Can a Wix website be good enough?

[Sunny Days]

Hi all

I've been told our second salon's site isn't Google or search engine friendly. It's a self-made Wix site. Will it ever be worth me spending time learning a little SEO to get it seen more? Can Wix sites ever be easily found? (I only need it to be found for local, quite specific searches with 4/5 local competitors).

I've been quoted a scary amount for a new site, hence considering more of the DIY route

 

[Mark T Jones]

No need to pay a scary amount for a site on, say Wordpress. Just hosting and a bit of time to create.


Consider


Time spent learning how to make Wix viable would be better spent elsewhere


You are building limitations into your future.

 

[gpietersz]

Does it matter. It depends on how important SEO is for you. If the site is for people who know the name of your business and are looking for it, then Wix is probably good enough. You might want to register with Google My Business.

There are other DIY options: there are people here who will happily help you through setting up and using Wordpress. There is also hosted wordpress at wordpress.com - I am quite an advocate of that.

Another option is to pay someone cheap to do it. You will not get a fancy or heavily customised site, but you will get something better than Wix.

How much as the scary quote and what have they said they are doing? I strongly suspect they are either doing something that is excessive for your business, or simply over charging (or even both).

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Another option is to pay someone cheap to do it. You will not get a fancy or heavily customised site, but you will get something better than Wix.

A friend of mine recently paid someone to do this and 6 months later, at a cost of £1,200, he now has a wordpress site with zero content and a google font logo.

Don't worry what your current site is built with, look at promoting what you have with the many free options you have available to you.

 

[antropy]

Regarding Wix, the short answer NO! Alex

 

[fisicx]

Don’t use wix for anything except a hobby site.

 

[AllUpHere]

As with everything marketing it's not so much what you use (or what you do), but how you do it. A Wix site is never going to rank for anything competitive, but you aren't trying to do that. Spend time and money on strategy and planning and your website wont matter.

What scary amounts have you been quoted?

 

[Sunny Days]

To be fair, the quote was for quite a bit more that I think we need. It just needs to be 4/5 pages with info and photo's and a link for booking. It was £1400.

 

[Sunny Days]

Looks like I need to start again Thank you all for your advice.

 

[HostXNow]

Designers/agencies charge different amounts. Some a couple of hundred and some thousands depending on how complex the website/store needs to be, and whether they overcharge for services.

OpenCart/WordPress is much better for SEO. There is the free RankMath plugin for WordPress.

If you have the time, it's good to learn the basics of WordPress yourself, with the help of a web hosting provider. But you would need to choose a smaller provider as they usually offer better support.

 

[fisicx]

To be fair, the quote was for quite a bit more that I think we need. It just needs to be 4/5 pages with info and photo's and a link for booking. It was £1400.

That’s crazy. Get some cheap hosting and install Wordpress. Add a nice theme and your images and as many links as you want. Total cost to you: couple of quid per month for hosting.

And if you don’t like the theme change it for one of the many thousands of freebies.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

The website platform does play an important role in SEO and it's worth investing if you want your business to scale and be around in the future. You certainly don't want to revisit and repeat all your hard work in the future.

Regardless of platform, your content is key, especially if you want to rank locally.

First off, you need to select the right search phrases. By this, I mean keywords and phrases your customers are searching for, not what you necessarily think they are searching for.

Check out SEMRush. It is an SEO tool that enables you to do extensive keyword research and also allows you to analyse your competitors keywords.

(Tip: Free 7 days trial available on their website)

Next up is creating content that will;

1. Add value to your potential customer
2. Prove to Google that you are an authority

These are both key. You want to be creating regular content that continually reinforces your expertise in your niche, helping you to rank.

Example content could be:

• Town landing pages
• Guides to your service (targeted towards the town)
• An offers page (targeted towards the town)
• A jobs page (targeted towards the town)
• FAQs page (targeted towards the town)
• News-jack local news stories related to your niche (Basically blog about it)
• Local events page
• Local offers page (This would be very shareable on social)
• Create localised customer case studies.
• Link up with local charities (These sorts of links carry lots of weight)
• Be active in local Facebook groups and NextDoor. (It will create brand awareness and searches for your brand)

With these pages you are effectively creating a 'hub and spoke' model for your website. This will help you to build the authority you need to rank highly.

