The longer you spend in the Writing Community, the more you hear about needing a platform. One of the things a platform needs is a central landing place, a place where newcomers to your brand can come to get to know you. The best way to do that is with a website.
Read the full Author Website Series:
But, for those of us who don't know any coding besides basic HTML (or less), the thought of making a website is rather terrifying. And you may think, I'll just have to pay someone to do it for me. But that can get expensive, and is no longer necessary in the current age of technology.
Thankfully, there are a few good options out there. More importantly, those options have free versions.
What follows is a list of pros and cons for the three main options out there from my experiences with each platform. The three platforms I'll be discussing are WordPress, Weebly, and WIX.
Let's start with WordPress.
Pros:
Great SEO (search engine optimization)
Wonderful for word-based websites (especially blogs)
Multiple pages
Wide selection of beautiful templates
Connect your own domain
Cons:
Arranging images on a page is hard to control
Widgets and design tools are complicated
Full websites (anything beyond a blog) cost money
Main Takeaway: If you want anything other than a blog, WordPress gets complicated.
Weebly
Pros:
More intuitive design (drag and drop options)
Beautiful templates
Multiple blog options
Multiple pages
Connect your own domain
Images and widgets work well
Works with MailChimp
Cons:
SEO is trickier
Many widgets are expensive
Doing things for free requires tricky work arounds
WIX
Pros:
Intuitive design (drag and drop works incredibly)
Beautiful templates aimed at various goals
Multiple pages
Everything is customizable
Images and widgets work well (If you want it, there's probably a widget for it, most are free)
Connect your own domain
Wonderful SEO
Multiple sites with one account
Cons:
Each plan does more and more, but costs more and more
Upgrades required to add domain
Complex widgets aren't free
Updates to how WIX offers things mean website redesigns are often required due to changes in what's offered
I'm biased, as I use WIX. I love WIX. I've been able to create this entire website with only a cost to connect the domain. I don't have a background in website creation. At least, I didn't, until I played around with WIX to make it something I wanted.
I love the drag and drop functions and the ability to create a beautiful website without much effort.
Stay tuned for more posts on website creation, such as what pages to include and why, how to increase SEO, and how to make it look good (design can be hard! I want to help).
Until next time, friends!
I'll see you then. ;)
J. J. Hanna is a Professional Writing major at Taylor University. In her spare time she creates YouTube Videos and Comics, and practices Karate at a local dojo. If you have a writing question, she'd love to hear from you! She is also looking for freelancing work, so if you have editing, beta reading, writing needs, a conference speaker, or would simply like to chat in a consultation, please let her know. Like what you see and want to get more content like this, or have your specific questions answered? Check out how you can support her on Patreon for as little as $3 a month.