WP Engine vs SiteGround: Which Is the Better Host for You?

This review is an apples and oranges type of comparison. We are going to compare SiteGround and WP Engine to show which one is best. This isn’t quite a parallel comparison though because they each serve very different clients and have very different services.

SiteGround is a little more traditional in terms of offering shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers and so on. WP Engine offers different plans based on monthly traffic, storage and how many sites you can create. SiteGround is a cPanel-based host that allows you to install scripts, like WordPress, while WP Engine is WordPress exclusive and is entirely geared towards this CMS.

Perhaps the only thing similar about them is that both are somewhat more expensive than their competitors, but they really give you what you pay for. These are premium hosts that treat their customers right, so it largely depends on whether you want a premium host with great features, or a specialty host dedicated to the most popular CMS on the Internet.

Let’s dive in and cover what they offer and what is both good and bad about both of them.

SiteGround (Grade: A+)

Love

Customer Support:

  • SiteGround is a master when it comes to customer support. I can’t think of another host as transparent and fast as SiteGround in this respect. They are available at all hours, 24/7, whenever you need help. This includes phone, live chat or email tickets. This is one of SiteGround’s priorities.
  • Both live chat and phone calls are answered immediately. There’s no holding or waiting. Within seconds you’ll be connected to an experienced staff member to answer either sales or technical questions. Email tickets are slower, but not by much. It only takes 10 minutes (often less) to get a response. They overstaff to balance even the busiest shifts.
  • SiteGround has gone the extra step to make support a little more personal. While chatting online or sending an email ticket, you can access the staff member’s profile. This shows you their name, a picture and their technical experience.
  • Whether due to overstaffing or enhanced training, the support staff doesn’t rush through the conversation or put you on prolonged holds. It feels like they are servicing you and only you. This is incredibly rare in the hosting industry and it’s a testament to SiteGround as a premium service provider.

Uptime and Speed:

  • You get a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%, but most people find it’s actually closer to 99.995-99.999%. Aside from just using the best hardware available, SiteGround is highly innovative when it comes to tech. They built proprietary Linux Containers and have an in-house Server Monitoring program that constantly checks servers and predicts future problems, which are corrected long before they happen.
  • SiteGround uses numerous software hacks, like NGINX and Cloudflare, along with top-notch SSD servers with all of their plans. Whether shared or dedicated, you’ll find this hardware is about 1,000x faster than disc-based servers.
  • SiteGround gives you the ability to choose between several different data centers. As you might already know, proximity is important when hosting your website. If you live in America, do you think your website will be faster if it’s hosted in Chicago or Singapore? Obviously the former. Aside from Chicago and Singapore, you can also choose from Amsterdam or London. This allows you to host domestically, or branch out if you have an international website.
  • Hacking isn’t just dangerous, it’s a hazard that slows down every website on the server. Brute force hacking sends thousands to millions of requests in an attempt to break a server. SiteGround battles this threat with their in-house AI that removes up to 500k-2m requests per hour. This means the vast majority of brute force requests don’t even reach the server.

Plans and Resources:

  • Tired of fake “unlimited” bandwidth? So is SiteGround. That’s just a vague marketing term that makes it sound like you can accept billions of visitors every month, but that’s obviously not true. Most shared hosts only offer a small amount of true bandwidth and then force you to upgrade your plan.
  • SiteGround gives you a rough estimate of how many visitors you can take per month with each plan. For example, their entry-level StartUp plan is good for 10,000 visitors per month. Each plan tells you explicitly what you are receiving.
  • You’ll find a few plans for each service (shared, VPS, cloud, etc), but not so much that it feels bloated. It’s the perfect amount of choice.

Scripts and cPanel:

  • Does “Standard cPanel” sound bad to you? Standard is a word we usually steer away from, but it’s actually good here. Many hosts have their own homebrew administrative panels that are clunky, buggy and just a mess. Getting the original cPanel is good because it’s simple and there’s tons of documentation to help if you have any problems.
  • SiteGround uses Softaculous as their script installer. This program includes over 300 scripts for the biggest CMS programs like WordPress, Prestashop, Drupal and so much more. A script installer allows you to add the program to your website within a few clicks.
  • If you have any problems with the scripts themselves, you’ll find that SiteGround is very educated on these programs. Come to them with your problems and they will find a solution.

Hate

Price:

  • Really the only thing I hate about SiteGround is their price. Their StartUp plan is a reasonable $3.95 a month initially, but then it jumps to $11.95 a month when the trial period is finished. That’s a significant increase, so make sure your website is generating enough buzz or revenue to justify the cost.
  • There are setup fees for the bigger plans, like VPS and dedicated hosting. However, outside of this, they are very good about not sneaking extra fees into their plans.
  • Please be mindful that these prices are high when compared to similar shared hosts. WP Engine is a specialty host, so even their lowest price is much higher than this. Again, this is apples and oranges.

WP Engine (Grade A+)

Love

WordPress Excellence:

  • This isn’t a host for WordPress newbies. You won’t be able to take advantage of the wealth of features here. If you are a developer, advanced user or regularly test, modify or produce themes or plugins, then you’ll love everything WP Engine has to offer.
  • WP Engine gives you a separate staging area to test your newly developed or installed plugins or themes. This ensures that you can test them out without fear of destroying your current website. Go ahead and play around, really push the software to its limit and see what each plugin or theme can do.
  • Comes with three separate environments for building, staging and producing plugins. There’s also Git and SFTP connections to keep developers happy. One-click staging makes it simple to rapidly test changes to see if the software is still working right after a change, or if something must be modified.
  • The WordPress experience is managed. WP Engine will install major updates, test small ones to see if they are worthwhile before recommending them and their resources are all geared towards making the best of WordPress.

Plans and Resources:

  • There are currently four plans to choose from with WP Engine. This eliminates shared, VPS, dedicated and other common options. Instead, your options are based on how many resources you want (along with extra features that may only be available to larger plans).
  • Like with SiteGround, there’s no phony unlimited bandwidth here. You are told exactly how much bandwidth you get along with a rough estimate of how many visitors you can accept per month. The entry-level plan, StartUp, is good for 25,000 visitors, has 50GB of bandwidth and 10GB of storage for $35 a month.
  • Larger plans will give you a significant increase in resources. For example, the next plan up gives you 200GB bandwidth, and the third plan gives you 400GB. This ensures you’ll always have all the resources you need as your site grows in popularity.
  • While features change between each plan, all of them come with the Genesis Framework for rapid WordPress development and deployment, separate environments for development, StudioPress themes and so on. Even the smallest plan has some very advanced features.