Also, as @gpietersz said, don't forget your Google My Business listing and start collecting customer reviews like mad. The reviews are a huge conversion tool when it comes to local business searches.

Hope that helps.

Matt

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

I'm a Wix fan because when I started, I generated my first customers without even a website! I just needed something I could throw up quickly and Wix is great for that because it's drag and drop (plus it's cheap). It take 5 minutes to learn and there's your brochure.

I also started in a field where ranking doesn't really matter. This year, I did some work for WPP, the world's biggest ad agency and they hired me and my little team without even looking at my site. The team there went to Ogilvy so going for a beer with one of them and may well get more business out of it. They'll simply say 'WPP' and someone will glance at my site, take a quick look at a testimonial and that's about it.

It's like my business; video. Sometimes, I encourage my customers to do stuff on their phones and even show them how it's done. They just need something quick and easy. However, when it comes to video that really moves the dial and generates them a ton more business, that's when they call me in. Wix is like that. It'll do if you need something quick and easy but for serious business generation, you'll need a different platform.

 

[fisicx]

@Paul FilmMaker - but have you measured the effectiveness of your wix site? Do you know how many leads never completed? Maybe it does work for you but a little investment could repay many times over.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

@Paul FilmMaker - but have you measured the effectiveness of your wix site? Do you know how many leads never completed? Maybe it does work for you but a little investment could repay many times over.

I don't understand why many people build Wix site to move to WordPress.
When somebody says that a product is free it means you are the product.

WordPress needs some investments, but it's not a lot of money for web design/development learning, features, user experience. WordPress isn't perfect but it is the best solution for many business sites.

 

[gpietersz]

WordPress needs some investments, but it's not a lot of money for web design/development learning, features, user experience.

What is the return on that investment for a business like a the one in question? I agree WP is better than Wix, but is it worth it in a particular case?

Also, is running you own install of WP better than using hosted Wordpress? wordpress.com is £3/month for a basic site and its easy to migrate to something else later if you want to.

A friend of mine recently paid someone to do this and 6 months later, at a cost of £1,200, he now has a wordpress site with zero content and a google font logo.

That is a rip-off.

To be fair, the quote was for quite a bit more that I think we need. It just needs to be 4/5 pages with info and photo's and a link for booking. It was £1400.

That is a rip-off too, or they are quoting to do something you do not need, like a custom theme.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

What is the return on that investment for a business like a the one in question? I agree WP is better than Wix, but is it worth it in a particular case?

Yes, it is worth it to invest in WP site.
I don't have enough information to form a ROI and it can't help the topic starter. There are many uncertain factors (for example, how many leads never completed on Wix site).

If I work at website development agency, it doesn't mean I promote our services. But it allows me share an experience. Of course, it is the subjective experience based on stories of our clients. I know few local companies which use Wix and Tilda for their business successfuly (entertainment, ads agency, real estate). But I know a lot of companies which stop using Wix and Tilda (hairdressers, beauty & spa, nail salons, delivery services, etc.).

 

[money road]

Hi all

I've been told our second salon's site isn't Google or search engine friendly. It's a self-made Wix site. Will it ever be worth me spending time learning a little SEO to get it seen more? Can Wix sites ever be easily found? (I only need it to be found for local, quite specific searches with 4/5 local competitors).

I've been quoted a scary amount for a new site, hence considering more of the DIY route

what is scary price for you and what is included?

 

[fisicx]

what is scary price for you and what is included?

It's in one of his other posts

 

[money road]

It's in one of his other posts

sorry have missed that.
1400 for 5 page 's website is way overpriced

 

[Darren_Ssc]

That’s crazy. Get some cheap hosting and install Wordpress. Add a nice theme and your images and as many links as you want. Total cost to you: couple of quid per month for hosting.

