Wix is a website platform that allows you to build and maintain your own website, simply. If you're looking for a user-friendly website platform, this is it. But there are some things to keep in mind.
We've taken an in-depth look at where the Wix platform might be the right choice for your financial services company, or whether you're better suited with another solution.
The benefits of using the Wix platform for your website
There are many benefits when it comes to using Wix. First and foremost, it's one of the simplest solutions when it comes to getting a great website 'out of the box'.
They offer a wide range of templates to get started with, guidance on how to connect your domain, and some fantastic tools for getting your website's SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ready.
Let's take a look at some of the other reasons why you'd want to consider Wix as the platform for your website.
Ease of Use
Wix comes with a wide range of website templates, right out of the box, including templates specifically designed for financial professionals.
You can simply choose one of those, or modify any one of the other templates for your purposes.
When it comes to editing or updating your blog, think less 'coding' and more 'PowerPoint'. We often liken creating a site in Wix to creating a PowerPoint presentation. It has a similar drag-and-drop interface, straightforward settings for fonts and elements (similar to how you'd use the 'Format' panel in PowerPoint), and once you have the formatting for your blog and image galleries set up, updating them is as easy as editing an email.
Documentation and Technical Support
Wix has excellent documentation to take you through everything that you need to know.
If you get stuck, they have incredible technical support that will either call you within a few minutes of sending them a message, or someone will be able to help you on chat. This is pretty much instantaneous.
Unique features the Wix platform offers to financial planners, advisers and wealth managers
Wix has a bunch of built-in apps that benefit financial advisers and financial services providers particularly. We'll discuss these here.
Bookings systems
When it comes to growing your book, your website can be a powerful tool that both helps you simplify and automate the way that you bring in promising leads.
Adding a booking system to your site will act both as a 'call to action' for potential clients who are serious about engaging with you, as well as a way to schedule a meeting with them automatically based on your availability - the Wix booking system integrates with your calendar, so it will only show meeting slots for when you're available, and you can set the parameters for your desired meeting times.
You can also set your booking system to integrate with Zoom, so an automatic meeting can be set up without you having to lift a finger. Both you and your client will be sent the meeting details, so all you really need to do is show up for the scheduled call.
Chat
Wix has a useful chat system that integrates with their internal CRM system. When someone's on your site and you have the chat function enabled, they can send you a message. If you have the Wix app on your phone or the window open in your browser, you can respond to them immediately.
If you're not available, they'll be provided with an opportunity to leave their name and contact details for you, and you can reply to their message at your convenience.
You'll also be notified when someone is on your site, and you'll have the opportunity to engage with them even before they contact you - your message will pop-up in their browser as they're going through your site. This is a proactive way of finding out what they're looking for before they leave your site.
CRM
As mentioned above, Wix's chat and contact form functionality integrates with their own CRM, which will allow you to capture the contact details of the potential clients that are contacting you. Note that this needs to align with your privacy policy, and you need to ensure that you explicitly address how you treat customer data.
Forms
Wix offers an integrated contact form that works to help you qualify and capture leads. From multiple checkboxes to conditional fields, there's a surprising amount of flexibility that the forms afford you.
If you'd like to supercharge your contact forms with additional features, then read about the Wix Ascend feature below.
Built-in Marketing with Wix Ascend
At an additional cost ($13.80 when paid month-to-month), Wix Ascend offers you email, marketing, and social media tools that allow you to manage all three from the Wix platform without having to integrate third-party services.
They also integrate with the Wix CRM, Chat and Forms, enabling you to build a fully-automated workflow, drastically reducing the amount of admin overhead.
Blog
Creating a blog is a great way for you to improve your website's performance on search engines. As each post is optimized to appeal to certain search terms, your blog therefore allows you to appear in far more searches that your base website content.
For example, say your website's content is targeted to mostly traditional wealth planning services, you could write an article that addresses financial planning with regard to Crypto Assets - somebody looking for financial advice regarding buying and selling Crypto Assets may then see your article on Google, click through to your website, and then based on what they read on the rest of your site, choose to engage with you.
