How to Create a Wix-Like Website on WordPress in Just a Few Minutes
While WordPress is a fantastic blogging platform due to its ease of use and flexibility, it wasn’t designed with website creation in mind. That’s why it can be tricky to navigate around when you’re looking for instant solutions to quickly create a professional-looking website.
Luckily, there are several services that can be used to launch a professional-looking website quickly while still keeping control of the design.
Here, we’ll run down the most popular services that can be used to create a Wix-like website on WordPress.
Wix
If you’ve even considered creating a website for commercial use, you’ll most likely have heard of Wix. Founded in Germany in 2004, Wix is a service designed to make it easy to build a business website or landing page for free. The platform provides all the tools needed to build a professional-looking website with multiple pages, including a drag-and-drop builder, a content management system (CMS), a shopping cart, and more.
Wix is, essentially, the WordPress of the web design world. It was founded with a specific audience in mind: people who want to create a professional-looking website but don’t have the time nor the skills to do it themselves. As a result, Wix offers a product specifically geared toward busy people who need easy, instant solutions to create their website.
Wix’ partnership with WordPress means that any pages or posts you make on your WordPress site will automatically appear on your Wix site, too. This means you don’t need to worry about the layout fitting perfectly or about finding the right images to go with your content. You can just focus on writing great content and watching your website grow organically.
Squarespace
Speaking of growing organically, Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform designed for bloggers and small businesses. Like Wix, Squarespace was founded with the goal of making creating a website easy and accessible to anyone. It also offers a built-in shopping cart, which integrates with numerous e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce.
A feature that sets Squarespace apart from other website platforms is its focus on design. Unlike WordPress, which was originally designed as a blogging platform, Squarespace’s strength is in its ability to quickly and easily create beautiful websites with a variety of features, from e-commerce to membership areas to live chat buttons. This makes it a great choice for anyone who wants a stylish website without needing to know how to code.
Squarespace’s clean and modern aesthetic blends perfectly with most WordPress themes, and it offers a variety of templates to choose from. This means your existing WordPress theme will look just as good as new once you’ve launched your Squarespace-based website.
Artsy
Artsy is a free, open source CMS optimized for creative professionals. Like WordPress, Etsy was founded in the Netherlands and originally focused on handling e-commerce transactions for independent designers, photographers, and artists. It’s now also used by bloggers, journalists, and other content creators.
Etsy’s strength comes from its creative community. Just like with WordPress, you can find thousands of free, creative, and unique templates to choose from. This templating system was designed to ensure that every design looks incredible, so you don’t need to worry about needing someone to hand-make a custom template for you.
Etsy’s partnership with WordPress means that any pages or posts you make on your WordPress site will automatically appear on your Etsy site, too. This means you don’t need to worry about the layout fitting perfectly or about finding the right images to go with your content. You can just focus on writing great content and watching your website grow organically.
Shopify
Last but not least, we have Shopify. Similar to Squarespace and Etsy, Shopify was founded in Canada and is primarily used for online stores and stores for creative professionals.
Just like with Squarespace and Etsy, Shopify offers a variety of gorgeous templates to choose from, as well as e-commerce functionality and integration with major CRMs like MailChimp and Salesforce. It also has a built-in shopping cart, which can be accessed from any page.
Another strength of Shopify is its emphasis on security. Unlike many other website platforms, Shopify doesn’t just focus on the functional side of a website; it also takes security very seriously. This is a large part of why Shopify is such a popular choice among creative professionals who need to keep their content and personal data secure.
WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, and Etsy are just a few of the many services that can be used to create a Wix-like website. Not sure which one to go with? Don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. Here are some pros and cons of each one.
Wix
Wix’ biggest selling point is that it builds a website with all the tools needed for you to launch immediately. This means you don’t need to spend hours copying and pasting content between different platforms. It also means if you ever want to make changes to your site, you can launch a new version in no time.
Wix also makes it very easy to connect your site to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. This means you can use the provided widgets to integrate social media accounts and display beautiful tweets, Facebook posts, and Google+ pins on your site.
With Wix, the moment you launch, you can begin using all the tools needed to run a website. This includes a blog, a store, and even a wiki. You can choose from a variety of free and premium themes to make your site look the way you want it to. Plus, you can choose from a variety of layout options, including a classic look that’s very similar to WordPress.
However, Wix isn’t perfect. One major drawback is that Wix has become very popular, and therefore, very crowded. This means there’s a good chance your website will look a lot like everyone else’s who uses Wix. Not to mention, Wix uses a subdomain (i.e., wix.com) rather than a custom domain (i.e., yourblog.com) for its users’ sites. The lack of a custom domain makes it very difficult to find your site in a search engine. Finally, Wix offers some security precautions, but nothing substantial. For instance, you can require users to enter a code in order to access certain areas of your site. But, as a website owner, you have to go through a verification process yourself in order to make sure a suspicious activity doesn’t take place on your blog.
Squarespace
Squarespace’s big selling point is that it offers an all-in-one solution for bloggers and small businesses alike. This means you don’t need to waste time installing different plugins (i.e., tools) to get different features.
As a result of Squarespace’s popularity, there are several competitors like Wix, Shopify, and Etsy offering a similar product. The advantage of using Squarespace, however, is that you can find a large community of users who are willing to help you build a website, blog, or store. Just like with Wix, you can connect your website to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Another great thing about Squarespace is its clean and modern aesthetic. It will compliment most WordPress themes perfectly, and it offers a variety of templates to choose from. This means your existing WordPress theme will look just as good as new once you’ve launched your Squarespace-based website.
Shopify
Shopify’s biggest selling point is that it offers an all-in-one solution for online stores and stores for creative professionals. This means you don’t need to have extensive knowledge of HTML, CSS, and Javascript in order to build a functional online store.
Not only that, but Shopify offers a variety of tools to ensure you can build exactly what you want your store to look like. If you’re looking to build a basic store with no extra features, you can use the platform’s basic tools to get started. But, if you want something that’s a little more advanced, you can use its Pro or Advanced tools.
Shopify is also very secure. It takes security seriously and offers several layers of security to its users. This includes free, daily backups, spam filtering, malware scanning, and more. It also uses a verified SSL certificate, so your customers’ personal and financial information is always protected when they’re on your site.