I've been quoted £3000 for a new door, should I chop a tree down and make my own

sorry have missed that.
1400 for 5 page 's website is way overpriced

Read between the lines and it isn't since the OP thinks a new website is going to solve her problems. The price she has been quoted may be fair if it actually delivers on her expectations, the likelihood is that it won't though.

The economics of doing web marketing fro businesses with small budgets only adds up if you are a charlatan.

 

[fisicx]

I've been quoted £3000 for a new door, should I chop a tree down and make my own.

I did. Not chop a tree down but I did make a door.

The quote they had for what is a very simple wordpress install was bonkers. A decent developer can get a the whole thing done in under an hour. If they then want other things doing the cost can increase but that's not how it was described.

Too many web development businesses take advantage of their client and charge way too much for simple tasks. I've been working with a charity who were quoted £300+VAT to change a logo. Took me 2 minutes to do.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

The quote they had for what is a very simple wordpress install was bonkers. A decent developer can get a the whole thing done in under an hour. If they then want other things doing the cost can increase but that's not how it was described.

That's half the problem though, people wanting a simple site but actually wanting more than they are actually saying. I agree the quote was probably just bonkers though.

My attitude for such things is pretty much that I'll do it for free when I can be bothered or go and pay someone who wants the work. In the case of my friend, he did that but now he's been ripped off he has warmed to my initial offer. Only problem is he faffs about so much that I can appreciate why these small jobs sometimes escalate into big ones.

 

[fisicx]

Most of the time clients don't actually know what they want other than I want a website or I want to be number on on Google.

As to the cost of things: I had a request from someone a while back to do X with one of my plugins who didn't want to pay my prices (which weren't that high). He reckoned he could get a developer in India to do it cheaper. A month later I had a request from a developer in India who asked if I could help them do X with my plugin.

 

[Mark T Jones]

That's half the problem though, people wanting a simple site but actually wanting more than they are actually saying. I agree the quote was probably just bonkers though.

.

More to the point, people haven't a clue what they want, beyond a vague belief that a 'good' site will bring in lots of business.

'Good' in this context seems to invove lots of fancy images and whirlygigs - with very little attention to substance and, in particular, focus on the target customer.

In fairness to developers/designers, in most cases they aren't deliberately ripping the client off; they are delivering a well-designed product with lots of fancy features. Which achieve nothing because the designer themselves doesn't know the first thing about marketing.

Hands up, I've splashed out good cash for fancy, useless websites on several occasions.

the most productive site I ever had was built by me, in a single evening on Wordpress. It looked like it had been hand-built by someone who had no idea about tech or design, but it produced quality enquiries simply because I knew exactly what I was offering & who my customer was.

 

[Paul Carmen]

I've been told our second salon's site isn't Google or search engine friendly. It's a self-made Wix site.

The issue here is that this probably isn't a website project per se, in that it's not about driving lots of sales online, or a shiny brochure site for potential customers to look at once given the URL.

It sounds more like a local visibility project; e.g. getting cut through in the local market so that the salon ranks well and gets bookings and calls.

This means researching the competition, customers and demographics, creating better content, visuals and user experience than the ranking sites, plus decent technical website SEO, sorting out Google My Business and Bing Places for Business, building local citations and getting real customer reviews and trust signals in place.

If the project is addressing all the research, content creation, website build and local SEO then it's fine. If it's just a 5 page generic site then it's worthless.

Only problem is he faffs about so much that I can appreciate why these small jobs sometimes escalate into big ones.

This is also the problem with small website builds. We don't do them anymore unless its part of a bigger marketing, research and content creation project, as what should be half a day or a days work often turns into a nightmare unless you're controlling all of it.

Unfortunately, customers often don't deliver copy or information on time, can't supply usable images, or have no real idea of what they want. Many are are then obsessed with tinkering with irrelevances and shiny elements, instead of building a site that functions well and gets seen, meaning what should be quick isn't. Building cheap websites efficiently and making any money from them is much harder than most people think...

