Anyone used the new website creator - WIX? It's in Beta now, so it is FREE

[ServingSouthernComfort]

I've recently come across WIX. It is a website creator that is currently in BETA. There are a ton of FREE template that are absolutely stunning! It is fairly easy to use - lots of tutorials - mostly point and click cut and paste.
Anyone used WIX?

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I'm familiar with wix. If you're thinking of doing it for your new inn, don't bother. The way it loads on your screen is bad, it looks free and it even says free at the bottom. There is a b&b around here that uses it and their site is almost invisible when doing searches.
If it's for the b&b, the owners must invest in a website done by industry professionals. It will pay for itself in no time. If it's a sort of throw away site for you personally, then no harm-no foul, go for it.

 

[EmptyNest]

Don't do it. Not a good thing even if it is free. You can use Wordpress or Joomla very easily for a site. But in my opinion....Hire a pro to do your site and let them do it right.

 

[souslechene]

I would not do it either. They are using flash. Flash might be more difficult for search engines optimisation. Might be difficult or impossible to be read on iphones/ipads, it is slow to load... Not my cup of tea.
Should you go through a Pro, make sure that he explains you how to update and add content yourself.
On my side, I learnt little by little the basics of HTML and CSS (all infos are on the web) and am very happy to be self dependent and have a website that "feels" who we are. It may not feel 100% professionnal but I can change it anytime for free. I am not a big fan of clean sanitized professionnal websites.
Edit:
Moved to the other thread more suitable...

 

[user 26]

sorry
I also vote no ... no wix for the inn website.
It's not free because it's new and in beta, it's been around since 2006. It's free because of the ads they will place all along the bottom of your site's pages. You can pay for the premium version and they'll pull the ads off your site.
I played with wix for my own self about six months ago, just to see if I liked it. I didn't. I did not get my site to look the way the examples did. I asked some tech savy friends to try and they were not able to do so either. It loaded so slowly that I think a potential guest would quickly move on. Potential guests are like that. Some research says they'll only wait about 3 seconds or something and start to move on if you don't capture their interest.
Wix placed all kinds of ads on my site and I had no choice or control about what showed up there. They don't allow importing of text so if you write up content you can't easily copy it in.
In my opinion, f you are looking for ways to save money for the inn, getting a bargain website is not the way.
A great website can pay for itself very quickly. It is an investment for sure.
If you just don't have the budget for a professional website, I'd experiment with wordpress, 1and1, and godaddy.
But I wouldn't want my b&b website to be used to promote other businesses.
I don't know anything about the premium wix sites or the pro services. But those aren't free, so that's a whole other situation.

 

[ServingSouthernComfort]

sorry
I also vote no ... no wix for the inn website.
It's not free because it's new and in beta, it's been around since 2006. It's free because of the ads they will place all along the bottom of your site's pages. You can pay for the premium version and they'll pull the ads off your site.
I played with wix for my own self about six months ago, just to see if I liked it. I didn't. I did not get my site to look the way the examples did. I asked some tech savy friends to try and they were not able to do so either. It loaded so slowly that I think a potential guest would quickly move on. Potential guests are like that. Some research says they'll only wait about 3 seconds or something and start to move on if you don't capture their interest.
Wix placed all kinds of ads on my site and I had no choice or control about what showed up there. They don't allow importing of text so if you write up content you can't easily copy it in.
In my opinion, f you are looking for ways to save money for the inn, getting a bargain website is not the way.
A great website can pay for itself very quickly. It is an investment for sure.
If you just don't have the budget for a professional website, I'd experiment with wordpress, 1and1, and godaddy.
But I wouldn't want my b&b website to be used to promote other businesses.
I don't know anything about the premium wix sites or the pro services. But those aren't free, so that's a whole other situation..

The B&B currently has a website, but it is in great need of a facelift. It is linked to an Online Reservation System, so that helps. Not a lot of money for Internet Marketing is currently budgeted - but I am convinced having a professional, user friendly website that is a must. I really have enjoyed using some artistic creativity in the past with websites and so I have wondered if I couldn't try my hand at it with this venture.
I really appreciate your feedback - very helpful!