You'll need to be patient, though - blogging is a strategy that often takes months to years to bear fruit. Setting up an article now may only start ranking highly on Google in a few months to a year, so this is definitely a long-term strategy.
The Wix platform, however, makes it incredibly simple to update and manage your blog posts - it's really as simple as writing an email. Once your formatting is set up, you don't need to worry about the formatting at all. You just choose the appropriate header tags, write your content, edit the SEO for your post (so that your clients can find the content when they're searching for it on Google) add a few images, and you're good to go.
The great news is that once you've connected your website to your Google account, Wix will notify Google of any new updates and content automatically, which allows your content to start appearing in search results.
When you wouldn't want to use Wix for your website
Even though Wix offers what we believe is the simplest way to create and maintain a website, it's not for everyone.
Let's have a look at some of the reasons why you either wouldn't want to use Wix as a platform, or you don't have the time or margin to keep your website updated yourself.
If you don't have the time
As an adviser or financial planner, your time is at a premium. If you find your day is packed with meetings, client calls and admin, then the last thing you want to worry about is your website.
If you would rather someone just do it all for you, then you can work with a website developer or designer on the platform that they're more comfortable with, and that offers you the best performance and results.
If you're worried about platform lock-in
Wix locks you in to their platform. If, one day, you decide that you don't want to host your website with Wix, or that you want to move your website to Wordpress, this can't be done. Your website will essentially need to be re-built on a different platform.
If you don't have a good sense of design
If you're not comfortable with design, even in tools like PowerPoint, then editing your Wix site and getting it looking great could be a stretch for you. In this case, we'd recommend working with a professional, who will ensure that your website ties in perfectly to your brand, and your website accurately reflects your professionalism. As a client of ours told us once: an adviser wouldn't wear a messy suit to a meeting with a potential client, so why would they tolerate a messy website?
If you aren't familiar with website work
This ties in to design above, but if you just can't see yourself sitting and editing your site, then this probably isn't for you. Again, you'd want to work with professional to create a web presence that brings in business, and presents you in the right way to the right audience.
An alternative approach - using a Wix professional to update and maintain your website instead
If you don't have the time or margin to keep your Wix site updated, you can engage with a Wix professional to keep your site updated for you.
This can be as simple as spending 15 minutes a month on your website (starting at R215.63 for South African clients, or $15 for clients outside of South Africa, and will increase in 15-minute increments based on the amount of time that is needed to keep your website up to date on a monthly basis).
We also offer SEO services and paid advertising to drive additional traffic to your website, and monthly reports on Google traffic and ad performance.
Things to bear in mind when setting up your Wix website
Domain connection
For people to be able to view your site online, you'll want to connect your domain to your Wix site.
This requires a the Combo plan at least, and a domain either purchased through Wix or another domain registrar. If you're based in South Africa, we recommend Xneelo, but there are others like Afrihost and GoDaddy.
Once you've purchased your domain, you can connect it to Wix. We recommend third-party domain pointing.
If you're non-technical and need help with this step, we can sort it all out for you.
Hosting plans
You'll then need to choose a Wix hosting plan. While Wix does offer free plans, we don't recommend this for a professional business, as you won't be able to connect a domain, and you'll have a Wix banner on your site.
For most business websites with basic requirements, we recommend the Combo plan, which is $8.50 per month if you pay for the full year in advance. Taxes and VAT may be applied.
If you're looking for additional features, you may want an eCommerce plan
Mobile and desktop versions
Wix websites aren't truly responsive. This is when the same website layout scales to appear differently based on the device it's being shown on - for instance, a desktop PC, tablet in landscape orientation, a tablet in portrait orientation, and a mobile device.
Wix websites are sized to appear similarly on desktops and tablets, but the mobile layout has an entirely different 'mode' that you need to edit. Without being aware of this, your website could appear as a hot mess on mobile devices, with overlapping paragraphs, some text that's too big, some text that's too small, images that cover the text, or even some elements that are missing entirely.