 

[Darren_Ssc]

Unfortunately, customers often don't deliver copy or information on time, can't supply usable images, or have no real idea of what they want. Many are are then obsessed with tinkering with irrelevances and shiny elements, instead of building a site that functions well and gets seen, meaning what should be quick isn't. Building cheap websites efficiently and making any money from them is much harder than most people think...

My friend asked if we could have a meeting to discuss what needs doing. He's done this 3 times now and the answer has been the same - I just need you to send the information I have asked for.

I'm beginning to understand why he was initially charged so much and received so little to show for it.

 

[money road]

I've been quoted £3000 for a new door, should I chop a tree down and make my own


Read between the lines and it isn't since the OP thinks a new website is going to solve her problems. The price she has been quoted may be fair if it actually delivers on her expectations, the likelihood is that it won't though.

The economics of doing web marketing fro businesses with small budgets only adds up if you are a charlatan.

Agree... Depends what the client need. However I look straight and if someone ask me to build a website/e-shop I do. You want seo, marketing, content or anything more,- sure price goes up.
The last client I've got wanted just to build e-shop with car parts, I've done in 3 days and he did not actually care about anything else, like rank #1 on Google or etc. Now he hired another guy, who run ads on Google for him and makes profit, end of success story. He got a plan before even started...

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

More to the point, people haven't a clue what they want, beyond a vague belief that a 'good' site will bring in lots of business.

'Good' in this context seems to invove lots of fancy images and whirlygigs - with very little attention to substance and, in particular, focus on the target customer.

In fairness to developers/designers, in most cases they aren't deliberately ripping the client off; they are delivering a well-designed product with lots of fancy features. Which achieve nothing because the designer themselves doesn't know the first thing about marketing.

Hands up, I've splashed out good cash for fancy, useless websites on several occasions.

the most productive site I ever had was built by me, in a single evening on Wordpress. It looked like it had been hand-built by someone who had no idea about tech or design, but it produced quality enquiries simply because I knew exactly what I was offering & who my customer was.

That's well said.
Many web/digital agencies excited about technologies. Now many of them start to speculate on the marketing, User Experience, etc.
But, I think, it is all about business owners. They want to find an easy way.

 

[UKSBD]

My friend asked if we could have a meeting to discuss what needs doing. He's done this 3 times now and the answer has been the same - I just need you to send the information I have asked for.

I'm beginning to understand why he was initially charged so much and received so little to show for it.

That just about sums up the problem with budget website building.
You spend 3 or 4 times as long talking to people than it takes to build the site.

A lot of people think, if they've got half hour free during their lunch break, I know, I'll ring my web guy and have a chat about the website, ask questions about what to do next, oh, also, can you just go and quickly edit these 5 pages.

 

[Paul Norman]

It does depend on your definition of good enough. This knackered old van is good enough, but for a serious haulage business I would need a new one.

And a definition of a scary amount is subjective, of course.

I would suggest shopping around if the first quote is scary. Unless you find a few hundred quid scary, in which case I reckon the majority of website providers, including myself, would advise you to get onto Wordpress and have a go yourself. It's an excellent, and proven, platform with a much better reputation than Wix.

 

[Michael Beaumont]

If you are already running a salon website you could be diluting your presence with a second website. Put all your content onto a single site and have the address page where you can see the locations of both salons. You can legally have a second GMB page for your second location as long as the name is the same but in a different and specific service area.

 

[antropy]

Put all your content onto a single site and have the address page where you can see the locations of both salons

Just not using Wix I must add! Alex

 

[Sam Kumar]

Hi all

I've been told our second salon's site isn't Google or search engine friendly. It's a self-made Wix site. Will it ever be worth me spending time learning a little SEO to get it seen more? Can Wix sites ever be easily found? (I only need it to be found for local, quite specific searches with 4/5 local competitors).