Customer Support:

  • WP Engine is staffed entirely by WordPress experts. These are people who live, eat and breathe WordPress, so they’ll be more than equipped to deal with the vast majority of problems. From something small like a plugin not installing correctly to a major bug that is destroying your website, the support staff is there to help.
  • Was your website hacked? WP Engine will fix it for free. They consider it a lapse in their own security and will work on your website at no extra charge. That’s just reassuring and actually very nice of them to do.
  • There is 24/7 live chat and phone support so that you can easily reach an expert with your problem. This ensures you can get help at any time.

Hate

Price:

  • WP Engine might be an expert, but they are incredibly expensive. Even compared to their direct competition of WordPress specialists, WP Engine is one of the most expensive hosts you can find. However, they do give you a lot of features and extras, so this will likely be worth it for development teams.
  • The price jumps a lot from one plan to the next. The StartUp plan is $35 while the next plan up is $115 per month. Yes, you get more resources, but that’s a huge jump in price. It only goes up from here.
  • Another gripe is the number of websites you can host. The StartUp plan only allows for one single website. The next plan up only allows you to host five websites. That’s it. Other hosts would offer unlimited domains for a fraction of the StartUp price.

Customer Support:

  • The customer support is great, don’t get me wrong, but entry-level users can’t take advantage of the 24/7 phone support. You only get access to the 24/7 live chat support. This should be good for most people, but why can’t you talk to someone after paying $35 a month? That seems crazy.
  • You only get 24/7 phone support with the next plan up. This means you have to pay $115 a month for this feature. SiteGround gives you 24/7 support for less than $12 a month.

Restrictive:

  • You know when you’re around an expert and they always point out when you’re wrong? WP Engine sometimes feels like that.
  • In an effort to secure the best WordPress environment, they can be restrictive about which plugins and themes they allow you to install. Those that aren’t deemed good enough, or potentially harmful, often aren’t allowed. Some might see this as a good thing while others will see it as policing and annoying.

Final Thoughts

It’s hard to compare WP Engine and SiteGround because they serve very different people. If you’re just an average user looking to start your first website (or maybe your second or third), then I have to go with SiteGround. SiteGround might be expensive compared to other similar hosts, but they are cheap by comparison and their services are made for all types of users.

However, if you’re a WordPress expert with a development team, then WP Engine is by far the best host. They truly are specialists in this field and give you features that SiteGround simply doesn’t offer. You have more room to explore your creativity along with increased safety if your coding doesn’t go perfectly.

In general, I find that SiteGround is better overall. This premium hosts gives most users all the features they need at a reasonable price. You also gain access to WordPress and 300 other scripts. However, if development is your thing, then WP Engine has some very attractive features that cannot be ignored.

Just consider your needs and experience and it should be easy to see which is best for you.

AliDropship Review: Best Dropshipping on WordPress? (2020)

Are you looking for a way to create your own online dropshipping store? If yes, you obviously need AliDropship solutions!

AliDropship plugin gets chosen by thousands of people all over the globe. Both newcomers and experienced businessmen buy the plugin because they want to dropship products and manage their stores in a quick, easy and efficient way. AliDropship plugin lets a store owner have full control over the business, and means the absolute freedom in terms of the store management.

Shortly, this plugin is linked to your WordPress store and helps you pick products directly from AliExpress. As the result, the products along with their title, description, photos and reviews are automatically imported on your website.

There are two ways to use AliDropship solutions. One way is to order Ready Stores based on AliDropship plugin:

  • Choose a Custom store if you want a 100% UNIQUE store created for your personal taste — and if you are ready to wait for 2 or 3 weeks.Perfect pick for those who prefer individual approach and freedom to decide what their store will sell and look like.
  • Choose a Premium store if you would rather get a COPY of a booming store and reach the same success — and it’s ok with you that your store won’t be unique. Perfect pick for those who love fast and proven solutions and want to start earning asap.

Anyway, you become a 100% owner of an independent dropshipping website on the AliDropship platform.

The second option is to use AliDropship plugin and assemble a similar store yourself. This plugin is easily compatible with WordPress and WooCommerce platform, so, if you already have any WordPress website (even a simple blog), you can turn it into a fully functional eCommerce store!

AliDropship Review: The Best Features

So, the most outstanding part about AliDropship plugin is its opportunity to transform your WordPress site in a single click into ecommerce store. The plugin can turn any WordPress website into a fully functional drop shipping store with all the vital elements: product pages, shopping cart, payment gateways, etc

Here are some of its unique features.

Full Automation

The AliDropship plugin is fully loaded with automated solutions.

  • Search & Import
  • Auto Updating
  • Pricing Automation
  • Fulfil Orders Automatically
  • ePacket Shipping Filter
  • Auto Order Tracking

They help you search for products and import them to your site, achieve pricing automation by allowing you to set up your own margin when price fluctuates and initiate orders automatically by sending out order tracking.                                                                     

Site Customization

AliDropship incorporates several built-in themes and tools, which allow an easy site customization.

  • Built-in Themes
  • Product Customization
  • Unlimited Number of Products
  • Product Variations
  • WooCommerce Support
  • Built-In Image Editor

It lets you edit single product pages as well as category pages and bring unique content on them. In addition, you will enjoy the built-in Image Editor that lets you improve the on-site pictures with no need to install and use any external programs like Photoshop.

Marketing

Promoting your store in search engines and social networks is a cornerstone of any marketing strategy.

  • Discount Coupons
  • Product Reviews
  • SEO Product Tags
  • Abandoned Cart
  • Email Lists

The plugin helps you to run sales and promotions by offering your visitors custom coupon codes; engage your customers and encourage sales with the option to import reviews onto your site directly from AliExpress; optimize your product pages for search engines with product specific meta tags, titles, descriptions and keywords and etc. Smart email notifications can become a powerful marketing tool for increasing your conversion rate and bring you new and repeat buyers!

Managing

AliDropship helps you create an online store that automatically performs some of the most important drop shipping tasks and make the right choices for your business as you monitor & control your sales, orders, traffic and all important webstore activities.

  • Live Statistics
  • Payment Gateways Integration
  • Inventory Management
  • All-in-One Dashboard
  • Cash-Back System
  • Free Updates & Support

The plugin supports all the most popular payment processors like PayPal, 2CO, Stripe, PayU and many more. Also, this plugin allows you to closely manage your entire inventory. You can track your stock counts and stop selling products when any inventory runs out.

Additional options 

Add-ons

Marketing add-ons are your best helpers to provide stable organic traffic from social networks, stimulate impulse buying, simplify email marketing and solve a pile of other tasks.

If you require special functionality, the add-on library is all you need as it comes with several items like Recent Sales Pop-Up, Countdown Timer and Facebook Business add-on.