Furthermore, while editing your desktop site, you'll need to double-check your mobile layout to see that the changes reflect properly. While text additions and images will automatically appear on mobile when added to desktop, the formatting won't carry across.
If this sounds overwhelming, let us know, and we can handle any visual updates for you.
Moving your website to the Wix platform
Perhaps you've done your research and decided the Wix platform is for you, or you've read through our content on why Wix is right for your financial services company.
There are a few things to think about before doing so.
What to consider before migrating your website to Wix
While Wix doesn't have an import feature, with the right know-how, this is something that can be handled relatively quickly and efficiently, depending on the size and scope of your existing website.
We'd recommend involving a professional Wix specialist for this, as there are many things to look out for, like 301 re-directs, and SEO. If you don't, you may lose traffic—and therefore potential business—due to broken links.
Moving your website to Wix yourself
If you'd like to handle the migration yourself, just be sure to make a detailed list of all the URLs of your current website, including any articles you have on your blog.
You'll then need to either recreate pages on your Wix website with the exact URLs, or set up 301 redirects using Wix's handy redirect tool, which makes the job much simpler.
This will mean that when you switch over and link your domain to your new website instead of your old one, the links from the various search engines—not to mention any links from any ads or appearing on printed or digital marketing materials—remain intact.
Alternatives to Wix
Specifically looking at website builders like Wix, assuming very little design or coding knowledge.
Wordpress
When it comes to websites, Wordpress is the name that you're probably familiar with. It's incredibly common, but unless you have some technical knowledge, are inclined to do the research to set it up yourself, or are working with someone who can help you set up your Wordpress website for or with you, we don't recommend it.
Once it's set up, though, you can find that it's easy to maintain your site. If you're using a 'visual builder' like Elementor, it can be complex to make larger visual changes,
Another bonus is that if you're not happy with your hosting company's service, you can move to a different, faster or cheaper host. Wix locks you in to their platform, so your website is hosted with them.
Another thing to consider is that you may need to buy your 'theme' (the styled appearance of your website), add plug-ins for security.
Squarespace
Squarespace is similar to Wix in that it's self-hosted (meaning, your website is on their platform).
Squarespace offers less flexibility than Wix when it comes to making design changes, and you are limited by the functionality of the template you choose, but if you're worried about 'breaking things' visually whenever you make a change, Squarespace may actually be a better fit for you.
You can also change your template if you decide that you prefer a different one, which Wix doesn't allow.
Weebly
Weebly has a far more structured feel than Wix.
While it doesn't offer the design flexibility, as with Squarespace, if you're worried about 'breaking things' when you're making an update, Weebly may be a better fit for you.
A custom-developed website
If you're looking for something more comprehensive that integrates with databases and bespoke analytics systems, you'd want to look at a custom-developed website that is not built on a platform, but rather developed to specification.
So is Wix a good fit for financial services providers?
Unless your specific requirements vary greatly from the standard for a small business website, we think it could be a great fit.
While you might need some help with some of the more nuanced elements of setting up and maintaining your site, Wix offers financial services providers a comprehensive, powerful, yet simple-to-use website platform that doesn't require any coding knowledge, and is as easy to use as PowerPoint.
You'll also get an assortment of apps and tools, included with your hosting, that will empower you to automate and manage your customers and CRM.
Armasar is a Wix Partner Agency and can help you with your Wix website, whether you need to update it, design it from scratch, or migrate it to the Wix platform
We have many years' experience working with financial professionals on projects ranging from branding to monthly website maintenance.
We'd love to work with you to create a great, effective website for your financial services company, and take you through our proven workflow to generate new business, perform well online, and attract the customers you want to attract, so you can grow your book, and have an industry-leading brand and website with hardly any administrative overhead.
Get in touch with us today for a short call over Zoom or Google Meet, or if you're in Cape Town, let's meet up for a coffee on us. If you'd like to know more, you can have a look at our detailed breakdown of our Wix services here.