Why I Decided to Build This Website / Blog with Wix Instead of Wordpress or Squarespace
If you're reading this post, I'm guessing you're maybe thinking about starting a blog or website and questioning which platform to build it on.
While Wordpress is for most people the best platform and the go to platform to build a blog or website on, today we have a variety of easy to use and very user friendly options for beginners. A few of these would be Wix, Squarespace, Blogger, Tumblr, and many others.
If you've been researching platforms you've probably seen the "Wordpress Snobs" who answer every post about "which platform should I use to build my blog", by saying Wordpress is the only one you should use. Everything else sucks.
While I would agree that Wordpress is great, and probably is ultimately the best option out there, we are all different, we all have different skill levels, and Wordpress while the best option, isn't the best option for everyone.
You guys know I like my wierd analogies so I have two for you.
Analogy 1
Let's say everyone out there in the running community for the most part agrees that New Balance is the best running shoe. But let's say you find New Balance shoes to be uncomfortable.
You go buy the New Balance shoe because everyone told you it's the best option and that Nike and Reeboks suck. The New Balance shoe however hurts your feet and makes it uncomfortable and even painful running, and because of that you just don't run at all. Is New Balance the best shoe for you?
Of course it's not because it doesn't work for you. In the same way Wordpress may be the best option period, and the best option for many more saavy and knowledgeable site builders and web designers, it's not necessarily the best option for someone who doesn't know coding and someone who is overwhelmed by all the choices.
For someone who doesn't want to take on the learning curve of Wordpress, and who doesn't want to pay a designer for every little change they want to make to their site Wordpress isn't going to be the best option.
Analogy 2
I'm a gun owner. In the gun community, on forums and in discussions on Youtube comments there's a never ending discussion about which caliber is better. Some people seem to say that a .45 is the only caliber to carry. It's the only one with stopping power and the only one worth carrying.
While there's no arguing it's the most powerful handgun caliber out there, it's not necessarily the best tool for everyone. For someone who wears business clothes or someone who lives in a warmer climate where they are not wearing layers, a .45 can be hard to carry and conceal.
The other side of the argument often points out the best gun to carry is the one you have with you. If all you can carry on you is a .25 caliber Beretta 950 Jetfire, a .25 in your pocket beats a .45 sitting on your nightstand that you can't carry with you.
"The Best Website Builder is the One Your Comfortable, the one you will use, and the one you will be most productive with."
So this post is about website builders, not guns and shoes so let's get back to it. My point is that the best tool for you is the one which you will use, and the one you are comfortable using.
For a few years I've been using Google Bloggers .blogspot websites. They are free, they can be setup in a matter of minutes, and there's really no coding required, no dealing with hosting, etc. It's a great place to test new ideas without any monetary commitment and very little time committment. If something takes off you can always upgrade to another platform or buy a custom domain and hosting later.
This is essentially why I chose Wix to build my site. For the past few weeks, possibly even past few month, I've been playing around with building a new personal site for the Rules For Rebels brand. While it's mainly going to be a blog, I really wanted to have the freedom and the knowledge to layout pages EXACTLY how I wanted them. To set the navigation exactly how I wanted it, etc.
While putting up a simple Wordpress blog and writing a post is simple, I find the layout very challenging, even with some of the very popular visual layout composers like Beaver Builder and Divi which proportedly turn Wordpress into a drag and drop builder. It's still too complicated for me though.
After toying around with Squarespace, Wordpress, and Wix, I found Wix to be the most user friendly and intuitive option for me. Everything seemed to naturally make sense to me in terms of how to do stuff, no need to read or watch any tutorials. I found Wordpress to be very complicated and even Squarespace, while easier, still wasn't what I was looking for. As someone who likes to take action and get started, and as someone who doesnt' like to read direction and just likes to get doing, Wix wound up being the right choice for me.
I realize I'm somewhat limited in the templates that I'm going to be able to use. I realize it's maybe not ultimately the best platform out there for SEO, though Wix themselves did put together a FAQ supposedly "busting 9 myths about Wix SEO." I know Wix may not be ultimately the best platform, but it's the best platform for me and ultimately at the end of the day content is King and content will make you SEO friendly so I'm not really that worried about potential Ajax problems with Wix or long URL's.
Just to wrap up, everyone is different. What's easy or intuitive to me may not be to you. Some of you may have an easier time with Wordpress than I did. I guess my point is this. Ultimately Google doesn't like one builder and dislike another. While one may be slightly more SEO friendly, the best platform is the one you will use and the one your comfortable with.
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