While some of the add-ons require a one-time fee, others are free of charge!

AliDropship Review: The Pricing

AliDropship’s WordPress plugin only costs $89, and this one-time payment covers amazing features like updates, life-long support, automation, unlimited products and the core features mentioned above.

In case you want to order a custom dropshipping store, there are three packages to choose from. The basic one costs $299 and, above all else, includes 50 pre-imported products selected and edited by the team. There are no limitations on the amount of products you import yourself afterwards.

Other custom plans cost $499 and $899. These upgrades come with unique benefits including promo videos for your products and social media promotional tools.

All the packages require a one-time payment: there will be no recurring fees, and, throughout the use of AliDropship solutions, the customers can count on a free lifelong support.

AliDropship Review: Who is AliDropship For?

The AliDropship Plugin is intended for whoever desires to create his or her own online dropshipping store that uses AliExpress to supply products. The plugin is also perfect for people who would like to skip payment of monthly service fees for maintaining an online store.

In fact, it’s a really convenient way to monetise your hobby and to make money from an activity (or niche) that you genuinely love! 

Buy AliDropship plugin now to create online stores in minutes and make your first sales right away!

Elementor vs Divi (2020): WordPress Page Builder Comparison

If you want to create custom content designs and page layouts for WordPress, the best option for most website owners is to install a page builder plugin. When it comes to choosing one of these plugins, Divi and Elementor are two very popular options.

However, as well as being two of the most well-known and widely used page builders, Divi and Elementor also share similar feature lists, making it difficult to decide which one to choose. On paper, they both look great, but, as is often the case, the small details and differences will dictate which one is best for you.

To help you to pick the right tool, this article compares the features and user experiences of Divi and Elementor, so you can make an informed decision on which one to use for your project.

Let’s begin…

About Divi and Elementor

Installing a page builder plugin such as Divi or Elementor gives you full creative control over how your posts, pages and other types of content look.

Both Divi (pictured) and Elementor give you a new way to create content in WordPress.

Not only that, but the paid versions of these two plugins allow you to customize the header, footer and other parts of your site outside of the post and page areas.

As Elementor is available in two main varieties — one a free plugin and the other a paid tool with additional features — we’ll be covering both options in this comparison. Because of this, you’ll be able to decide if the free version of Elementor will suffice for your website, or if investing in Divi Builder or Elementor Pro is a better option.

For Divi, we’ll be looking at the standalone Divi Builder plugin from Elegant Themes that’s also available as part of the Divi WordPress theme, also from Elegant Themes.

DIVI AND ELEMENTOR OVERVIEW

The key features of Divi and Elementor (pictured) are their drag-and-drop visual interfaces.

This guide will look at Divi and Elementor in detail. However, to give you a quick overview of what these tools can do, here’s a list of their key features:

  • Libraries of high-quality homepage and inner page templates.
  • Powerful drag-and-drop WYSIWYG content editor interfaces.
  • Ability to customize all areas of your website, including the header, footer and theme templates.
  • Customizable elements for adding a range of content to your pages.
  • Ability to create reusable templates and page elements for use throughout your site.
  • Role managers to control who can do what with the page builders on your website.

While these page builders may have similar capabilities, their features have been implemented in different ways. Because of this, it’s difficult to evaluate and compare them simply by looking at their feature lists.

However, by the time you’ve finished reading this comparison, you’ll know whether Divi or Elementor is the right page builder for your website.

Before we get to the in-depth exploration and comparison of their features and user experiences, here’s the key information about each plugin.

ABOUT DIVI

The Divi Builder started life as a content editor integrated into the Divi WordPress theme. Now, though, that page builder is also available as a standalone WordPress plugin for use with any WordPress theme, and it’s the product we’re looking at for this comparison.

The Divi Builder is available as a standalone WordPress plugin, or as part of the Divi theme.

While the page builder is now available as a plugin, if you’re yet to choose a theme for your WordPress website, and you like the sound of Divi Builder, you could kill two birds with one stone and install the Divi theme to apply a high-quality theme to your WordPress website and also gain access to the page builder.

We’ll cover the pricing details in more depth later in this page builder comparison, but both the Divi Builder plugin and Divi WordPress theme are available from Elegant Themes in a single package that starts at $89.

ABOUT ELEMENTOR

As mentioned, you can start using the Elementor page builder for free, or pay for Elementor Pro to access a more feature-rich version of the tool.

Elementor is available as a free version and a more feature-rich premium version known as Elementor Pro.

While installing either plugin gives you access to the same page builder interface, Elementor Pro includes more templates and modules, plus a few additional features to help you to customize all of your WordPress website, create pop-ups, and integrate with lots of third-party services. There’s also a free theme for Elementor that can be used if you’ve yet to choose one for your website.

You can read a breakdown of the differences between Elementor Pro and the free version on the Elementor website.

Divi vs Elementor Features Compared

Both plugins aim to solve the same problem — making it easy to create a custom WordPress website — and therefore they share similar feature lists. So, to help you to decide which one to choose, here’s a comparison of their key features.

EDITABLE CONTENT TEMPLATES

Both Elementor (pictured above) and Divi come with hundreds of high-quality editable templates.

While it’s great that both plugins let you create your own custom page designs from scratch, doing so can be time-consuming, not to mention quite difficult, if your design abilities aren’t up to much.

Thankfully, Divi and Elementor Pro, and, to a lesser extent, the free version of Elementor, are packed with high-quality templates. You can use the templates as they come and just make a few edits to their text and images, or completely customize them so they become unique designs.

Some examples of the types of templates you get access to with both plugins include:

  • corporate and business-focused website templates
  • marketing, design and SEO agency templates
  • many different ecommerce store templates
  • lots of service provider and freelancer templates
  • online portfolio templates
  • blog templates, covering food, travel and health topics
  • multiple sales-focused landing page templates.

As you can see, whatever type of website you’re planning, or piece of content you need to create, you’ll probably find a template that’s ready to go.

An example of one of the editable Divi layouts.

If not, there should be one that’s a close match that you can adjust to meet your requirements.

When it comes to the number of templates you get access to with each of these page builder plugins, Elementor Pro has an impressive 150-plus templates, while Divi takes things even further with more than 1,100 layouts. The free version of Elementor only has around 40 templates, but you may find the one you need among this smaller selection.

However, while it’s easy to focus on the numbers, it’s worth mentioning that it’s best to choose the plugin with the most templates that are right for your project, rather than the one with the most options overall.

TEMPLATE ORGANIZATION

To help make its constantly expanding template library more manageable, the Divi layouts are organized into website packs. Each pack typically includes a homepage template, as well as layouts for adding other content to your site, such as the about, contact and landing pages, as well as blog posts and portfolios.

