Creating and launching your own website is, in many ways, more accessible than it has ever been thanks to online platforms like Wix. However, there is also an increasingly long list of sophisticated features and functionalities to account for if you really want your websites to have an impact.
In today’s competitive digital climate, having a comprehensive online presence demands more than just building a webpage. From contact management to email marketing, having a beautiful website is simply the first step. Wix has an extensive arsenal of tools available to help you manage your business, bring visitors to your site, and market your products—but it is critical to know how to maximize them according to your goals.
In addition to crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s, you want to ensure you’re taking advantage of all the new ways to make wise use of data and get the word out about your business. Here are a few elements you want to finely tune before going live.
Proofread your content
It might sound obvious, but you would be surprised how many webpages suffer from a lack of diligent editing. To achieve a professional image, you should always check the text for grammatical errors and clarity. This might be a lot of work depending on how extensive your website is, but it is vital to a strong foundation. If you skip this step and publish a website filled with grammatical and spelling mistakes, you risk losing customers or readers from lack of trust, even if the facts are correct.
Complete your forms
To be contacted by clients, potential partners, or possible employees there are forms available where questions or other topics can be submitted. For every form used, you must link an email address to the form. This will make sure that you are notified immediately when one is submitted. To make sure all of your forms work, they should be tested before going live so that no inquiries get lost in cyberspace.
Check your links
An important element of webpages and how they ultimately rank on the search engines is the linking between your own pages (internal links) and other websites (external links). This tool can be used with great advantage if it is done right. On the other hand, if there are links that lead to non-existing or deleted sites (so-called 404) they can hurt your ranking and, as a result, have a negative impact on your traffic. Before going live, it is critical to double-check all links work as they should. Furthermore, we recommend you check your links every few weeks, to make sure that none of them have stopped working.
Optimize for mobile website
Considering all the different devices we use on a daily basis, it is critical for web design and all that comes with it to be compatible with different screen sizes. When creating a wepage with Wix, you have the possibility to edit the mobile version. Make sure you check this frequently when building the website so that your elements are adapted accordingly and nothing looks distorted.
Get to know your SEO settings
For SEO purposes there is a checklist you can follow, which is generated by Wix. In the SEO settings, you will see which points are missing and you can check them off one by one. Following this checklist will help you make sure that the SEO basics are covered and your webpage is indexed. There are many more advanced SEO techniques that should be applied to any page, but this is a good place to start for beginners.
Connect to Search Console
Under the SEO setting, you will be able to connect your website to the Google Search Console. This will give you insights into the indexing of your site and the behavior of users that are finding your page.
Link Google Analytics
If you are using Google Analytics (GA) make sure you connect the new webpage to your account so you can retrace and analyze all the traffic your sites are generating. For this, make sure to add your property within Google Analytics. To finalize the set-up, copy your Tracking ID (starting with UA-) and open Wix. Within the Marketing Integrations, you can choose “Connect Google Analytics” and you will be prompted to paste your Google Analytics ID. Once this is complete, Wix should send you a notification showing that Google Analytics is connected.
Understand redirects
This is only necessary if you are relaunching an existing website and changing the URL structure or deleting pages. When relaunching make sure to redirect your old links to the new site. Wix lets you prepare a csv file with all redirects that you want to set so that you don’t have to set each redirect individually. You can do this within the Wix Dashboard by clicking on SEO tools and url-redirect. You can then either upload a file or manually create all redirects.
Wix Premium
The following points are only applicable if you have Wix Premium.
Domain name
To be able to customize the domain you can buy the one you chose from either a hosting platform or with Wix directly. If you choose another platform you need to assign the domain name to Wix. This means that you will have to change the DNS Name Server with your hosting provider to the ones provided by Wix. Once changed, it is important to keep in mind that it can take up to 48 hours for the DNS changes to come into effect.
Favicon
The favicon is the little picture right beside the name of the webpage in the tab. Most people or companies use their logos or a small part of the logo. Your favicon can be edited or added in the site settings. If you do not have Wix premium, the favicon will automatically be the Wix logo.
Putting it all together
Wix is a great tool because it allows you to start small and incorporate more functionalities and tools as you grow. The list we’ve provided here is a good departure point, but like anything in the constantly evolving landscape of digital innovation— it is by no means exhaustive. If you’re trying to go from a basic landing page to a well-honed conversion machine with 100% uptime, it can help to have professional guidance to navigate security issues, certificates, and other vulnerabilities that can impact the performance of your site.
If you’d like to learn more about how to get the most out of your Wix experience, please get in touch to benefit from the insight of one of our experts. Likewise, if you’d like to stay up to date on current social media trends and growth marketing hacks, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for the latest digital marketing news.