 

[ServingSouthernComfort]

I would not do it either. They are using flash. Flash might be more difficult for search engines optimisation. Might be difficult or impossible to be read on iphones/ipads, it is slow to load... Not my cup of tea.
Should you go through a Pro, make sure that he explains you how to update and add content yourself.
On my side, I learnt little by little the basics of HTML and CSS (all infos are on the web) and am very happy to be self dependent and have a website that "feels" who we are. It may not feel 100% professionnal but I can change it anytime for free. I am not a big fan of clean sanitized professionnal websites.
Edit:
Moved to the other thread more suitable....

wondering why "flash" makes it difficult for search engine optimisation?

 

[EmptyNest]

I would not do it either. They are using flash. Flash might be more difficult for search engines optimisation. Might be difficult or impossible to be read on iphones/ipads, it is slow to load... Not my cup of tea.
Should you go through a Pro, make sure that he explains you how to update and add content yourself.
On my side, I learnt little by little the basics of HTML and CSS (all infos are on the web) and am very happy to be self dependent and have a website that "feels" who we are. It may not feel 100% professionnal but I can change it anytime for free. I am not a big fan of clean sanitized professionnal websites.
Edit:
Moved to the other thread more suitable....

wondering why "flash" makes it difficult for search engine optimisation?
.

Flash breaks web usability standards – Websites designed using Flash might look perfect, but visitors start to fall apart when they try to use them, since.

• They cannot use back button for navigation, as it is disabled.
• They will not be able to copy information such as addresses, phone number, etc.
• They cannot increase the font size to make the text more readable.
• They will also be not able to bookmark a page within the website.

Cross Compatibility Issues – It is very important that a website should work in any browser and platform on any computers. For e.g. Flash version 8 was only released for the Windows platform not for the Linux. However after one month, Flash 9 was released for Linux.
W3C Validation problems – World Web Consortium (W3C) is the primary web standards organization, which provides a free tool to ensure that HTML codes are syntactically correct. However, standard Flash object or files embedded in the current XHTML or HTML version does not validate correctly.
SEO Problems – Even though Google has collaborated with Adobe, some Flash information is often invisible to many other Search Engines like MSN, Bing, etc. Robots, small software used by Search Engines to scan a website, usually cannot process text embedded in Flash, since information hidden in graphic formats are difficult to find and process.
Website loading problem – Flash files, especially those using sound effect, bitmap images or embedded movies, can take more time to load the website that will decrease the number of visitors, since people just don’t sit around and wait.
And if that isn't enough, Apple products ie: iphone, ipads don't show flash

 

[ServingSouthernComfort]

I would not do it either. They are using flash. Flash might be more difficult for search engines optimisation. Might be difficult or impossible to be read on iphones/ipads, it is slow to load... Not my cup of tea.
Should you go through a Pro, make sure that he explains you how to update and add content yourself.
On my side, I learnt little by little the basics of HTML and CSS (all infos are on the web) and am very happy to be self dependent and have a website that "feels" who we are. It may not feel 100% professionnal but I can change it anytime for free. I am not a big fan of clean sanitized professionnal websites.
Edit:
Moved to the other thread more suitable....

wondering why "flash" makes it difficult for search engine optimisation?
.

Flash breaks web usability standards – Websites designed using Flash might look perfect, but visitors start to fall apart when they try to use them, since.

• They cannot use back button for navigation, as it is disabled.
• They will not be able to copy information such as addresses, phone number, etc.
• They cannot increase the font size to make the text more readable.
• They will also be not able to bookmark a page within the website.

Cross Compatibility Issues – It is very important that a website should work in any browser and platform on any computers. For e.g. Flash version 8 was only released for the Windows platform not for the Linux. However after one month, Flash 9 was released for Linux.
W3C Validation problems – World Web Consortium (W3C) is the primary web standards organization, which provides a free tool to ensure that HTML codes are syntactically correct. However, standard Flash object or files embedded in the current XHTML or HTML version does not validate correctly.
SEO Problems – Even though Google has collaborated with Adobe, some Flash information is often invisible to many other Search Engines like MSN, Bing, etc. Robots, small software used by Search Engines to scan a website, usually cannot process text embedded in Flash, since information hidden in graphic formats are difficult to find and process.
Website loading problem – Flash files, especially those using sound effect, bitmap images or embedded movies, can take more time to load the website that will decrease the number of visitors, since people just don’t sit around and wait.
And if that isn't enough, Apple products ie: iphone, ipads don't show flash
.

Thank you, Cat.