If your business website was built with the online website builder tool, Wix, you may be noticing a recent dip in user activity.
According to Hannah Schilling from The American Genius, you are experiencing a major decline in activity due to a recent issue causing numerous sites powered by Wix to drop off the Google index.
The Google index is similar to an index in a library, which lists information about all the books the library has available. However, instead of books, the Google index lists all of the webpages that Google knows about. When Google visits your site, it detects new and updated pages and updates the Google index (Google, 2015).
In order for your site’s contents to be included in the results of your custom search engine, they need to be included in the Google index. Google’s team has taken an “in-depth look at the setup on these sites” and is working to fix it on the Google indexing end, but until the issue is resolved, this proves to be a huge worry for many Wix users.
What Is Wix?
Wix.com is a cloud-based web development platform that allows users to create HTML5 web sites and mobile sites through the use of their online drag and drop tools. Wix’s easy-to-use site-building process claims to eliminate the need to hire web development experts, making it an attractive option for start up businesses hoping to save money. However, while Wix makes it very easy to build a great looking website, and very easy to build a very badly performing website.
The appeal of Wix lies in its affordability and ease. Unfortunately, because all Wix sites use one main platform, individual webmasters experience much less flexibility and control than they would with a personalized platform. And, when one Wix site starts having problems, all Wix sites are likely to suffer a similar fate.
If It’s Easy, Why Not?
If it was ‘easy’ to build a website that works then there wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands of blog articles about search engine optimization (SEO), content structures, on and off site reputation management and conversion optimization.
Wix makes it easy to jump right in, throw together a web page and publish it. Before you do that you need to stop and think, and work out what your business needs for your online presence. This means considering how your content is going to be structured, what image sizes you upload, what page titles you will use, the header text for each page, etc, etc.
Additionally, if you want to add features to it that aren’t supported within Wix, or want a major overhaul? If you’ve outgrown your Wix website, it is very difficult to move your content away from Wix.
If you had a WordPress website, you can keep all of your content and apply another theme, or a customized theme. With WordPress, you can spend half the time to make your website look completely different without having to re-enter your content.
This is why it shouldn’t be ‘easy’ to build a website. What looks good doesn’t necessarily perform well.
What You Can Do About It
If your Wix site has indeed fallen off the Google index, you are losing valuable business each day. Even worse—there is nothing to do but wait for Google to start reindexing, which they are in the process of doing.
Building your own platform through web management tools like WordPress is a great alternative to sites like Wix that hinder individualization and give you limited control. Even as new brands, its invaluable to have a strong website that allows you to own your own content, and your own destiny.
Summary
While it is possible to build a decent revenue generating website using the Wix platform, the biggest problem with Wix is it makes it easy to create a website that you think is great and it has given a lot of people the perception of having a good website when it’s far from the truth.
Websites are not brochures and they shouldn’t be treated that way.
To bring revenue from a website you need to think of it as an online presence, ticking all the right boxes, and invest time and money to get it right.
