Having a website is extremely important for creating an online presence for your small business. However, hiring a developer to create a website for your business can be very expensive and may not fit within your budget at this current point in your business.
To overcome this hurdle you can create a free website for your small business by using the free website builder Wix. Using the Wix free plan you can build a fully functional business website with just a few minor limitations.
The limitations of a free Wix website are as followed:
- Predefined Wix domain
- Wix ads on every page of your website
- 500Mb of storage and bandwidth
- Cannot integrate online payment systems or google analytics to your website
Step 1 – Create a Free Wix Account
1. Head on over to wix.com. From the homepage click on the get started button.
2. Next complete the signup form by creating an account using your preferred method (Email, Facebook, or Google)
Step 2 – Select The Wix Editor
The reason why we use the Wix editor over the Wix ADI builder is that it allows more control and customization. After selecting the Wix editor you will be asked a few questions.
1. For the first question click on the “this is my first-time” button.
2. Next, respond to the introduction question with the industry that your small business operates in.
3. Under the “Create your own stunning website in the editor” option click on the “choose a template” button.
Step 3 – Select A Suitable Template
1. Browse through the list of templates presented before you and make a note of the ones that stood out to you. (Wix will filter these templates by the business industry that you entered in step number two).
2. Individually hover your mouse pointer over the templates that you like can click on “view” to preview each template.
3. After previewing all the templates decide on which one you will be working with and click on the “edit” button to the top right of the preview page. (Alternatively, you can return to the template selection page, and hover your mouse pointer over the template that you like then click on the “edit” button).
Step 4 – Get Familiar With The Wix Editor
After clicking on the “edit” button the first page that will be presented to you is the homepage.
In order to build your website with Wix, you will first need to understand how each tool in the Wix editor works. All of the tools that you will be using to create your website are located in the side menu to the left of the screen.
Below I have briefly broken down what each one does but if you would like more in-depth information about the Wix editor you can follow along with the Editor Basics or the Using Your Editor tutorials on wix.com.
- Add – This is used to add new elements to your website. These elements can be text boxes, headers, images, media items, etc.
- Menus & Pages – This can be used to add/change your website’s main menu as well as to add, remove or hide pages.
- Theme Manager – allows you to change the default colors and fonts of the template that you selected.
- Background – Used to change the default background color or background image of the entire template.
- Add Apps – Allows you to add additional features and functionality to your website via apps.
- Media – Contains all the media files that you will be using on your website. It can also be used to upload your own custom media that isn’t available in the default Wix media catalog.
- Start Blogging – Used to add blogging functionality to your website.
- Ascending Business Tools – Adds marketing, customer management, and analytics features to your website.
Step 5 – Customize Your Wix Website
Now that you are familiar with the Wix editor and user interface you can begin to edit the template to fit your business. If you take a quick look at the page you will notice that all the elements are like blocks. We will be editing, adding, and deleting these blocks to customize the template. The first thing that we will do is change the logo.
Changing The Default Logo
1. Within the logo area of your selected template delete the items that are in there. To do this select each individual item by clicking on it then press the delete button on your keyboard to remove it. (You will know that a block is selected when you see a submenu appear above or below the block you clicked on).
Alternatively, you can right-click on the block, and then click on the delete option in the pop-out menu.
2. Click on the add icon in the side menu to the left then click on the image element and then select “my image uploads”.
3. Next upload your logo then click on the “add to page” button
4. The added image will be at the center of the current page you are on, hover the mouse over the edges of the image and resize the image so that it can fix in the logo area.
5. Click and drag the resized logo over the now-empty logo section of the template, when you see the “attach to column or box” prompt release the mouse button.
6. Next, resize the logo again so that it fits perfectly within the logo section and then position it at the center by clicking and dragging it.
If you don’t have a logo for your business you can add a textbox to your website and then type out your business name in the textbox. To add a textbox to your website click on the add icon, then select the text option, then click on the themed text option, and select your preferred text design.
Editing The Other Elements On The Page
1. Click on any element on the page whether it be a heading, textbox, button, vector art, section backgrounds, etc to reveal a sub-menu above or below the element. This sub-menu will have subtle changes for each unique element
2. Next use the sub-menu to change the text, colors, design, add links and animations.
3. Each main heading in the submenu will reveal unique toggles for each one.
Step 6 – Edit The Primary Menu and Pages
1. Select the website menu in the header of your template and click on the “manage menu” button, this will open the menu and pages options.
2. Hover over any page and click on the ellipsis to the left (the three dots within the circle). This will open a sub-menu that will allow you to perform various actions to each of the pages of your website.
3. To add a new page you can click on the “add page” button at the bottom of the column.
4. This will open a pop-up in the middle of the page.
5. You can use the menu on the left to filer through premade templates for each page type
6. To start with a completely empty page click on the add blank page button.
7. If you don’t like any of the premade page templates or don’t want to start with a blank page you can duplicate an existing page by using the duplicate function in the site pages menu. Then rename the page and edit it you your liking.
Step 7 – Add Additional Features To Your Website
Now that you have edited all the pages of your website to your liking, it is time to add additional functionality to your website such as a blog, online store, social media feeds, etc.
Adding A Blog To Your Wix Website
1. From the menu to the left click on the blog button.
2. When the menu opens click on the add now button, this will install the Wix blog app and create a separate blog page on your website.
3. Follow along with the setup wizard to configure your blog.
4. Click on create a post to add a new post.
5. A blogging dashboard will open, add a title and content for your post
6. Use the menu to the right to add different elements to your blog and to change blog settings.
7. When you are done with your blog post click on the publish button to the top right
8. To manage a blog post click on the blog icon again and this time click on manage post.
9. From the blog dashboard, you can add, edit, delete or change the status of each blog post.
Adding Wix Apps To Your Website
1. Click on the app icon in the menu to the left.
2. Next, search or explore the categories for the apps that you would like to add.
3. Once you found an app click it then click on the “add to site” button.
4. Follow along with its set up wizard to install the app.
Step 8: Publish Your Website
1. In the top menu bar click on the “blue publish” button.
2. Now that your site is published you can view it by following the link.