The Divi templates are organized into packs that contain multiple layouts for creating a specific type of website.

The Divi layout packs are useful, as they provide you with most, if not all, of the templates you’ll need to launch your site. However, you’re free to mix and match the templates from the different packs to create your own custom site.

With Elementor, the templates aren’t as clearly organized into website packs, making browsing the library less convenient than it is with Divi. However, there are a few sets of templates that have all been designed for the same purpose, such as a series of layouts for creating a digital agency website or an online portfolio.

Both plugins make it easy to import their templates into your posts and pages.

With both plugins, importing the templates is very straightforward, enabling you to quickly lay the foundation for your new site or add extra pages to your existing site.

CONTENT TEMPLATES SUMMARY

An example of one of the editable Elementor Pro templates.

Regardless of whether you choose Divi or Elementor Pro, you’ll get access to lots of high-quality templates for creating all types of websites and adding individual pieces of content to your site.

Thanks to Divi’s website pack system, it’s easier to quickly find and import a collection of templates that have all been designed for the same project.

With Elementor, there are a few website packs, or kits as they call them. However, most of the Elementor templates are individual layouts designed for adding a single page to your site, rather than building an entire website.

While you get a good amount of templates with both plugins, the best way to decide which page builder is right for you in this regard is to browse their libraries (view the Divi and Elementor libraries) and see which are more relevant for the type of website you’ll be creating.

PAGE BUILDER FEATURES

We’re just about to look at the page builder interfaces of Divi and Elementor to demonstrate the content creation process and user experience of both plugins.

However, before we explore how they work, here’s a quick rundown of some of the best features of the Divi and Elementor page builder interfaces:

  • Ability to drag and drop elements around the page.
  • Ability to undo and redo actions and view the page editing history.
  • Ability to heavily customize any of the elements that make up your page.
  • Ability to preview page designs in a range of viewports, including smartphone and tablet views.
  • Ability to create reusable content elements that you can quickly insert into multiple pages.

As the list of features above shows, you can do a lot more with these tools than you can with the standard WordPress editor.

Now, let’s take a look at what it’s like to use these plugins to build a custom page design for your WordPress website.

PAGE BUILDER INTERFACES

As mentioned, both Elementor and Divi add a new interface to your WordPress website that you can use to create custom designs and layouts for your posts, pages and other content.

Both plugins add a button to the WordPress editor that lets you use their page builders to create content.

Once you click on the button to launch the page builder, you can start using the drag-and-drop interfaces of Divi and Elementor to do much more than you can with the default WordPress editor.

These page builders replace the default WordPress editor with a custom content editing user interface.

When it comes to creating a custom page design, both plugins use row and column-based structures to enable you to build your layout. Each page can have multiple rows, and each row can include multiple columns, giving you lots of freedom when building your pages.

Both Elementor (pictured) and Divi use rows and columns to build the page layout structures.

As both plugins include a good selection of pre-defined column layouts, you can quickly start building the structure of your page.

Divi does have a few more pre-defined column layouts to choose from when adding a new row to your pages.

If you want to adjust the column distribution, you can do so easily with Elementor by simply dragging the column border to increase or decrease its width.

Unlike Divi, Elementor (pictured) lets you drag the column borders to give you full control over the width of your columns.

While you can’t drag the column borders to resize them in Divi, you can switch the pre-set column structure of a row that’s already been added to your page, changing it to a different column distribution. This does limit your options slightly, but you should be able to find a pre-defined layout that’s a match, or at least very close, to your requirements.

Divi lets you change the column structure of rows you’ve already added to your page.

Due to the row and column-based structure, you’re not able to position your page elements anywhere you like, such as on top of each other or with slightly overlapping edges, as you can with a non-WordPress page builder tool, such as Instapage.

The non-WordPress, hosted landing page builder, Instapage, lets you stack items on top of each other, unlike the Divi and Elementor page builders.

Instead, with Divi and Elementor, your page content must work within the boundaries of the row and column structure you’ve created. For some readers, though, having the structure of a row and column-based layout to follow will be preferable to the total freedom of a tool such as Instapage.

The Divi Builder interface is very different from the standard WordPress editor interface.

However, that being said, whether you choose Divi or Elementor, you still have a lot of creative freedom when designing your pages.

For example, both plugins give you full control over the appearance of your columns and rows, including the colors, borders, background displays and alignment. Like the other elements you can add to your pages with Divi and Elementor, you can also apply animation effects to your rows, such as slide-in or fade-in effects.

As well as applying animation and motion effects to your page elements, both plugins let you customize the appearance of the row columns and cells.

Once you’ve added one or more rows to your page, you can then start inserting the elements into your layouts to continue building your custom content design.

PAGE BUILDER INTERFACE SUMMARY

The user interfaces of both Divi and Elementor have come a long way since the early days of page builder plugins, and they’re also a significant departure from the standard WordPress content editing experience.

Because of this, getting the most out of either tool will require a period of learning and adjustment. Even those who are experienced WordPress users, but aren’t familiar with its modern page builder plugins, probably won’t be able to do exactly what they want with these tools right away.

However, with a bit of persistence and some trial and error, you should be able to create the kind of content designs that just aren’t possible with the default WordPress editor.

One useful feature that Divi has and Elementor doesn’t is its wireframe mode. Switching to this view in the page builder hides the content of the page, revealing the underlying structure. This makes it easier to see how the page was built and which modules it contains. Elementor does have a similar Navigator feature, but it’s not quite as helpful.

Unlike Elementor, Divi gives you the option of switching to wireframe mode to get a clearer view of the page structure.

Out of the two tools, Elementor is probably easier to use. Its user interface isn’t quite as unique as Divi’s, and therefore it has less of a learning curve.

WIDGETS AND MODULES

To help you to create effective pages for your website, both plugins include impressive selections of widgets and modules that you can insert into your layouts via the page builder interfaces.

With the free version of Elementor, you get access to 30 basic widgets, while the pro version of the plugin includes more than 40 additional advanced widgets. Divi users can add 40 modules to their pages.

The modules and widgets of both plugins are all highly customizable too, so you get full control over how they look once they’ve been added to your pages.

Some examples of these modules:

  • Buttons and calls-to-action
  • Price tables
  • Testimonial carousels
  • Blog post lists
  • Portfolio content grids
  • Countdown timers
  • Video players

There’s a lot of crossover when it comes to the modules you get access to with both of these tools, and any that are in one plugin but aren’t in the other shouldn’t be deal-breakers, such as the flip boxes of Elementor that aren’t in Divi or the filterable portfolio option of Divi that isn’t in Elementor.

