Which site builder is best for influencers and digital creators?

Crafting the perfect website is one of the most essential  parts of being an influencer or a content creator.

Your website says a lot about you – it is the gateway to your personal brand.  This will often be where brands will look to see if they want to sponsor you. Your website should be clean, show off your brand, and be easy to navigate. 

There are so many site-building alternatives, so how do you know where to build your site?

Today, we will be taking a look at two significant competitors, Wix and BigCommerce so you can decide where to build your website.

Wix

What is Wix?

Wix is a website-building platform that can help you design a ready-to-use site in minutes. Founded in 2006, the site now has over 220 million registered users and has been a tried-and-trusted platform in the industry. 

How does Wix Work?

Wix operates under a drag-and-drop model, which allows beginners to start designing their dream site without ever having to learn how to code. 

Once you create your free account, you can start to create your site.

Wix will ask you a few questions about you and the goals of your website so they can offer you templates and features that best fit your needs.

Once you’ve decided on the type of website you want to create, you can start to choose your template and design your site, as well as choosing your URL.

Wix offers over 800 templates, so you will never run out of design choices. Below are a few of the templates you can choose from.

Once you pick a template, you will be directed to your dashboard which is how you can truly start customizing your site to your liking.

Your dashboard will look something like this.

The tools to customize and design your site will be on the left-hand side. To customize, simply click and drag on the media you want to replace, add text, and change the font. You can also add extra pages, headers, and sections.

You can also add apps to create an immersive website for your guests.

Below are a few of the apps you can add. 

Many of these apps have free plans and trials so you can continue to use the site for free.

Wix also offers SEO features to make sure your site is getting to the top of Google searches. 

Should you upgrade to a premium plan?

Although you can keep your Wix site for free, the platform offers several premium subscription options. You can unlock features such as advanced analytics to track who is coming to your site, as well as e-commerce options if you want to create an online shop.

Below are the pricing plans you can choose between.

Connect Domain – For $6 USD a month, this is the most basic plan you can buy. You can connect a custom domain to get rid of the Wix branding, but will not have access to most other features.

Combo – for $12 USD a month, this plan removes ads from your site, as well as allows you to not have to pay for your domain for a whole year.

Unlimited – For $20 USD a  month, this plan is specifically for freelancers and entrepreneurs. You have 20 GB of storage on your site, as well as free access to the visitor’s analytics app. This is the most popular plan.

VIP – For $34 USD a month, this plan has 35 GB of storage space, as well as a professional logo and priority customer support.

Wix also offers e-commerce plans, specifically for those with an online shop. Those pricing plans are –

Business Basic – For $24 USD a month, you can start accepting online payments, have unlimited products, and recover lost sales with abandoned cart recovery.

Business Unlimited – For $36 a month, you can start to really grow your business with access to advanced analytics and collect and post up to 10,000 customer reviews. You can even accept multiple currencies worldwide to create a global site.

Business VIP – For $52 USD a month, you get priority customer support and have access to unlimited dropshipping, as well as receive 50 GB of storage.

All these plans allow you to securely accept online payments, have recurring payments for long-term customers, and also remove Wix’s ads from your site.

BigCommerce

What is BigCommerce?

Founded in 2015, Big Commerce is an Australian e-commerce platform that specializes in online store creation, SEO features, and marketing for small to medium-sized businesses. 

The platform powers large brands such as SkullCandy, Ted Baker London, and Burrow.

How does BigCommerece Work?

Unlike Wix, BigCommerce does not offer any free plans.

You are offered a free trial of 14 days for any of their premium plans before you have to start to pay.

Because this platform is for more serious enterprises, this is for companies and brands looking to create larger-scale websites.

Before you can start designing your site, you pick between one of 4 plans.

Those plans are – 

Standard  – For $29 USD a month, this is the least expensive and most basic plan. This allows you to start your online shop with 0% transaction fees, unlimited products, and access to Google, Facebook, and Instagram shopping. You can create up to 4 storefronts, with each additional storefront being $30 dollars per site. Your estimated annual earnings with this plan are up to $50,000.

Plus – For $79 USD a month, this is the most popular plan. You can create 5 online storefronts, store credit cards, and have access to an abandoned cart saver, which sends guests emails with discounts and coupons if they’ve not finished purchasing their items. They estimate your online sales with this plan could be up to $180,000. 

Pro – For $299 USD a month, this is the most expensive plan and is designed for larger businesses and sites. This plan allows you to have 8 online storefronts, custom product filtering, and Google Reviews, and your estimated annual earnings are up to $400,000. 

The final plan is the Enterprise plan, in which you have to contact BigCommerce directly to work out a price. This plan offers Express routing for shipping your products, priority support,

and customer success management. 

Once you’ve chosen your plan, you can start to design your site. 

You can choose between hundreds of themes. Below are a few of your options.

Once you pick your template, you can start to customize the site to your liking. 

Your features depend on the type of theme you choose. You can also pick themes based on prime optimization, such as which themes are best for a large catalog or best for mobile sites.

What other features does BigCommerce offer?

You can easily design your site with drag-and-drop features, or create a more advanced site if you are familiar with advanced site-building and coding.

Choose between different styles, headers and different ways to style your products on your site.

BigCommerece also offers 70+ coupons and discounts you can customize for your shop. They claim to have high speeds built on Google’s cloud platform, SEO-friendly URLs, and create multi-storefronts so you can manage multiple brands from one convenient dashboard. 

What site-building platform will you choose?

 For larger storefronts, BigCommerce might be your best option, but for smaller shops, online portfolios, or just want a digital photo album, Wix may be for you.