At Blue Heron Support, we understand that choosing the right tools for your website is critical. The standard Wix editor, the new Wix Harmony AI editor and Wix Studio each offer unique benefits depending on your needs. The standard Wix editor is user-friendly and good for most small businesses who want a custom Wix website without any advanced technical aspects. It provides a drag-and-drop interface, templates that can be adjusted to your needs, and a range of design elements. The standard Wix editor is adaptable to different screen sizes if designed correctly, but is not a responsive site. NOTE: Websites on this editor will eventually be moved to the new Wix Harmony AI editor. Wix Harmony is a new AI editor for small businesses and DIY websites. The AI technology allows you to enter some information about your business and your website needs, and the AI editor can create the site for you. From there, you can make changes to the design, layout and content to meet your specific needs. This new AI editor creates a fully responsive site, so the pages will adjust automatically depending on the screen size. Making updates to your site after launch is easy enough once you understand how it works. Wix Studio, on the other hand, is a more advanced and time consuming editor, tailored toward web developers and large businesses looking for more sophisticated design and functionality. It offers advanced design capabilities, coding options, and customization settings. Sites on Wix Studio are typically maintained by the web developer, and harder for a business owner to handle.

Currently, if you create a new site, you will be guided through the process for the new Wix Harmony AI editor. This editor is fully responsive, yet still more of a drag & drop, not needing technical web design or coding knowledge. While this editor is the newest editor available through Wix, it is lacking some of the apps and options that the standard editor offers. It is still a great option for a simple small business website that has standard informational pages. If you need additional items that aren't available in the new Harmony editor yet, you can still get to the standard editor (for now) by choosing a template that is not a Harmony template, then designing your site from there. The standard editor will be phased out at some point. Wix Studio is generally used by web design companies who manage the websites after launch. This editor requires more technical web design experience, it is not recommended for a DIY site.

While Wix offers some user-friendly platforms for DIY website creation, partnering with a professional Wix designer like Blue Heron Support can significantly enhance your website's effectiveness and overall appeal. DIY websites tend to end up looking unprofessional, can be hard for visitors to navigate, and are usually not set up with proper SEO for search engines to find and notice your business. If you hire a professional to design your website, you will start with a great base for getting noticed by search engines and converting site visitors into customers or sales. Calculate how many new customers will offset the cost of hiring a professional, and chances are, it will be well worth the cost.

If your website is on the standard Wix editor, your site would be adaptive to different screen sizes, rather than fully responsive. If you find some items get cut off or overlap on smaller screens, your site was not designed within the guidelines of your strips and columns. We can help you fix that. Otherwise, if you want a fully responsive website, you can try out the new Wix Harmony AI editor by starting a new site. At this time, you can not simply move your current site from the standard Wix editor to Wix Harmony, but you can create a new site in Wix Harmony, then reassign your web hosting plan to the new site when ready to launch.

Short answer: Yes! At launch, we typically transfer the new site to your account and you can take over from there. You are not forced to rely on us to update your website after launch, but you certainly can! We offer optional support after launch, including as-needed hourly support or ongoing monthly support, depending on your needs.

If you currently have a Wix website with a web hosting plan for the standard Wix editor or Wix Harmony, we will be able to reassign your current plan to the new site when it is ready to launch. You will not have to purchase a new web hosting plan. If you have a website on another platform and are migrating your site to Wix, you will need a Wix web hosting plan at launch. Wix websites can not be hosted through other platforms, they need a Wix web hosting plan. Blue Heron Support can help you determine which Wix web hosting plan would be best for your website, based on your website needs and services.

No, your domain does not have to be moved to Wix. At launch, we would simply connect your domain to your website by updating the DNS codes so your domain can find your website.