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Installing javascript code on Wix websites

Update February 2018 – Great News:  you now CAN easily install Javascript on your website.  Please see our updated page http://a1webstats.com/resource/add-javascript-to-wix-websites/

 

Are you looking to install javascript on your Wix website?

Unfortunately, you’re very unlikely to be fully successful, due to restrictions within the Wix system.

The positive side of Wix

Wix is designed to make it relatively easy for people to build websites, without any need for coding skills, and keep everything under one roof.  It is also reasonably priced.  You can see why many people would use Wix as a way to get a website up and running with minimal pain.

However, the apparent simplicity of Wix results in businesses strangling their own potential success …

Restrictions of Wix

While Wix do allow a certain level of add-ons (for example, you can use Google Analytics), and they have an HTML app that allows some code to be entered, the flexibility stops there.   By continuing reading below you can see our particular view of the inflexibility but you can also see a more general view of the pros and cons of Wix on this blog.

Here’s our view of how Wix website owners realise they’ve handcuffed themselves:

  1. They get the website built in Wix.  It seems like an easy win.
  2. They then discover that, in order to get the best out of their website, they need to add something else (typically, code from an outside provider, including our own javascript tracking code).
  3. They install the code in the ways recommended but then find that it doesn’t work properly.
  4. When in dialogue with Wix about the problem, and there are numerous examples of this you can see by doing a Google search, they get a standard response, basically saying that they can’t support anything they’ve not fully tested themselves.
  5. The website owner becomes stuck with a website that puts blinkers on them, resulting in the business being less successful than it could be.

 

How Wix handcuffs businesses

Taking our own A1WebStats software as an example, we allow businesses to get a detailed view of every visitor to the website. This includes every page they visited and how long on each page.

What most people are initially interested in though are the names of companies who visited, and how they interacted with the website.  However, when digging deeper into our system it can be used to get great insights into overall website visitors interactions, which leads to businesses strengthening their websites in order to gain more from future visitors.

In short, our system makes it a lot easier to understand website (and online marketing) weaknesses, than Google Analytics can.

Forgetting ourselves for a moment, we have competitors that offer similar products, and there are many other software providers (for example, heat mapping to identify where people move and click on pages) that will also have code that won’t work properly on Wix websites.

Most businesses that get a Wix website won’t initially be thinking about all the wonderful ways that they can analyse their website visitors in more detail but when they later find out such things are possible, they’re disappointed that their time and investment in a Wix website has resulted in them being handcuffed in their ability to gain more success from their website.

 

How A1WebStats (partially!) works with Wix

Here’s what happens with people with Wix websites who want to install our tracking code:

  1. They install the tracking code as advised.
  2. They can see part of the picture they want (i.e. they can see the names of companies that visited them, and what brought them to the website).
  3. However, they can’t see a page by page view of how those visitors moved through the website.

Is there any value in knowing which companies visited a Wix website, but not knowing what pages those companies looked at?  Perhaps there’s a bit, but it’s not as useful as seeing the full picture.

A1WebStats is not alone in having this problem with Wix – there are many other software providers, including those within our own niche but also other software providers who have the same problem.

We had some interaction with Wix about this problem but were greeted with apathy.   They’re not interested.  We offered help so that they could work with us to ensure that our tracking code would work properly when installed on Wix websites.   They showed no interest.

We can understand it from the viewpoint that they have a platform that works to a certain extent and, beyond the mainstream add-ins (e.g. Google Analytics), it’s hard for them to justify investing the time in getting numerous external systems working within Wix websites.

What we don’t understand is why they wouldn’t be more flexible, if it was going to lead to keeping existing customers and gaining more customers (through positive PR that their system is more flexible).

 

Why you should move away from Wix

If you have a Wix website and you’re completely happy with what it’s bringing to your business, then that’s great.

However, if you’ve done what Wix will allow you to do with analytics (i.e. install Google Analytics) and have seen basic data that you don’t like (typically, lots of views of product/service pages but weak enquiries as a result of those), then you’ll be thinking “how can I fix things?”.

This is when you start to look around and discover that non-Wix site users have the flexibility to install all sorts of lovely add-ons that help them get more business from their websites (and online marketing).

Which leads you to a dilemma – do I stick with my Wix website or do I change to something else that’s a lot more flexible?

The way you make this decision is through the following maths:

  1. Look at basic Google Analytics and make a judgement call on how much potential business (enquiries vs visitors to the website) that you may have lost in the past month.
  2. Multiply that up by 12 months, focusing on the profit from the new business that hasn’t been gained.
  3. Compare those figures to the cost of starting afresh with a completely new website that gives you the flexibility to add in whatever you want to, which will lead you to the insights that make your website more successful.

Chances are that if you took your existing Wix website to a web developer, they’d be able to identify many weaknesses anyway, and so your new website would start off on the right foot even before adding in other systems (e.g. A1WebStats) that help you get more from your website visitors traffic.

 

Finally, a message to Wix

Or any other website building systems that are inflexible …

Business websites are there to gain business.

Owners of those websites do not want their competitors to be beating them, because those competitors have access to software/systems that are easy to install on their websites and which provide them with insights that help to make them stronger.

Your (Wix) website owners are having their future success limited by the lack of flexibility within the Wix system.

Our (A1WebStats) door, as we’re sure is the case with other software providers, is always open to have such discussions that will help website building systems providers to make their own customers more successful.

 

 

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