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Wix is one of the most popular web design platforms existing today. It primarily stands out as you can build websites quite easily. Wix gives us everything we need to build and host a website in one place.
If you want to build a blog site, a portfolio site or even an e-commerce site, Wix has all the tools that you need. Are you afraid to spend money to start your website? Don’t be, because you can develop websites for free with Wix. In this article, we will show you how to build a complete website with Wix. Let’s move to the Wix website to develop our first website. Click the “Get Started” button if you haven’t registered to Wix before.
Obviously, the first step when building a Wix website is to Sign up for Wix. Once you click the “Get Started” button, they will offer three ways to sign up with Wix. You can use your FB account or Google account to sign up. Or else, you can just use the basic authentication by providing the email and password.
Remember that when you are signing up with Wix, you automatically accept their terms and agreements. Okay, that’s it with regards to signing up. Let’s move on to the more exciting part.
After signing up, Wix will take you through a series of questions. Through these questions, Wix will decide your expertise in web development.
At the end of the set of questions, you will be offered two options.
Wix ADI or Advanced Design Intelligence is the first AI system that can build a website by itself. If you select ADI, it will first ask you a set of questions. Then ADI learns about you from your answers and builds a stunning website instantly. Wix goes through billions of layouts, images, and texts to build the most suitable website for you.
The second option leaves you to build a website by yourself and provide the necessary help for that.
Although the AI of ADI is impressive, it still doesn’t match the intelligence of a human. So you should know how to build a website using the Wix editor as well. Thus, we will pick the Wix editor from those two options for this tutorial.
Then you will be asked to select a layout for your website.
Wix offers any layout that you can imagine. Also, Wix has divided these layouts into several categories to make things easier for users. After you select a template, you will be forwarded to the Wix editor, where you can customize your website.
There are too many options that are available which cannot be explained. But the menu you see on the left side is what you need immediately.
Wix’s Editor has about 7 menus that let you customize your website.
Menus and Pages
Menus and pages option allows you to organize pages and menus for your site. You can create new pages, change the name of the existing page, and create subpages through this option.
Background
Add option
This could be the most versatile option. Wix allows you to add various content blocks through this option. Click the menu button and you will see a long list of elements available to you.
The names of the elements describe what they mean. You will get a better understanding of them when we improve our website.
Add Apps option
Suppose that you want to extend the functionalities of your website. You could use the Wix app market which is a repository of third-party apps. These apps are similar to plugins in WordPress.
Media option
The media option allows you to upload videos and images that you can use on your website. More importantly, Wix itself provides a lot of photos and videos which are copyright free. You can build your website completely from photos and videos available to you.
Blog manager option
This allows you to manage your posts and other elements such as RSS feed that is related to the blog.
Booking Manager Option
Suppose that you want to offer some service. Booking option manages things like dates, times and accepting payments.
Next, we are going to add new things to our website. We will customize the website, add new pages, posts, registration forms, integrate social media. Furthermore, we will set up google analytics, tag manager, and SEO wizards as well.
After selecting a layout, the trickier part is to customize the website according to your needs and business requirements. So now, you u can end your worries because we have got you covered. We will explain how to get the customized domain name and how to tweak the header and footer according to your requirements.
Wix website comes with a header and footer on each page. The header is located at the top of the page and contains a site menu, business name, and logo. Footer is at the bottom of the page and includes your contact info and any copyright info. Header and footer help your visitors to easily navigate your site and find the information quickly that they are looking for.
To add a new item to your header, click on the header, and an orange line will appear. You can customize your site by changing the design view settings. Hit the question mark, if you need any help. You can just use the drag and drop method to add any item to the header. You will see the “Attached to header” message after successfully adding things to your header.
When you click the header and footer, you will see an arrow appear on the right side. Pull up or pull down the arrow to resize your header and footer. There is an option called freeze the header to stick your header at the top of your site even when you are scrolling down. Click on it to freeze the header and then select the setting icon and allow freeze header. You can also select other scroll settings like disappear, fade-out, scroll with the site by following the same method.
To change the header design, select your header, and click change header design. At the top, you will see your themed headers that have been hand-picked to match the design of your website. To enhance the customization of your header design, click customize the design and preview your header and footer to check out the changes you have made.
If you do not want your header and footer to show on the specific page, you can hide them. Go to the menu and pages located at the top left corner and select the page in which you want to hide the header and footer. Then, click the circle icon with three dots and choose settings, select layouts, and click No header and footer.
Your visitors access your website through the domain name of your website. Therefore, domain name matters a lot if you want to make a presence in an online world. So, it might be a good idea to have your own domain name for the website. Wix offers two options to connect your website to a domain name of your choice.