When it comes to whether Divi or Elementor has a better selection of modules, it’s hard to declare one a winner. Elementor Pro has more than Divi, but it really depends on which elements you want to add to your pages.

WORDPRESS THEME OPTIONS

Both plugins should work with any themes that ‘respect the coding standards of WordPress set by its Codex’, but if you’ve yet to start your website and choose a theme, or if you’re looking for a new one for your site, Divi and Elementor both have their own themes.

As mentioned earlier, as well as the Divi page builder plugin, there’s also a Divi WordPress theme. The pricing section of this comparison includes all of the details about purchasing these tools — however, when you buy the Divi plugin, you also get access to the Divi theme. Therefore, if you’re creating a new WordPress website, you won’t have to worry about finding a suitable theme if you decide Divi is the best page builder for your project.

Purchases of the Divi Builder plugin come with the Divi and Extra WordPress themes, while the Elementor team have created a free theme for use with their page builder.

The Elementor team have produced a free theme called Hello Elementor that they describe as being ‘a plain-vanilla & lightweight theme’ for their page builder. There’s also a list of recommended free and premium third-party themes on the Elementor website.

Because of this, you don’t have to worry about finding a suitable theme with either Elementor or Divi, as they both provide you with a compatible option.

THEME BUILDERS

Typically, most page builder plugins only let you work on the post or page content, rather than the parts of your site that are defined by your theme, such as the header and footer areas, or the single blog post and blog archive templates.

However, after recent updates, both the Divi and Elementor Pro plugins now have a feature they describe as a Theme Builder.

What this means is that you can design custom headers and footers for your website, either starting from scratch or using their templates, and then assign that custom header or footer to all of your site, or to specific parts of it.

Elementor Pro has lots of header, footer and other templates for use with the Theme Builder feature.

With Elementor, creating the custom header area takes place in the page builder interface, giving you full control over how this area of your site looks, regardless of which theme you’re using.

You can create the custom header and other theme elements in the Elementor page builder.

Dynamic content, such as the site logo and the menu to display in the custom header, can all be defined through the Elementor page builder interface.

The Divi Theme Builder works in much the same way as the Elementor Theme Builder, giving you control over all aspects of your WordPress website.

As with Elementor Pro, the Divi Theme Builder (pictured) lets you design custom theme templates through its editor, then control exactly when they’re used on your site.

Features such as the conditional publishing settings of both tools make it easy to automatically assign templates, such as a custom single post layout, to content from specific categories, for example.

If you want to design custom headers, footers, blog post templates and more, both Divi and Elementor Pro make it possible with their theme builder features. Both plugins have implemented this feature really well.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

As well as having all of the essential features that make a great page builder plugin, such as a large set of high-quality templates and a powerful visual editor, Divi and Elementor have a few other features that are worth quickly mentioning.

DIVI LEADS

To take the guesswork out of creating custom page designs that convert against your website goals, such as encouraging your visitors to get in touch via a contact form, join your email list, buy a product or take some other action, Divi has a tool that can help you to optimize your content.

That tool is Divi Leads, and it’s integrated into the page builder, allowing you to run split tests by creating multiple versions of a page element, such as a button or headline. Divi Leads will then show the different versions of that element to subsets of your audience.

While the test is running, the audience interactions with the different versions of the elements are tracked, enabling you to clearly see which one delivers the best results against your goals. Once you’ve created the variants of your page that you want to test, the whole process of running the experiment and collecting data is very hands-off.

While you may think your custom page designs look great, Divi Leads can tell you if they’re actually effective at helping you to convert against your goals.

Although Elementor doesn’t have a split-testing feature, it can be integrated with Google Optimize, giving you a way to run A/B testing on your custom content. However, having this functionality integrated into your page builder, as is the case with Divi, does make optimizing your custom designs easier and more efficient.

ELEMENTOR POP-UPS

Elementor Pro has a pop-up builder feature with its own set of templates that you may find useful.

A feature that Elementor Pro has that Divi (and the free version of Elementor) doesn’t is a pop-up builder that lets you create your own eye-catching pop-ups, fly-ins, hello bars, full-screen displays and more — all through the Elementor page builder interface.

If you want your visitors to perform a specific action on your website, or view an announcement, pop-ups and their variants are a great way to grab their attention.

While Divi doesn’t have a built-in pop-up creation feature, purchasing Divi does give you access to the pop-up and email optin plugin, Bloom, a useful tool we’ve reviewed in the past. However, once again, having the functionality integrated directly into the page builder plugin, as is the case with Elementor, is more convenient than using a separate tool.

COMMUNITY

Elegant Themes has done a great job of fostering a community around its products, including the Divi Builder plugin. Its website has one of the busiest blogs about WordPress, with lots of useful content for Divi users.

Furthermore, there are also in-person meetups held all around the world, where you can connect with other Divi users. The official Divi Facebook group, as well as the many unofficial ones, gives you another place to get support and inspiration for your projects.

The Elementor community also includes in-person meetups, busy Facebook groups, and a place for developers to collaborate on the plugin.

ADD-ONS AND UPGRADE OPTIONS

As both Divi and Elementor are very popular page builders, a number of third-party add-ons have been created for these plugins. Some are free add-ons while others are paid extensions. However, if you discover that there’s something you can’t do with either Divi or Elementor, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find an add-on that brings this functionality to the page builders.

Where to find add-ons for Elementor and Divi:

  • Elegant Marketplace lists free and paid add-ons from a range of sources.
  • Elementor add-ons page includes links to free and paid options.

If you can’t find an add-on that addresses your issue, it’s possible you could code one yourself or hire a developer to build it for you. In fact, there’s a lot of information for developers who’d like to create solutions for their page builder on the Elementor website.

PRICING OPTIONS

Here’s a quick overview of the pricing options for these plugins before we break down exactly what you get for your money:

  • Divi Builder: $89 for a one-year license or $249 for a lifetime license, with both options providing you with access to additional plugins and themes from Elegant Themes.
  • Elementor: Free version available, while the Elementor Pro licenses start at $49 a year.

As you can see, the Divi Builder plugin comes with the other products from Elegant Themes, so, when you purchase Divi Builder, you also get access to the Monarch social sharing plugin. Both license options include access to the same sets of features of Divi Builder and the other products from Elegant Themes.

Divi Builder is available on two pricing plans.

Regardless of whether you choose the one year or the lifetime license, you can use the Elegant Themes products on an unlimited number of websites.

The price of Elementor Pro depends on how many sites you want to use the plugin on.

