How to build a website using Wix Website Builder – Tutorial for beginners

Building your website using Wix is free and quite a straightforward engagement. However, if the process is new to you, you may have a challenge understanding the many different options available on the platform.

What is Wix Website Builder ?

Wix is an online-based, pretty intuitive platform for developing a website which was first developed and popularized by Israeli company Wix. Through this platform, users are able to build websites in HTML5 with the aid of drag and drop tools. You have the liberty to include functionality like online marketing, social plug-ins, e-commerce, e-mail marketing, contact forms, and community forums via third-party applications. Wix has offices in the United States, Tel Aviv, Brazil, Germany and Lithuania.

Wix based on a freemium business model and only earns revenue when one upgrades to a premium package. There are various things that make users want to buy the premium package including connecting your site to your own domain, getting additional storage, removing Wix ads and integrating e-commerce capabilities into the website.

Wix provides a world-class platform for building a website to over 110 million in 190 countries. It seamlessly meets the needs of different groups including musicians, photographers, small business owners, student, bride or entrepreneur. The Wix free website has everything you need to sustain your online presence. Your experience on the platform is simple, fun and code-free because all the techy processes are hidden behind the curtain.

Wix Free Website Builder Tutorial - Step by Step Process !

Getting Started

Go to below link and register free

Now you will get a page similar to below screenshot. Click on " Start Now "

The initial steps to using Wix website builder is signing up. This is where you get registered to the platform by supplying all the required details.

As you sign up, you have three options:

• Continue with Facebook
• Continue with Google
• Use your email

Most people prefer to continue with Facebook or Continue with Google because it is just a one-click thing. However, I would strongly encourage you to use your email. Doing so allows you the liberty of selecting the specific email with which you shall use on the site.

Using ADI to Build Wix Website

Once you have supplied the required details (email and password) you will be taken to the next step where you are asked a couple of questions including the type of website you want to create. We will choose the business option for our example. Upon doing so, you will be tasked with deciding to use Wix Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) or Wix Editor to build your site. Let’s start off with Wix ADI.

Choose Your Website Niche

The kind of website selected determines the different options and templates you get later on. Thus, take your time in making the selections.

Whichever direction you choose during signup, Wix has found a way of making everything simple. Just follow through the guidelines and you will be okay.

For this tutorial, let’s build a digital marketing Agency website as shown above.

Once you have made it clear the nature of your business, the ADI inquires the different features you would like to be included in your website. At this point, your creativity is your limitation. Think about the various things that you would like your website to do.

Luckily, you do not have to trouble yourself much since Wix ADI has a number of recommendations for you.

Clicking “Next” will take you to a page where Wix asks you “Does your website need any of these?”

Select the ones that are relevant to you. For instance, we have selected “Sell online”; “Take booking & appointments” and “Get subscribers”.

The next step requires you to feed in the name of your business and its location. Let’s call it “Trial Agencies”. Be creative in the names you use. If you do not have a physical address, you can skip the location part.

Review and Edit Your Info

Finally, you have supplied Wix with all the features you require your website to have including its name, email address and even connected to social network.

Pick a Style You Love

This is like a whole new phase of your website where you select the manner in which it will appear (its design). There are several styles to choose from including:

• Spark
• Bounce
• Play
• Soho
• Fresh and
• Sophisticated

Let’s choose Spark. With that done, Wix ADI directs you to the homepage of the website where relevant adjustments will be made.

Allow about a minute or more for the homepage to be set up.

Hurray! You are on the first-page look of your website.

But wait, as much as you are excited, this default design by Wix is quite boring. But understand that this design is not final. You have the chance to continue fixing it as you see fit. Add sections that you see necessary and remove those that you do not like.

What’s more, you can change the color scheme and even redesign the whole thing from scratch.

You will realize that Wix automatically decides the pages that should be added to your site. A look at the top left corner reveals the “Pages” section. Click the drop-down arrow and you will see some of these pages. One of them is the Home page.

A major benefit of using Wix ADI is that it is fast and convenient. However, the final product is not appealing to the eyes as you would want it to be. That is why we are going to look at the other Wix website builder tutorial where you have total control of the ultimate design. This is referred to as the Editor Option.

Read on to learn more about it.

Using the Editor to Build Wix Website

The best way to guide you through the Wix website tutorial using Wix Editor is to practically do it. Let’s pick from where we left off with the “Trial Agencies” website above.

#1: Create a New Site

At the top right corner where it’s written “Site”, hover your mouse over it. From the dropdown list, select “Create New Site” to get started.

#2: Choose type of website

Upon executing the above step, Wix asks you to determine the type of website that you want to create.

Choose the “Business” option. Wix automatically directs you to the next page where you decide how you would like your website to be set up.

We already used ADI to create our first trial website.

Let us now do so using the Wix Editor. As already stated above, you will be in more control of what goes in and out of your website. Do not be frightened because there are no hard coding tasks here.

#3: Selecting the right wix website templates

Wix presents you with a number templates including the “Coming Soon Landing Page” and “The Consultant”. Select one that best fits you.