First click settings and select Connect Domain option
It will open up the following Modal.
You can either select buy a new domain or connect a domain that you already have. Anyway, you need to have a premium plan if you need to customize your domain name. If you’re ready to buy a premium plan, the procedure to connect a domain name is straightforward from here.
If the selected layout does not satisfy your needs altogether, the Wix editor allows you to add a new page to an existing template. To add a new page on your website using the Wix editor, you have to click on the Site menu located at the upper left side of the Wix editor, which will open a panel. Select the Add Page option from the bottom of the panel. Enter the name of your new page and click Done. Then, a new page will be added to your website.
There are several options that Wix offers you while adding a page. You can add dynamic pages, which means that you can create a page layout and use it again and again to show different things stored in a database. Dynamic pages save you from the hassle of updating the look of every page manually.
To create a dynamic page, create and select the page you want to make dynamic and click on three dots. A menu will be displayed, then select Set as a Dynamic Page option.
After selecting the option, the Wix editor will ask the type of your dynamic page i.e., Item or Category. Select the category that is suitable for you and also select the database collection from which you want to display items.
After this step, the Wix editor will allow you to add fields to a page and Create a URL that defines the data on the page. After doing this, you will be able to create a dynamic page.
Furthermore, if you want to keep posting articles and blog posts on your website regularly, then it is better to Add a blog for this purpose. To add a blog, click on the Start Blogging option from the left panel of the Wix Editor.
To add posts to your blog, go to My Blog option, and select Blog Manager from the menu displayed. The blog Manager will show two options which are Create a Post and Manage Posts.
Selecting Create a Post option will take you to an interface where you can write your blog, give it a catchy title, add images, and videos to your blog. You can also go to Post Settings option, which will allow you to edit blog date, author name, add a description, create a category, and SEO your blog.
Wix Editor adds a default member signup form to the site according to the layout, but you can always edit it according to your needs. To customize member registration form, Go to Site Menu option and select Member Signup option. You will see a default member signup form. Hover the mouse pointer over it and click on the settings icon. Wix Editor will display the settings menu, as shown in the image below.
To customize the Signup form, click on the Default Form option, which will display a dropdown menu. Select the Custom Form option. The editor will show Add to site Option at the bottom. Select the Add to Site option. Then, the editor will display a signup form. Click on the fields you want to edit. The editor will display Field editing options.
You can edit the design of the field, the layout of the field, and animate the field by these options. The same goes for updating the whole form. Click anywhere in the signup form window, and an editor will show several options for you to edit the signup form, including form settings, managing fields, and Adding elements to the form.
Adding Google Analytics to the website is always a good option, especially if you are running an online business. Google Analytics allows you to track information, including the number of visitors, page views, the origin of visitors, keywords used by visitors, how much time they spend on your website, and much more.
To add Google Analytics on your Wix website, you must have a valid Google Analytics account. Once you login to your account, click on the admin icon located at the bottom left of the page. Next, go to the properties section and click on Tracking Info. Find your Tracking Code and copy it for future reference.
After copying the tracking code, go to the Marketing Integrations section. Find Google Analytics and select the Connect option. Then, paste Google Analytics Tracking ID and select the IP Anonymization checkbox to make sure that Google does not save IP addresses of your visitors. Finally, click Save.
Adding Google tag manager to the Wix website can be effective as it helps to keep tags (code snippets) updated and organized conveniently. To add the Google tag manager to your Wix website, go to the Marketing Integrations tab. Find the Google Tag Manager and click Connect.
The next page contains all the information required to integrate the Google tag manager. You have to enter your Google Tag Manager container ID and click Save. Then, it will add the Google Tag Manager to your website.
Please note that this feature is only available to Premium users.
Wix provides SEO wizards to enhance your website’s SEO, despite your expertise. Go to your website’s dashboard and click on Get Found on Google option.
Wix SEO wiz will open. Click on Start Now and answer questions about your business asked by SEO wiz, and it will create an SEO plan for your website.
If you are a social person, it is terrific for your business to keep customers in the loop with you. You can do it by streaming your social media feed on your website. To integrate social media apps with your Wix site, click on the icon of Add Apps located on the left side of the Wix editor. It will open the Wix app market. Then, search for Social Media Stream, which is an app powered by SmartFox. Click on Add App option and change its settings according to your requirements.
Select the social media of your choice. Then, select the account type, provide credentials, and finally, your feed will be added to Wix Website.
Summing up, I have covered from anything to everything that you need to build a great website with Wix. The best part is you can get so many things done to your website with the Free Plan. Of course, the learning curve doesn’t end here; instead, this is where it begins. Stay tuned with us to cover amazing tutorials in the future.