With Elementor Pro, the $49 license allows usage on a single website, with the more expensive options covering greater numbers of sites. Other than that, the Elementor Pro licenses are the same, giving you access to all of the features of this plugin, regardless of which option you choose.

Both Divi Builder and Elementor Pro have 30-day money-back guarantees, so you can try them risk-free.

Final Thoughts

Both Divi Builder and Elementor Pro are exciting and impressive content editors for WordPress. Not only do they give you full control over your posts and pages, but also the headers, footers and other areas of your website. The creative potential for your site with either tool is almost unlimited.

Regardless of which one you choose, you won’t be disappointed.

However, to help you to make a decision, check out their templates to see which plugin has more options that you’re likely to actually use.

Viewing the selection of modules is a good idea, too, just in case there’s a particular element that you want to add to your site that isn’t included in Divi or Elementor.

When it comes to ease of use, the Elementor interface is probably the easier of the two to get started with. So, if you don’t have the time or inclination to learn a totally new system, Elementor may be better for you than Divi with its unique user interface.

Fiverr vs Upwork 2020: Where to Hire the Best Freelancers

Are you looking to start your freelance career? But wait. The first thing you need is to decide is a platform from probably hundreds of options out there. To make things a little easier for you, here is an in-depth Fiverr vs Upwork comparison, the two most popular options out there.

Fiverr vs Upwork – What is Better?

Are you interested in working remotely from home? 

Do you want to make money online by finding creative jobs? 

Have you ever thought about freelancing and working on your terms? 

If the answer is yes, then you are not alone.

Instead of working in boring, traditional offices, more and more people are choosing freelancing to have a flexible work schedule. According to a survey, around 57 million Americans are involved in freelancing these days. 

This ever-growing industry has a job for each one of you, whatever your set of skills might be. Among the hundreds of freelancing platforms out there in the market, most people prefer either Fiverr or Upwork. 

So which one is better? 

Which one is more suitable for your skills? 

To help you out, we have provided in-depth analysis to put an end to the debate on Fiverr vs Upwork in the following article. 

Fiverr

This is an online marketplace that was founded in 2010 by Shai Wininger and Micha Kaufman to bring clients and freelancers together. Headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, this platform provides an opportunity for remote workers to make money in the gig economy. 

With over one million transactions per month, Fiverr provides a vast pool of skilled freelancers to the employers. Since this marketplace divides this pool into three skill-set levels, entrepreneurs can narrow down their search for the perfect employee. 

As a result, they can find people with the perfect skill sets to aid their business. Besides this, Fiverr adopts a complete transparency policy. 

Employers can go through freelancer’s reviews, profiles, and information to learn if the person is reliable and highly skilled. 

How Fiverr Works

With Fiverr, you can make a profile to display your skills and the types of jobs you are interested in. Instead of bidding on a client’s post or job, clients pick you for their task. Among thousands of candidates, clients have to skim through profiles to find the perfect person for their task.

To put it in simple words, Fiverr forms a directory of sellers for the clients, with multiple categories to find the right candidate according to their specific requirements. Moreover, the freelancers are listed down according to their rating and reviews from previous jobs. 

Here, clients can find all of their qualifications, services, skills, and availability. 

Pricing

Fiverr is a safe platform to find a gig economy job. You can set your own gigs with your own pricing, and can offer different packages under their basic, standard, and premium package.  

For example, a writer can set a following gig:  

  • The Basic package starts at only $10 and offers 500 words in two days, along with one revision. 
  • Starting at $20, the Standard one comes with a write-up of 1000 words per day and two reviews. 
  • The Premium package is worth $15, giving you 1500 words per day with three revisions. 

Also, Fiverr takes payment from both the client as well as the freelancer. From the client’s side, they will have to pay $2 for tasks worth up to $40. Above $40 jobs, they will have to pay 5% of their gig’s worth. 

On the other hand, Fiverr takes a 20% commission from the freelancer’s side, whatever the job might be worth. 

Quality

When you are paying someone for a project, you always expect them to provide high-quality results. But how do you make sure that the freelancer is adept at your niche? Does he have the skills to create that animation you wanted?

Since Fiverr is divided into categories and related subcategories, clients can always find suitable candidates for your needs. 

For example, typing ‘logo animation’ in the search bar will give clients further options like logo design, cartoon or comics, character modeling, presentation design, and poster design.

Moreover, a client can find a plethora of information on any service provided by a freelancer on Fiverr. Clients can even compare similar services offered by different people and choose the best person for your job. 

Work Monitoring

An excellent online freelancing platform offers various monitoring tools to the users to maintain the quality of their work. When it comes to dispute management and work monitory, Fiverr does not provide much. 

All the agreements regarding the projects are made between the seller and the client before starting the task. However, the client can always check up on its employees to find the progress on their project.

Similarly, you do not get a mediator to settle any disputes on Fiverr. Instead, you can just ask for an extension on the resolution center or even get updates on the task. 

With subpar work management, it is harder to solve issues on Fiverr. 

Ease of Use

Not only can a user-friendly interface help you navigate a site quickly, but it will also help both the parties in their tasks. As such, Fiverr offers multiple amazing tools to find the perfect job or the ideal candidate for your needs. 

Fiverr can help you filter out undesired skills, profiles, and niche from your search. Unlike other freelancing platforms, it provides customized search bars to find what you exactly need. 

For instance, if a client is looking for a creative writer, he can filter out the candidates depending on the style, format, tone, and topic that he requires. In the case of logo designing, Fiverr can narrow the search down from thousands of profiles to barely 50 available sellers.

Besides this, Fiverr can further help clients eliminate profiles by displaying all their information to you. Clients can get freelancers’ average response time, previous reviews, portfolio of articles, and their rates on their profiles. 

Job-Finding Ease

Since clients pick the freelancers for their tasks in Fiverr, it is quite tough to find the first job here. Naturally, clients do not want to hire inexperienced sellers to save their money and time. Without any previous reviews or ratings, it can be hard to put yourself out in the market.

Even though Fiverr does have a section where employers post their projects, they are only a few, and the competition is quite fierce.

Bidding on the post might give you a small chance, but experienced freelancers take the majority.

However, if you have already gained some experience and have a good reputation, it is quite easy to earn gigs on Fiverr. You will not even have to comment on any jobs, and clients will contact you by themselves. 

Pre-Screening Option

Unlike Upwork, Fiverr does not screen its freelancer for authenticity. Unless you are purchasing Fiverr Pro, anyone can sell their products and skillsets on the platform. 

Moreover, it does not even offer any skill testing service to help distinguish the right and subpar talent on the site. 