The good thing about Wix is that when it comes to templates, you wouldn’t have a difficult time because it suggests to you options that are within your type of website.

Once you have decided on the template to use, click on “Edit”. Wait for a couple of seconds before you are redirected to a new page to edit your website.

On the far left, we have a vertical list of important buttons such as “Menus & Pages”; “Background”; and “Bookings” as shown in the image. You also have the “Add” button. On the far right, there are several options for “Copy”; “delete”; “paste”; “duplicate” and any other relevant adjustment needed for different elements on your site. The central part shown in the above image is your image. As you make changes, you are able to preview them in real time.

#4: Exploring the Wix Environment

Menus and Pages

A menu is the basic part of your website. Any website that has more than one page must have a menu to help visitors with navigation.

Note: You need to display a menu on every page of your website. If you do not have it on the header or footer, set it to be visible on all pages.

• To add menu, click on the “Add”button at the left side of your editor
• Select “Menu”
• Click the menu you’d like to add. You can also drag it to the relevant position

As you can see above, there are many other things that you can add including contact, video, music, button, box, shape and lightbox.

Note that when you add the menu and many of the things listed, Wix gives you an extra step. When you click on add menu, you are shown several styles that can work with the template.

Similar to menus, you can add pages to your website by clicking on “Menus & Pages”.

• On the left-hand side of your editor, select “Menus & Pages”
• Choose Add Page from the bottom of the panel
• Input the name of your new page
• Click on done
• Drag the page to the preferred destination

Background

Wix provides you with an opportunity to adjust the background color. You simply click on the “Color” option and a color palette will be presented to you. As you move the mouse over the colors, you will see the colors change in real time.

You also have the ability to change the image background. Feel free to choose any of the beautiful images available in the store or you can also upload your own.

Similarly, you can try a video background which you are free to either upload or use one of those found in Wix collection

As you add your background color, image and video, it is by default reflected on the Home page. If you want the same to reflect on other pages, click on Apply to other pages. A new template listing the available pages opens. Select the ones where you would like your changes to occur.

Apps

The Wix App market presents you with more than 260 applications that you can integrate into your website. These apps comprise of tools and services which boost Wix functionality to give you a better performing website.

This means that failure to visit the market will see you miss out on some important tools. The app market sets Wix apart from its competitors, most of whom lack such a feature.

There are a number of apps that Wix offers including shopping carts (by Shopify), marketing tools (coupons, social contests, traffic generation, email newsletter), social widgets (comment boxes, social networks), live chat widgets (by LiveChat and Rumble Talk) and reservation tools. The above listed are particularly helpful when you have a business website that needs engagement with the visitors.

When you visit the Wix app store, you are advised at a glance some of the top apps to install for the type of website you have. In the case of a business website, some of the must-have apps include:

• Comments
• Facebook Like Popup
• Wix Get Subscribers
• Instagram Pro
• Magic Form Builder
• Visitor Analytics
• Get Files to Dropbox
• Before & After Slider

Some of the recommended apps like “Facebook like Popup” cut across all types of Wix websites. Installing this helps you get more following on your social media network.

The essence of having an app market is to save you from the frustrations associated with technical installation instructions of external tools. You no longer have to undergo some worries that you are not installing this vital external tool in the wrong way. The apps are normally integrated in a manner that they can readily work for you.

The App market increases your access to important tools at the click of a button.

My Uploads

This section is like your gallery. It holds all the videos, images, audios and any other downloadable items available on your site.

#5: Adding the blog section

Every serious site must have the blog section and title it Blog. This is the page on which all blog feed and blog posts are found.

Typically, it is a dynamic page displaying individual blog posts every time a visitor clicks on it from the Blog page.

To set up a Wix blog, click on Blog manager found at the bottom of the left-hand side of the Wix Editor.

Click on Add Now.

Hover your mouse over the different blog elements and choose one that you like. There is a couple of these like Side by Side, Magazine and Postcard.

Another important factor to keep in mind is Categories. Categories help with organizing blogs into various topics and give the readers an idea of what the blogs are about.

This is found under the Add Blog Elements and scrolling down to the bottom. Apart from categories under this section, you will also see:

• RSS
• Custom feed
• Facebook comments
• Disqus comments
• And a few more

#6: Prioritize Usability

At this juncture, if you have followed through everything we have talked about above, your site should be stunning as it is. However, that is not the end. You need to make it user-friendly such that your visitors can have an ample time on it.

No matter how beautiful your site is, if it does not work properly, it will not get you far. The following are crucial things to keep in mind as you create the website:

Navigation flow : Confirm that the site is structured in a clear and intuitive manner such that visitors find it easy to move from page to page as well as subpages through menus and links

Call to Action (CTA) : CTAs refer to the popup messages that appear on any website you visit, asking you to “Get Yours Today” or “Register Free”. They basically direct your visitors to perform actions that you would want them to do. It is always advisable to learn how to create the best Call to Actions prior to creating one for your site.

