A Review of Wix.Com

Wix.com is one of the newer website builders to pop up on the internet. The main function that sets it apart is Wix's ability to incorporate basic flash based widgets and devices. It is tailored mostly for those looking to make a website with a lot of pictures. It advertises heavily towards photographers, interior designers, and people who are looking to make an online gallery. However, in a world where writing has to be in shorter and shorter blurbs to keep attention, a picture based web design might very well include 90% of all websites.

There are two options for website creation: free and paid. The paid version removes ads and allows you to tie your website into your own domain name. The free version however mainly advertises wix.com. The ads are minimal and placed in areas that aren't obnoxiously jumping in viewer's face. Wix has created an ad system that is aesthetic and mainly driven at getting more people to their website (to hopefully buy from them). They also offer services from web design professionals.

The website builder is set up similar to a simple photo editor. Hence, if you've used a photo editor before there is very little learning curve. This is one more piece of evidence that Wix was designed to be marketed to individuals with artistic leanings. However, there are plenty of tutorial videos. Also, if you spend a minute and read, the instructions inside the website builder are pretty easy to follow. An hour or two of trial and error should get you up to speed on how to do most basic functions.

There are many pre-made website layout that you can customize, or you can build the website from "scratch". If you choose a pre-made format you could have a website up and running within a half hour. From scratch takes longer, however it feels a lot more creative. There is no coding involved. It's a click and add or drag based system. Components range from flips books, to video, to contact forms. There is only one draw back to the website creator; everything must be placed within a pre-sized window. The size is designed to meet the average size of a monitor. However, if you had wanted a lot of text on a given page, there will now be a lot of in-website scrolling.

Understandably, a flash based website creator like Wix takes a bit of RAM to run. On an ancient computer, with less than 1 GB of ram, running the editor may make you want to stab yourself in the eye. It'll still work, it just crawls more than runs. With some patience, you can still get what you need done.

Hence, if you are looking to make a website with a lot of pictures, a little flash, and small word blurbs here and there, Wix.com is a wonderful website. It's also one of the few web builders with a free option that won't place twelve ads per page. Wix.com is the next step forward in free website creation.