How to Set Up & Optimize a Wix Blog

Wix is one of the most popular website builders in the world and powers more than 2.5% of the websites on the internet. According to Built With, as of November 2023, there are 8.5M live websites built with Wix. 

Wix combines the power of artificial intelligence and the ease of drag-and-drop to give you the best website-building experience without writing a single line of code. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re a novice blogger or a content manager with advanced blogging experience.

Wix comes with a wide variety of Wix blog templates for all types of websites, an in-house payment system, a web hosting solution,content marketing tools, and its own App Marketplace. So, if you are a small online store or a business website, you get everything in one place.

In this Wix blog guide, we will show you how to use Wix for blogging, how to set up your free blog on Wix, optimize it for a seamless user experience for your visitors, and start making money.

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How to set up a Wix blog?

Wix has a wide variety of subscription plans for part-time bloggers, content creators, and businesses. However, if you are wondering if Wix is good for blogging and just want to give it a try before you invest any money - Wix has a free plan too!

You can set up any type of blog for free using Wix blog, and the free Wix blog templates make it even easier for you.

So, how to start a blog with Wix (for free)?

First, you need to create your account on Wix. Head to the Wix blog landing page and click on Get Started. Sign up with an email address, and name and create a safe password. You can do it directly through your Google account or Facebook profile too.

After you’ve set up your account, Wix will ask you a few questions to optimize your experience for your needs best.

With Wix blog builder, you can create free blog sites for a restaurant, technology company, event, consultant, and more.

Now, you will land on the setup dashboard, where you will find various instructions on what to do next. You can either start on your own and customize your website or follow Wix’s step-by-step guide.

The first thing you need to do is connect a custom domain. You get a “wix.com” subdomain with the free plan, but to connect a custom domain, you need to upgrade to one of the premium plans. With any premium plan, you get a free custom domain for a year.

You can either choose to publish your first blog post or go ahead and design your website. Click the Design Site button on the setup dashboard and choose how you would like to design your website.

You can either choose Wix ADI to create a Wix Site tailored to your needs or pick one of the Wix blog templates. Wix ADI stands for Artificial Design Intelligence and creates a customized website with free images, text, and interface design in a few minutes after you answer a few questions.

These are the designs created after I answered I needed a personal blogging website for a literary blog with a minimal design.

You can also skip the Wix ADI designs and pick one of the high-quality templates the Wix editor can offer. You can also search for website templates according to categories under Blog. If you want to create a website from scratch, select Blank Templates.

After picking a template and editing your pages, you’ll be prompted to connect a domain. You can choose to stay with the free “example.wix.com” subdomain or buy a premium plan to get a professional, custom domain.

What do you get with a free Wix blog?

The free Wix blog is enough to help you set up a unique blog with good functionality and beautiful blog design. 

It’s good for hobby blogs such as food blogs, poetry blogs, etc. The free plan is also more than enough for non-commercial personal and small business blogs that don’t need many integrations.

Here’s what you get with the free plan.

Free Wix blog templates

Wix offers free blog templates to get you started with your blog content. Still wondering if Wix is good for blogging? Yes, it definitely is!

In the Blog section, go to Posts. Here, you can either choose to create a new post from scratch or go to More Actions and choose Create post from a template. 

With your Wix free plan, you get up to 6 blog templates to use. Just click on Use This Template to import it into your editing dashboard and personalize it to your needs.

If you decide to create a blog from scratch, then you can add a lot of elements from buttons, polls, expandable lists, GIFs, galleries, and more.

A clean dashboard for easy management

You can add hashtags and categories to help readers discover your blog posts. You can also make the blog categories appear on your blog menu so people can filter what they want to see.

You can also use multiple accounts as a writer or editor for your blog. Your team can also have contributing writers and edit a blog post together since the editor supports multiple accounts working simultaneously.

Scheduling of blog posts

Another very useful tool is the possibility to schedule a blog post for publishing. If you’re a late-night writer who wants to schedule the post for the next morning, or you want to go on a trip for the next two weeks and schedule a few posts so your content schedule doesn’t go off-track, this feature is great for you.

Just click on the three horizontal dots next to Publish and click Schedule post.

You can select any date and time to schedule your post.

Monetization

Most bloggers want to use Wix for blogging to get a classy website builder with the power of AI and drag-and-drop. However, one thing users forget is how this platform brings everything you need for your blogging journey under one roof, including monetization.

Using the Wix blog gives you access to all the helpful monetization tools. If you are a freelancer or a subscription-based business, you can set up pricing plans. If you want to get paid through forums, you can create a form. 

If you are a professional, such as a doctor or a lawyer, you can offer services with bookings. Also, if you are a hobby-based blogger, you can monetize your content via Google Adsense.

You can even use some of Wix’s landing page templates to create a one-page website and use it to sell products, services, or courses.

Analytics

As a content creator or a business, it is crucial to know how your website is performing: how much traffic it’s bringing, the traffic sources, your top-ranking content, and other metrics. Wix makes it easy for you to understand your Blog Analytics with its squeaky-clean dashboard.

You also get an overview of your top-ranking blog posts, categories, new post emails (if you have set up automation), your Google search performance, and more.