Readability : Why would you spend all this time building a website if its contents cannot be read? Thus, it is important to ensure that the fonts used are clear and of comfortable size. Also, pay attention to the selected text colors, text contrast and the background colors. Furthermore, the “white space” should be reasonably enough.

Content hierarchy : When you have a coherent content hierarchy, your visitors will be guided via the site content to fully meet their needs. Make the crucial aspects as prominent as possible and let the design compliment that.

Footer : This is the bottom part of your website. Visitors may not immediately see the footer but there are a number of ways you can use it to enhance site usability. The footer may have social media icons, copyright information and contact information.

#7: Ranking Your Website on Search Engines

When online users search for terms relevant to your niche, you want your website to rank higher on the first page of the search engine. To do so, you need to make sure that the site is Search Engine Optimized (SEO). This wix website tutorial understands how important that is hence set shares with you 5 key areas to achieve SEO on a Wix site.

• Text : Whether it’s on your blog, Bio section, FAQ section or footer, you must make sure that the published text has SEO in mind. The trick here is that you creatively insert important keywords into your textual content without tainting the content’s quality. However, you must do so in such a manner that doesn’t look like you are bombarding your content with just keywords without adding value to the reader. Remember that search engine crawlers are smart. If you sound more like ad than a useful publication, you will be down-ranked.
• Keyword research : Imagine that you are the visitor to your site. How would you search for your content on it? The words that you would use in searching for this content are your keywords. They are the ones that help with making your website Search Engine Optimized. It is important to make an informed decision with respect to the keywords used in text publications.
• Alt Text : As we currently speak, search engines are not able to read images (this is a technology that’s actively being researched on). However, before we get there, it does not mean that your site’s images are useless on matters SEO. Make sure that all images uploaded or taken from Wix gallery has the Alt Text. Throughout this web design tutorial, we have shown you how you can upload images or get them from Wix library. As you do so, remember to add the short Alt Text line which tells the search engines what your image depicts. In so doing, your images will be found in search results.
• Meta tags : Your site visitors may not plainly see Meta tags, but search engines have been empowered to read them. The good thing is that you have been empowered to control what the search engine can see and the manner in which your site is presented in search results. There are different types of Meta tags such as Google site verification, Bing site verification, and Norton Safe Website All these essentially verify your site so that the search engine gains access to vital metrics including keywords and statistics. The end benefits us that you are highly indexed by the search engine.
• Link Building : In broader terms, your site will have a positive ranking if there are other reputable websites which link to you. Thus, link building entails making sure that more of these sites are associated with you. You can start by making sure that you connect all your social media profiles to your website, submitting the site to directories and motivating your visitors to share the content.

Remember that SEO is not a one-time thing and doesn’t halt once you launch your website. Rather, you continuously refine it to give a favorable ranking on Google and other reputable search engines. Do not make the mistake of just filling in keywords thinking that site will rank higher. Rather, find an elegant way to integrate your keywords.

#8: Make Your Site Mobile Friendly

Research shows that the majority of online accesses are done via mobile phones and tablets. In fact, the recent announcement by Google that it will redesign it’s algorithm to prioritize mobile-friendly websites should help you see the new trend. Any website that does not have a mobile version is less likely to survive these changes. As such, you do not want to limit your Wix website to just laptops and desktop computers.

The good thing about using Wix to build Sites is that the platform simplifies the process of enabling mobile viewing and adjusts the design and layout to fit on mobile-size screens.

As you go about site customization for mobile, keep in mind the aspect of navigation, readability and image sizing.

Take note of the areas highlighted in red in the above image. Turn on the “Make your site mobile friendly” toggle to make sure that smartphone users won’t find it hard using your website. You could shift between “Edit Desktop view” and “Edit Mobile View” to see in real time what visitors from multiple devices will experience.

#9: Wix Web Hosting

You have managed to set up a successful website and it’s about time to make it available online. To do so, you need to host it. Understand that web hosting and domains are two different things. Web hosting has to do with creating and storing the content of your site while a domain name is a unique address with which visitors are able to find your website online.

Wix website cost is minimized by the fact that the web-builder offers free and secure hosting for all Wix websites. The only thing you have to do is to create the site, which as we have seen is not a challenging task. The free hosting includes 500MB bandwidth and 500MB storage. There is also a free domain name which resembles www.[username].wixsite.com

Definitely, you do not want the “wixsite” to be included in your website address. To do so, simply upgrade to Premium. This allows you to have a custom domain ( Wix domain cost : Free for the first year,  then it is only $14.95 yearly ) or you can even connect one that’s already in existence. When you purchase a custom domain, your site address will now change to www.[domain-name].com, further increasing your credibility. Cool! Isn’t it?

Conclusion - Wix Website Builder

Millions of websites on the internet today are powered by Wix and that’s because of the platform’s simplicity and high security. A quick look at the many wix website reviews out there shows you how powerful this web builder has become. Why should you be left out? Grab your mouse and get started with building your stunning Wix website. We hope that you will find this web design tutorial helpful.