, it’s yours and there are no ongoing fees each month other than your server hosting costs.
Interested in learning more about how to build the best website for your brand? Have any questions relating to anything else? Reach out for a conversation today.
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