Automations

One of the reasons why I suggest Wix for blogging is its Automation functionalities. Email automation is a great way to interact with your website visitors without all the manual work. Just set up a trigger, create an email, and activate the automation. 

Most website builders give email marketing functionalities to online stores only. However, Wix email marketing is available for everyone, even for free users.

Go to Automations on the dashboard and select New Automation. You can even browse some pre-built automations in the Installed for You section.

If you click on new automation, you will see some categorized automations ready to be set up. Click on any automation you need by clicking on Set Up.

SEO tools

Suppose you need to work on your search engine optimization. In that case, Wix has tools that come with the free package to help you, such as mobile optimization, a sitemap of your blog, rapid loading time, instant Google indexing, redirects of 301 links, etc.

Some of my favorite ones are:

• SEO Setup Checklist: If you are a beginner, Wix’s SEO checklist can save you a lot of blunders when setting up your website to rank on Google. The checklist is personalized and helps your site become more visible in online searches.
• SEO Inspection: This tool helps you inspect your search results on Google and troubleshoot if there are any issues. This tool can help you solve a lot of technical issues.
• Sitemaps: Wix provides you with an in-built sitemap creator that let you create and submit a sitemap on Google Search Console. It also optimizes your XML sitemap and helps you grow your website.
• URL Redirect Manager: Redirect users and search engines from an old URL to a new URL with Wix’s in-built URL Redirect Manager. Set up and manage redirects right from your Wix dashboard.

Robots.txt Editor: The robots.txt file instructs search engine crawlers which pages to crawl and which to stay away from. With Wix, you get an in-built robots.txt file creator and manager.

You can also read more about the best SEO practices on Wix on this Marketing Insights page. You can also use Wix’s SEO Wiz to rank better locally by answering simple questions. 

Logo maker

With the Wix blog’s free plan, you also get a free Wix logo creator. If you are a business, you definitely need a logo. Just go to Logo & Brand Studio under Site & App.

You’ll answer a series of questions and Wix logo creator will come up with multiple options to choose from. You can customize your logo the way you want

Email marketing

If you are an online store, you have to do email marketing. It will help you re-engage with a lost customer, bring back abandoned cart users, welcome new users, and much more. Wix also has Wix Payments - an in-house payment solution for online businesses.

So, if you are a small online business, Wix provides you with all the necessary arsenal to win the battle of customer engagement and making sales.

Under Marketing & SEO, select Email Marketing. Here, you will find some email templates to get started with. Or else, you can design an email from scratch.

Wix’s email editor gives you all the flexibility to design the email how you want. Add buttons, links, socials, videos, images, and more to make your emails pop

Free Wix plugins

You can use HTML code to add external applications and plugins to make your blog posts more interactive and to have other media. Simply put, this will allow you to add embed codes to YouTube videos, music, and Google Maps and draw posts from your social media pages or other marketing tools you might want to use on your blog.

Or else, you can choose any of the free apps like Instagram Feed, Forms, or more from Wix App Market to save time on integrating via an HTML code.

Mobile app

For blog editors on the go, you can also use the Wix app. On it, you can write, edit, and share your posts. Most of the features Wix has on the desktop are available on the Wix mobile app.

What if I need more than the free features?

If you need more than what a free plan on Wix entails, you can buy any of the five premium plans. With all premium plans, you get a custom domain (free for the first year only), no Wix watermark, and 24/7 customer care.

You can choose one out of these five plans:

1. Light ($16/month): This plan allows you to connect to a custom domain name, as well as add a free SSL certificate that keeps sensitive data on your site secure. You can add up to 2 collaborators and get 2 GB of storage space. You also get a light marketing suite.

2. Core ($13.50/month): With the Core package, you can add up to 5 collaborators. You also get a free SSL Certificate, 50 GB of storage space, and a basic site analytics and marketing suite. Also, you get basic eCommerce functionalities such as basic email marketing and Wix Payments.

3. Business ($16/month): Get all that the Core package entails, plus 100 GB of storage space, 10 hours of video hours, and a Site Booster and Video Analytics App, both free for 1 year. You can have up to 10 collaborators in this plan.

The Site Booster app helps you be found on search engines and listed in top-tier directories. Similarly, Video Analytics lets you get insights and stats about your site, see where your visitors come from, pages that get the most traffic & more. This package is more suitable for entrepreneurs and freelancers.

4. Business Elite ($79.50/month): The biggest difference between Business Elite and any other package is that you can get first-priority support and customer care. 

Otherwise, you get all of the abovementioned services and features, with unlimited storage space and video hours. This package comes with a much heftier price and is perfect for companies that need an A-class blog and require priority customer care.

5. Enterprise (Contact Sales): If you are a large-scale business looking for all the blogging and marketing essentials, then Wix’s Enterprise plan is the best for you. 

You get everything from the Business Elite plan. Still, along with that, you get a dedicated account manager, product training, single sign-on, custom SSL certificate, multi-site management platform, custom integrations, and so much more.

Conclusion

We hope you found this guide useful and have understood how to start a blog with Wix. So, start building your own Wix blog soon, and for more information on this site builder, check out our comparison guide on Wix vs Shopify.