I've been quoted a scary amount for a new site, hence considering more of the DIY route

Invest the time you spend on wix to wordpress.
Wordpress is more powerful and will have more options and plugins to help your business and seo when compared to Wix. I used 7 yrs ago for a static website. Never used again. I dint mean its bad but wordpress is far more superior and powerful compared to wix

 

[James Laden]

I think WordPress is a bit better and looks much more professional

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

No need to pay a scary amount for a site on, say Wordpress. Just hosting and a bit of time to create.


Consider


Time spent learning how to make Wix viable would be better spent elsewhere


You are building limitations into your future.

Mark, what do you consider "just a little time" and a "scary amount of time" and what is that time worth in money? And for what impact do you mean? Are you talking about a website that will drive traffic and enquiries to a business? Can you quantity a little time and how much you could build a converting website for in time or money (feel free to specify the keywords it would rank for)?

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

What is the return on that investment for a business like a the one in question? I agree WP is better than Wix, but is it worth it in a particular case?

Also, is running you own install of WP better than using hosted Wordpress? wordpress.com is £3/month for a basic site and its easy to migrate to something else later if you want to.



That is a rip-off.



That is a rip-off too, or they are quoting to do something you do not need, like a custom theme.

Sorry I don't agree with this. To say the 4 or 5 pages quoted for is a ripoff without actually considering the content and design that has gone into the pages is naive. Are you saying that each page that a web designer creates are the same? Are you saying that a page is a page and all pages are the same? This is ridiculous. What if one of the 4 or 5 pages contains a video. What did the video cost? Absolutely ridiculous comments to say a 4 or 5 page website would be a bad investment at £1400. As it all web pages are created equally. What a about SEO factors. The number of pages I've seen with H4 tags right at the top and no H1 giving no regard to semantic order of headings etc.

 

[Alan]

It just needs to be 4/5 pages with info and photo's and a link for booking. It was £1400.

Let me explain why there are different opinions on price.

When you say 'salon' I assume you mean Hair dressers, based on the cost of my wife's hairdos I assume an average salon targets about £80 per hour.

In my experience, decent web developers target between £40-£50 per hour. So that (£1400) is about a week's work. Which if it is all inclusive is fair enough ( I have build in the past enough WP sites to know that the average 'simple site' s 35 hours work )

Of course, if you provide all the content, photos, graphics, branding etc an experienced Wp builder can knock up a basic site using stock themes in 8-10 hours, so £500 ish

If you just want an empty shell of a WordPress site installed on hosting ready for you to add content and configure - then that can be done in an a hour or two so £50-80

And if you want that done by some one in a low cost part of the world you can get it done for £10

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Let me explain why there are different opinions on price.

When you say 'salon' I assume you mean Hair dressers, based on the cost of my wife's hairdos I assume an average salon targets about £80 per hour.

In my experience, decent web developers target between £40-£50 per hour. So that (£1400) is about a week's work. Which if it is all inclusive is fair enough ( I have build in the past enough WP sites to know that the average 'simple site' s 35 hours work )

Of course, if you provide all the content, photos, graphics, branding etc an experienced Wp builder can knock up a basic site using stock themes in 8-10 hours, so £500 ish

If you just want an empty shell of a WordPress site installed on hosting ready for you to add content and configure - then that can be done in an a hour or two so £50-80

And if you want that done by some one in a low cost part of the world you can get it done for £10

Excellent post Alan.

 

[gpietersz]

Sorry I don't agree with this. To say the 4 or 5 pages quoted for is a ripoff without actually considering the content and design that has gone into the pages is naive. Are you saying that each page that a web designer creates are the same? Are you saying that a page is a page and all pages are the same? This is ridiculous. What if one of the 4 or 5 pages contains a video.

If you had read the comment I replied to (and quoted in my comment!) you would see that I am talking about one site where no content was provided, and a quote for another where the business is happy to provide all the content and does not need a custom design.

You are misinterpreting what I said about particular sites and businesses as a generic comment about 4 or 5 page sites.

If the quote included shooting a video, and a lot of design, and writing the content, etc. £1,400 might be cheap. In this case its clear that what they want is very simple so £1,400 is a rip-off. The requirement is, at most, something like @Alan's £500ish site.