It seems like things always come full circle. When I first started my online store in 2012, I actually tried out Wix and it was the first website platform I actually got a sale on.
Although, during that time I had decided to move to another platform, actually multiple platforms. I will say I am impressed and honestly amazed with how far Wix has come.
My eCommerce brand and agency website is on 2 different platforms. The eCommerce website is on Shopify which is not designed to be a blog, it's a pure ecommerce platform that has blog functions. My other website is on a web builder that claimed to be easy.
Unfortunately, I have had to hire designers and a web developer to get the website to look and function as I need it to.
The Wix blog is easy to set up, simple to design, and search engine friendly (plus they have great support)
So when I decided to start a blog, I wanted the blogging platform to be easy to set up, simple to design, and easily found in search engines. Wix has done all that and more.
They actually have live chat and customer support. Not only do they have support but they were able to help me solve a really simple problem that many other platforms would never help with.
I was not expecting that I could get the domain name, email and lead capture set up and managed all in wix. The Wix site can literally do it all and their app makes it insanely easy, I can even write new blog posts from my phone.
How to start a blog on Wix - A step by step guide
Step 1 - Go to Wix.com and click Get started
Step 2 - Enter your email address, make a password and click Sign Up
Step 3 - Click Get Started
Step 4 - Decide what type of Wix site you want to start. For this one I chose BLOG and clicked Next
Step 5 - Give your website a name. For this example, I just called it Test 1. Hopefully, you are more creative than I am in naming your blog. Type in your blog name and click Next
Step 6 - Choose your goals for your Wix website. I chose to Build a Community (anything works to get started)
Step 7 - Choose what you want to add to your website - I removed chat and only selected blog. You can add anything you want later as well. Click Next
Step 8 - Click Go To Dashboard
Step 10 - You made it to your dashboard - We are ready to start a blog post. Wix does a great job giving you step by step actions to take through the entire process. Click Create Blog Post
Step 11- Write your first blog post! Even with taking screenshots, I think this took me less than 10 minutes to get from starting a new blog to my first blog post. Start typing your first blog post and click PUBLISH to make it live.
Step 12 - Choose a domain for your website. This is amazing. Buying a domain from a third party and trying to point DNS servers was a bottleneck in the process for me. This makes it wildly simple. Choose a domain and click Let's Go
Step 13 - I skipped building a custom domain since its a test site and went to the next step which is Customize Site. Enter your info and click Next.
Step 14 - Time to make your blog sexy. I chose Timeless. Chose your theme and click Next >
Step 14 - Pick a homepage design that speaks to you. This would be considered your blog template. Because Wix is so easy to design, you can pick any of the blog templates and really customize it to your liking. Choose one and click Next >
Step 15 - Time to start adding pages to your site. I usually have an About and Contact page, but you can Skip or Chose one or All four and click Next >
Step 16 - Your site is ALIVE. You are now officially a blogger. Well, you may need to start building blog pages and writing blog posts. But you got your wix blog started!
Step 17 - Now it's really time to have fun with it and design your blog page, your blog posts, really your entire blog. I personally try not to go too crazy with design until I have created a number of blog posts. It's harder to design when you have no content complete.
Pro Tip: Designing your first blog can take so much time. Don't get trapped by trying to make it look perfect. You are looking far closer are your website than your visitors.
The most important part is to start blogging and writing quality content that the search engines can find and want to share.
Step 18 - The majority of my traffic comes from mobile users, so it's really important to use the mobile site editor to make sure it looks good on mobile. '
I always publish and check on my personal Iphone to make sure mobile devices are rendering my blog content and blog articles exactly how I want them to look. Click Let's Go
Step 19 - Choose a header design and Click Next >
Step 20 - Decide if you want pop-up actions for your blog visitors. I personally clicked No Action Bar because it's a blog and I want them to consume the content.
I don't want them to call or email me. Although I do like to talk to my visitors on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Step 21 - Choose a back button and Click Next >
Step 21 - Crushing it, click Go To Mobile Editor
Here is a quick GIF to show you how easy the editor can be. I know you will make a stunning blog, but now we need content to reflect how awesome it looks!
Remember content first, so get your first blog article posted before you get too deep into the design. Google likes great content, not necessarily overly designed websites with poor content or no content.
How will you monetize your blog?
This is a question I have been asking myself. My current strategy for my website is to monetize via ads. I believe this is one of the harder ways to monetize but it is more stable and doesn't require inventory or service to fulfill.
I am using Google Adsense for my Wix blog and recently found out that the other ad networks such as Ezoic, Mediavine, and Adthrive don't work well with wix. If you want to monetize using those platforms on your Wix blog you may need to go with WordPress.
What will your first blog post be?
Once I got my blog started, I quickly wanted to start blogging so the search engines could find my site and get me ranking on the first page asap.
Unfortunately, blogging just for blogging's sake may make ranking slower than you hoped. It was a rookie move on my part to not do any keyword research.
Now I use Ahrefs to do my keyword research before I write my blog post. When I have the keywords and I am ready to create a blog, I will open up Surfer SEO.
This tool allows me to optimize this blog for my target keyword phrase and helps me be seen by search engines. Update: I have been using RankIQ to find keyword phrases, its really powerful and the keywords are hand-selected. Here is the review.
How do you earn money from a Wix blog?
I will detail the high-level strategy that I am working on for this blog.
Google AdSense (ad network)
Affiliate offers
Agency referrals
Email marketing leads for my email agency
Consulting
Starting a blog with Wix is easy, waiting to get ranked by the search engines is the hard part
No matter how you use Wix I hope you succeed online and hit your goals. Let me know in the comments how you will measure the success of your blog.
Check out the 14 Best Font for Blogs post to make sure your readers can easily consume your content.