Pros of Fiverr

  • Rating and feedback from clients
  • Categorized skill sets
  • Customizes search bar
  • Communication channel set-up 
  • User-friendly interface
  • Large client base
  • Minimum bidding on job postings

Cons of Fiverr 

  • No proper pre-screening features
  • Poor resolution center
  • No free trial
  • Tough for new freelancers to get settled

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Upwork

Upwork was formed in 2015 after a merger of Elance with oDesk. With its headquarters in California, US, this global marketplace facilitates clients and freelancers, allowing them to work together remotely. 

Since its establishment, Upwork has become a successful outsourcing platform where you can get paid to freelance by posting about your skill sets, experiences, and rates. I like to call it a way to sell your skills online. You don’t have to invest anything upfront.

You can build your profile and start earning. Obviously, you need to have a skill to sell in advance. 

Amazingly, this platform gets over three million job postings every year. Therefore, if you are a freelancer, you can always find a suitable job for yourself. Upwork is one the best freelance apps out there. 

How Upwork Works

Unlike Fiverr, Upwork works opposite. It’s more, sort of, a traditional marketplace where clients post about their job in detail, mentioning the type of skill sets they require. In response, interested freelancers bid on the task by sending in their profiles and cover letter. 

The client goes through their profiles and evaluates their skill sets, rates, and experience. Although it can get tiring, they can find a person that is suitable for their needs. 

On the other hand, Upwork can also offer a list of sellers to the client by matching their details. To help the client find the right person for the task, they display the freelancer’s experience and skillsets in that specific niche.

In this way, they can cut back on time, interview the possible candidates, compare different profiles, and find available people easily. 

Pricing

Just like Fiverr, Upwork also charges both the clients as well as the freelancer. The clients have to pay a 2.75% processing fee for every transaction on their job. This percentage of the fee is taken on top of what you pay to your employee. 

On the other hand, freelancers are charged a 20% commission by Upwork for each new client. This percentage drops down to 10% after the earnings pass a certain limit ($500) and then to 5% when the client’s transactions to a particular freelancer crossed over $10,000. 

This drop is a motivator for freelancers to work harder and secure their clients. The more you work for a specific client, the less you will have to pay to Upwork over time. 

When it comes to making money on Upwork, you can bid for fixed-price jobs and hourly jobs. The client will then choose you if they like your work and skillsets along with your quoted price. 

Quality

As mentioned in the Fiverr section, clients look for high-quality outcomes for their money. Since Upwork offers a bigger pool of skilled freelancers, they just have to pick the right person for their needs. 

To make their search more manageable, Upwork offers a lengthy list of potential freelancers when you search a particular niche. It displays various skills under the selected categories, and from there, Upwork narrows down your search to a few.

The profiles of the freelancers on that list contain all the information on their performance, rating, experience, and more. Here, you can opt for one to make your task easier. 

Work Monitoring

Compared to Fiverr, Upwork has much better work management features set in place for its customers. Firstly, you can sort out your whole project on Upwork along with maintaining a proper communication channel between the client and the seller. 

You can also assign milestones to the freelancer to keep track of their progress. When they are finished with the task, you can get an alert to pay them for their service. 

For disputes, there’s an option as well. On Upwork’s dispute resolution center, you can lodge a complaint regarding your completed task and address any problems that you might be facing. A mediator checks if the complaint is valid, in which case, your money will be returned to you. 

Similarly, freelancers enjoy sufficient earning security with things like set milestones and hourly work tracking (manual hours are not covered, however). 

If the client has no valid issues against you, you’ll get: 

  • The entire sum as promised in the milestone for fixed-price jobs
  • The hours tracked and recorded into your work diary (within the limits specified by the client) 

Ease of Use

Upwork has one of the most colorful, visually-appealing interfaces in the market. The designer team makes regular changes to the site to keep the site up-to-date and stylish. 

Unlike Fiverr, this platform has simple registration progress, requiring only your email, password, and username. It has unique yet intuitive interface navigation to help you find the ideal job for you. 

As discussed previously, its features allow you to narrow down the result to a bare minimum by providing a list of freelancers to cater to your task. 

Job-Finding Ease

One thing that sets this platform apart is how it showcases talent. While going through top freelancers’ profiles, clients can also send invitations to the candidates who match their needs.

So, in a way, it saves an ample amount of time spent on the job posting, going through profiles, interviewing and selecting. For high-performance freelancers, it’s a way to get the jobs without having to search for them.

But if you’re a newcomer, competition is quite tough. However, Upwork has a little advantage over Fiverr when it comes to kickstarting beginner profiles. 

Since clients post their projects on this platform, freelancers can bid on them and work actively to find a suitable gig. With over 360,000 members, there is no shortage of job postings on Upwork at all. 

Pre-Screening Option

Compared to Fiverr, Upwork screens its freelancers to offer higher quality results to the clients. Apart from giving reviews, ratings, and feedback, the platform helps to distinguish the talented freelancers on their site. 

For example, they verify profiles for security purposes and offer various features to conduct interviews between the client and the seller. Furthermore, freelancer profiles display previous reviews, successful jobs, and their scores to the next clients.

Pros of Upwork 

  • Comprehensive screening
  • Ability to reach out to the freelancer
  • Can browse through profiles
  • Account verification for valid profiles
  • Proper resolution centers for disputes
  • Secure document sharing
  • Comprehensive client-to-freelancer chat, call, and video communication channel
  • Marketing for more than one skillsets becomes easier
  • Special discounts (less commission) for established and high-performing freelancers
  • Job posting

Cons of Upwork

  • Need to bid to find jobs
  • Bidding is not free
  • Tough competition
  • Verification and profile activation process takes time

Fiverr vs Upwork: Conclusion

The freelancing economy has seen a sharp rise in the last few years. According to a survey, 43% of the US workforce will be freelancing in the next five years. Hence, they can explore freelancing platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and others to find the right kind of jobs. 

When it comes to Fiverr vs Upwork, it’s a tough decision to point out which one’s better. However, by looking into the features, such as client-end support, B2B communication, payment/earning security, searchability, navigation, and more importantly, number of profiles, Upwork has an edge on Fiverr

But the case may be different for you depending on the type of work you do and your expectations from the platform you chose. That said, there’s no doubt both of these platforms offer the best mix of jobs and skills.

Wix Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Apr 2020)

Wix is known for its simple website builder, with a drag and drop interface and a development wonderland for complete beginners. Wix ecommerce has also seen some success, with competitive pricing and decent-looking themes.

Basically, the Wix Ecommerce system allows for selling anything from clothing to specialty cakes. There’s even support for digital goods like audio files and eBooks.

The company has taken the website building world by storm, helping small business owners leapfrog over expensive website design companies and put their own time into generating a stylish website–without having to pay the hefty costs.

