Making a website with Wix is genuinely one of the fastest ways to go from nothing to a live site — no code, no hosting setup, and nothing to pay until you decide you're ready. You can start on the free plan today, and the same editor scales from a one-page portfolio to a small online store.
In this guide we walk through the exact eight steps we use ourselves, from creating the account to hitting publish. Budget a weekend for a polished result, or an evening for a simple site you can keep improving. Everything here was tested in the current Wix editor in August 2026.
The 8 steps, from blank page to published
Step 1: Create your free Wix account
Head to wix.com and sign up with your email, or a Google or Apple account. Choose the path to create a new site, and answer Wix's opening questions honestly — what the site is for, whether you'll sell anything, what features you need. Those answers shape the templates and AI suggestions you'll see next, so two minutes of thought here saves twenty minutes of browsing later. The free plan is permanent: no trial timer, no credit card, no pressure.
Step 2: Choose the AI builder or start from a template
Wix offers two starting doors. The AI builder works like a conversation: describe your business or project in a few sentences, answer its follow-up questions, and it generates a draft site — pages, sections, placeholder text and images — that you then edit like any other Wix site. It won't write your brand voice for you, but it kills the blank-page problem in minutes, and it's our recommended path for first-timers.
The alternative is browsing the template library: 900+ professionally designed starting points, organized by category — restaurant, portfolio, gym, clinic, store and many more. Preview any template before committing, and pick the one closest to the site you actually want. One important warning: Wix does not let you switch templates after publishing, so choose by page structure, not by pretty photos.
Step 3: Make it yours in the editor
The drag-and-drop editor is where the site becomes yours. Click any text to rewrite it, click any image to replace it, and drag sections to reorder the page. Add new sections from the add menu — hero strips, galleries, contact forms, maps, testimonials — and delete anything the template shipped with that you don't need. Your site's global look (fonts, colors, text styles) lives in the design panel; set it once and stick to it.
Two pieces of honest advice. First, keep the template's spacing instincts — beginners almost always improve a design by removing things, not adding them. Second, replace placeholder images with your own as soon as you can; generic stock photos are the fastest way for a new site to look like every other new site. Don't over-design: a clean site with clear text beats a flashy one every time.
Step 4: Add pages and navigation
Most sites need four to six core pages: Home, About, Services or Products, and Contact — plus a blog if you plan to write. Add pages from the Pages panel and Wix wires them into the menu automatically. Name pages the way visitors would look for them ("Prices" beats "Our Value Proposition"), and hide any page you're still building so it doesn't clutter the menu. Keep the menu short: five or six items is plenty for a first site.
Step 5: Check the mobile view
Wix automatically adapts your desktop design for phones, but "adapted" isn't the same as "checked". Switch to the mobile view in the editor (the phone icon) and scroll through every page: look for text overlapping images, buttons too close together, and sections that arrive in the wrong order. Fix what you find — most of your real visitors will almost certainly arrive on a phone, so this step earns its time.
Step 6: Set up SEO basics
Before publishing, give search engines something to work with. In each page's SEO settings, write a page title — ideally under about 60 characters and containing what people actually search for, like "Wedding Photography in Austin" — a meta description of roughly 155 characters summarizing the page, and a clean, readable URL slug. Wix's built-in SEO checklist walks you through all of it. Do it once per page and move on: settings matter, but real content matters more.
Step 7: Upgrade to a paid plan (when you're ready)
You can publish on the free plan, but with two catches: your site sits on a wixsite.com subdomain (yoursite.wixsite.com/home) and Wix displays its own ads on your pages. For anything representing a business, that's a dealbreaker — which is exactly what the paid plans fix.
For most first sites, Light is enough. Choose Core ($29/mo billed yearly) if you want to accept payments, and see our e-commerce setup guide if a store is the goal.
Step 8: Connect your domain and publish
If you claimed the free domain that comes with your plan, Wix walks you through connecting it in a few clicks from the dashboard. If you already own a domain elsewhere, point it at Wix using the exact DNS records Wix provides — then wait for it to propagate, which typically takes minutes to a few hours. Wix enables HTTPS automatically once the domain is connected, so there's no certificate to set up. When the domain resolves, open the live site on your phone and on a computer you've never used before — that's the truest preview of what visitors see. Once it looks right, hit Publish. Your site is live on the web. And remember that publishing is the start, not the finish: real sites grow through updates, new pages and fresh content.
After you publish: three habits that matter
First, keep pages fresh. A site that visibly updates — new photos, current offers, recent posts — earns trust with visitors and search engines alike. Second, watch your analytics. Wix includes visitor stats in the dashboard; check which pages people actually read and which they abandon, then improve accordingly. Third, resist the redesign itch. Because Wix can't switch templates after publishing, invest in refining the site you have — better copy, better images, faster pages — rather than dreaming of starting over.
Common beginner mistakes
- Rushing the template choice. Wix can't switch templates after publishing, so pick by structure and pages, not by the photos in the preview.
- Over-designing. Too many fonts, colors and animations make a site look amateurish. Restraint reads as professional.
- Skipping the mobile view. Most traffic arrives on phones — review every page in the mobile editor before you launch.
- Publishing without SEO basics. Titles, descriptions and URLs take fifteen minutes and pay off for years.
FAQ
How much does it cost to make a website with Wix?
You can build and publish for $0 on the free plan, but it keeps Wix ads on your pages and uses a wixsite.com subdomain. For a professional site, annual billing starts at $17/mo on Light, and every paid plan includes a free custom domain for the first year. Seasonal sales can take up to 50% off annual plans for a limited time.
How long does it take to build a Wix website?
With the AI builder you can have a full first draft in under an hour. A polished simple site typically takes one or two evenings or a weekend. Stores and booking sites take longer — mostly because the products and services themselves need preparing.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Everything in this guide is done visually in the drag-and-drop editor. If you ever want custom functionality later, Wix's Velo development platform supports real code — but most sites never need it.