How to Build a Personal Website (with Wix)
Introduction
Starting a new business, hobby or side hustle? Want to present yourself online to potential employers and clients? Or maybe you just want to share your thoughts and ideas with the world? Whatever it is you're doing, a personal website is the first step in building your online presence.
If that sounds intimidating, don't worry. We're here to help. Follow along as we walk you through the basics of how to make a website using Wix—an easy-to-use website builder that helps you create beautiful websites fast. Ready to get started? Let's dive in!
Define your message
Your message is what you want your website visitors to take away from their visit. It's the point of all this hard work, so it should be something that's true to who you are and what your business does.
Your message could include:
Who are you? Are you an author, artist or photographer? Have a look at our brand guides for inspiration!
What do you offer? Do people come to your site for advice on how to paint their house or purchase prints of photos taken in Boston Harbor? If so, make sure that those things are front and center on the home page.
Why should someone care about what they see in front of them when they arrive at your site? Why should they take time out of their busy day (or night) just because some unknown person told them about whatever it is that brought them here in the first place — whether it’s art supplies or dog grooming tips — rather than clicking away immediately back into Facebook or Twitter with yet another link? You need something compelling enough (and hopefully entertaining) enough that users will stay put long enough for them not only see what’s going on but actually enjoy themselves while doing so!
Look for inspiration
As you're planning your site, it's important to look at other websites and see what works for you. Do you like the layout of their site? How is it laid out? Are there certain features that you want to include in your website? You can also look at sites that don't appeal to you as much, so that way when building your own site, you'll know what not to do.
Look at other sites that are similar to yours: If there are competitors in your niche or industry, check out their websites and make note of what they have done well (and where they could improve). This will help give some perspective on how others have tackled the same problems as yours.
Look at other types of websites: If possible, look outside the box by browsing through sites in different niches than yours—this will help broaden the scope of ideas available for inspiration!
Choose a template
First things first: you need to choose a template that’s right for your website. If you want something pretty simple and elegant, try one of our minimalist templates (like this one). If you want something more modern and colorful, try one of our bright templates (like this).
Whatever style of site you’re looking for, we have plenty of options. Once you've chosen a template that's perfect for your personal website, it's time to customize it!
Add your own content
This is the most important part of your personal website. Adding your own content allows you to express yourself in your own words, share what's important to you, and show off what you're good at.
You don't have to be an expert writer or designer to add your own content—we'll walk through some easy ways for anyone who has a Wix account (and even if they don't) to add great-looking pages and posts quickly with minimal effort.
Why is it important?
How do I do it?
What kind of content should I add?
Tips & tricks for getting started
Customize your design
Now that you have a basic site, you can customize your design.
There are two ways to do so. You can either edit the theme by navigating to the “Design” section in the left sidebar and clicking on “Design Editor” or you can go through Wix's template builder (also called Design Editor). Let's look at both methods:
The first thing you'll want to do is choose a template for your website. When creating a new site, there are many different templates available but it may take some time before finding one that fits your brand or business needs perfectly. I recommend taking advantage of free trials since most sites offer these types of options as well!
There are also plenty of paid options available if budgeting is an issue—but keep in mind that better quality generally comes with higher costs too so just make sure it makes sense within reason before committing too much money up front without getting some feedback first.*
Make sure you’re mobile-friendly
When building a website, it's important to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. If you don't have a smartphone or tablet, you can use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test to see whether or not your site passes the test. You can also download the app called "Google PageSpeed Insights", which will tell you how fast your site loads and what changes need to be made in order for it to do so more quickly.
Optimize for SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimization, and it's a way to make your website more visible to people who are searching in Google and other search engines. There are lots of ways you can do this, from optimizing your meta descriptions and titles to making sure that you're using relevant keywords in the right places.
After all, if someone types “how to build a website” into Google, they want to see results that list things like "make a website" or "create a new site." If you want them to click on yours instead of seeing an ad that makes them buy something or click away before they find what they were looking for, then it's important that your page shows up near the top of their results.
Get a second opinion
The next step is to get a second opinion. Ideally, you want someone who knows what they are talking about and isn’t afraid to tell you if something doesn’t look right.
It can be difficult for some people to give honest feedback on your website because they don’t want to hurt your feelings or think that their opinion may influence the way you feel about yourself. So make sure when asking for a second opinion that the person is willing to give constructive criticism. They should also tell you if any part of their site could be improved so that their overall experience would be better than it currently is.
Promote your site
You’ve created a personal website, now what?
It’s time to promote it! There are tons of ways you can do this. Here are some of the best:
Social Media — Post on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter once or twice a week with links to your site. This will help bring in new traffic and get people familiar with your brand. You may even want to create an Instagram account dedicated specifically to promoting your work.
Email Marketing — If you have an email list, send out emails about once every month or two with a link back to your site as well as some info about what projects you've been working on since the last update (you should also send through regular newsletters). This helps keep people updated on what's going on in your life as well as remind them that they’re important enough that they should check out your work! Plus if they read something they like and then come back later because they forgot where it was from originally... voila! It's all online still waiting patiently for them :)
Google Adwords/Affiliate Marketing — Google makes advertising easy these days by allowing anyone who creates a free account access through their platform called AdWords where advertisers bid against each other based on keywords related specifically toward whatever product or service being searched for online at any given moment--and even better yet--they allow us creatives types who don't know anything about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so much freedom when choosing which keywords might actually be worth bidding against competitors over--which is great news because let me tell ya something: nobody knows how long "this" will take off before another trend comes along competing against us all which means there could always be someone out there trying harder than us right now....but luckily since this isn't our job we just need something.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve completed all the steps to building your online presence with a Wix website, you might be wondering what other options are out there for creating an online presence. We have a few suggestions for you! If you’re interested in learning about different platforms, check out our article on the best places to create a personal website or blog. If you’re looking for some inspiration on how to build your site, then head over and browse through our huge selection of templates. You can also find template collections for specific industries as well as general categories like sports, business, and art. Finally, if you want some tips on how to make your website stand out from the crowd then check out this article on how to make an amazing personal website that will impress everyone who sees it!
If you still think that you need help with building a personal website, schedule a free consultation call with us!