As you might have gathered from my previous entry, I started my own advertising & creative agency here in Karachi, Pakistan. However, for an agency to work (duh) the need for a super attractive website was as important as oxygen or my morning coffee for that matter.
In my first few weeks of planning I attempted to search for the most “cost-effective” solution as far as making a website went and it made me crazy that I did not possess the skill myself. I cursed my luck and lack of know-how as people sent in gigantuan 5 and 6 figure price quotes to me after hearing what I had in mind. But you know what they say, when there’s a will there’s google.
So I set out on my cyber journey and stormed the google results like a pirate in search for age-old treasure. I came across many website solutions like Weebly, Jimdo, Webstarts and countless other such useless “easy website makers” – however they all had a few catches;
1. Limited designing space – layouts NOT customizable
2. Have to PAY for an account in order to make ONE website on it
3. Limited Space, Limited Bandwidth
And the list continues, but let’s not make this a snooze fest.
So as I browsed through disappointment after disappointment it dawned on me that perhaps my only way out is to dish out the big bucks and get it made. And like a beacon, when all seemed lost…it appeared.
Wix.com – the savior of my business, the pure satisfaction of designing it ANY way I want and the result? A pretty great looking website that I could control myself on my own terms. Sounds pretty awesome doesn’t it? Although I won’t tell you it doesn’t have its own limitations because Wix.com enables you to create a website via a flash developer tool without knowing any form of programming what so ever, thus pretty much anyone can take the time in learning it and perfecting it.
The beauty of Wix.com lies in many many features it offers (see listed below)
1. You make your account for free
2. You can design your own website from a blank template OR choose from dozens of pre-designed templates
3. It is compatible with Google analytics
4. It is SEO friendly
5. You can use your own domain for either $9 or $14 per month with unlimited hosting included.
6. NO Wix Ads with the Premium Packages
7. With One account you can creates as many websites as you like!
8. Extra storage space
9. The perfectly easy way to create a dynamic, beautiful website.
10. Once you get the hang of it – create websites literally over night and get paid – charge less and let the demand begin!
Let’s get to the Cons
1. Loading time can take very long if the person browsing has slow internet speed (especially in countries like Pakistan)
2. A Flash website proves to be heavy on most machines which are not optimized for such high performance
3. Even while designing it takes its sweet time – thus you need to be a very patient person to get through the learning process
* learning tip: break something, preferably not valuable during the learning process so that you can concentrate.
4. Everything loads individual via the Wix.com server as you can only use your domain via domain forwarding which again, leads to a longer loading time the first few times around.
Personally if I had a choice of paying a 100,000 and wait to see my website up and running after 2 -4 weeks Vs. Overnight delivery of an aesthetically pleasing easy to browse website via Wix.com and pay merely 15 or 20 K (just to be clear, I am talking in Pakistani Rupee) – which would I choose? Sure many skeptics don’t consider Wix.com as a professional way of conducting the web design business and perhaps it is unsuitable for a major corporation. However, for small and medium businesses, it is perfect.
Nowadays everyone is on the web and if your website looks like a piece of junk, they will move ON.
All in all my experience with Wix.com has been quite a pleasant one and for those of you out there who want accessible portfolios, music galleries or pretty much anything else…I recommend you try their services at least once. Because I can guarantee you’ll keep on going back for more.
CTL360 is not an official representative of Wix.com, but we have designed 15-20 websites on the wix platform and are close to perfecting innovative, customized designs to get your business or brand up and running in a hassle-free way!
So spread the word and let us make your wix come true!
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