Wix still can’t beat out more powerful ecommerce platforms like Shopify, or more beautiful systems like Squarespace, but that’s not exactly what Wix is trying to do.

I’ve played around with Wix in the past, and I find the tools to be simple and intuitive, but that doesn’t mean that the company’s ecommerce system reflects past achievements. We know that other newer ecommerce companies like Squarespace have seen their share of hurdles, since making an online store creation interface is rather difficult.

That said, I want to give you an in-depth review on what I think about Wix Ecommerce, so keep reading to understand if it’s a viable platform for you.

Wix Ecommerce Features

Upon creating an account and scanning through the general dashboard, Wix Ecommerce seems to offer the standard features that you would expect from any ecommerce platform. That said, compared to a solution like Shopify, you find quite a few features that are lacking in the Wix system.

Wix has an easy-to-use dashboard, and the drag and drop interface works well for beginners. It has an app market for including add-ons and other cool things like contact forms and receipts.

However, once again, the Shopify add-on library mainly focuses on ecommerce add-ons, whereas Wix covers everything outside of ecommerce as well. This is a strong advantage for Wix, since it allows you to expand on every aspect of your website.

You can quickly add a product page, integrate social media, including images and even change around shapes and buttons.

These are all to be expected, but it’s nice to know Wix did well in terms of the basics.

I like how you can add quick product galleries, or even drop in a quick Buy button or showcase sales. A Thank You Message pops up right after someone makes a purchase, and the seamless checkout process is secure and message-based, sending you emails to stay in the loop.

Wix Ecommerce Ease of Use

Ease of use is a strong area for Wix since the drag and drop editor is simply flawless. Wix has always had this for their its site builders. Now it’s integrated in for ecommerce sites. The dashboard has just a few buttons to choose from, helping beginners hone in on the tasks that are most important.

You can move around every component on your homepage and product pages with just a quick drop of your mouse. This way you don’t have to worry about messing with code to make your customizations. You also receive a nice taskbar at the top to publish or save your work, ensuring that you don’t lose anything.

The five buttons on the left of the dashboard allow you to modify pages, add components, design items, go to the app market and mess around with your settings. There’s also a dedicated button for Wix stores, which is extremely helpful for quickly checking on orders, customers, and inventory. Overall, the interface is simplistic, kinda fun and easy on the eyes.

It’s more specific to ecommerce, with options for your product catalog, orders, store promotion options, and more.

Wix Ecommerce Pricing

Feel free to view all of the Wix pricing plans on this page, but the breakdown for ecommerce sites is simple.

If you pay an upfront yearly fee you spend a little less per month, but we’re going to cover the monthly plans.

The eCommerce and VIP plans are the only options for online stores. Therefore, you have to pay either $17 or $25 per month.

The eCommerce plan comes with a free domain for a year, some interesting ad vouchers for marketing your site, two premium add-ons for free and 20GB of storage. VIP comes with unlimited bandwidth, VIP support, priority response and a professional site review. As for online store tools, the VIP plan isn’t much different than the eCommerce plan.

If you need to save some money for your startup or small business, this pricing is one of the best in the business, beating out options like Shopify or Squarespace.

Wix Ecommerce Templates and Design

I have one thing to say about the Wix ecommerce templates: They’re quite modern.

And you can now use them to rapidly scale up your store if you would like. Yes, the templates allow for beginners to still make a basic website and not worry about the complications of coding. However. Wix now offers something called Wix Code, which opens up the API for advanced customizations and integrations.

I used to think that Wix wasn’t great for more complicated customizations like this, but that’s definitely changed. So, you can either hire a developer or complete the work yourself if you’re up for the task.

Overall, you can’t beat the designs in terms of cleanliness. They’re awesome for starting your first store, and even for growing into a mid-sized business.

Wix Ecommerce Inventory

Managing inventory in Wix isn’t all that difficult. You can add a product, track inventory, display how many units are left, include product options and check in on your orders. It has support for collections, tags, store promotions and more.

Wix is also great for selling digital products, since the product page templates are designed differently and ready for you to insert content.

Managing your inventory when it goes out to users has become more manageable. For instance, Wix offers a cool feature for calculating real-time shipping. You can also scan barcodes to track your shipping and give your customers a better idea of when packages are coming.

The Wix Mobile Apps

Being on-the-go as an ecommerce professional is often unavoidable. That’s why Wix has put together an excellent mobile app for you to manage your entire online store and add products regardless of where you are. I particularly enjoy this because you can check-in on your orders and make sure that everything is running smoothly when you’re out of the office.

In addition to that, you can chat with your site visitors, adjust your website, and keep track of bookings if you have that functionality on your site. Wix offers an iPhone app and an Android app.

Wix Ecommerce SEO and Marketing

SEO and marketing features are surprisingly powerful in Wix, and I attribute that to the fact that Wix has been making websites for quite some time. It doesn’t matter what page you’re on, just go to the SEO settings and fill in fields for your site title, site description, keywords, meta tags, redirects and more.

Marketing comes into play through the add-on store since you can implement integrations for things like email marketing and search engine advertising.

In fact, the email marketing and coupons are managed right in the drag Wix editor, making for an intuitive marketing system.

Other than that, Wix has all the essentials for your marketing campaigns. You can implement customer reviews on all of your product pages and create content for your users through a blog. I also enjoy the ad campaigns for growing your audience and the direct integration with Google AdSense.

Along with Pinterest features, social media icons, and a full Etsy shop, you can’t find a more powerful marketing platform than Wix.

Wix Ecommerce Payments

The Wix Ecommerce payment options have drastically improved over the years, as the company adds new payment gateways on a regular basis, along with a simple process for connecting and onboarding.

Dozens of gateways are provided, including 2Checkout, Stripe, and Square. Therefore, you can decide on the payment gateway of your choice and accept credit card payments and other payments like PayPal.

Wix Ecommerce Security

Wix has full SSL secure payment support. Therefore, your customer information is protected with 256-bit SSL encryption.  In addition, Wix only works with payment gateways that offer the highest level of protection. This means they all have PCI DSS Level 1 protection.

Wix Ecommerce Customer Support

Wix is known for its high-quality support, and you receive their premium support package when signing up for an ecommerce site. You don’t get the priority callback service, but you can always upgrade if that’s important to you.

The Wix Support Center delivers documentation, forums, and FAQs for just about any question you might have. You can also call in or send the company an email.

Conclusion

Who would I recommend the Wix Ecommerce platform to? Business owners who only plan on selling less than 100 products. You can make your site look fairly professional and run perfectly capable payment systems through the interface, and the dashboard is so darn easy to use.

WIX Rating: 4.5