Moving from Wix to a website you own

Lots of people start on Wix because it’s quick and cheap to get going. A few years on, it’s often a different story. The bill feels bigger than it used to, you’re the one who has to fix every page, and the site doesn’t feel like yours. Here are the questions we get asked most about moving.

Can I take my Wix site with me?

Not as it is. A Wix site is built on Wix and hosted by Wix, and the design can’t be exported and put on another host. Wix says as much in its own help centre. So moving away means building a new site.

That sounds worse than it is. The design was never the valuable bit. What matters is your words, your photos, your reviews and your domain, and all of those can come with you. With our £47 a month managed website we design the new site and write the words for you, working from your old site and what you tell us. A first draft is commonly ready the same day.

What happens to my domain?

It depends where you got it. If you bought your domain through Wix, it can be transferred out to another company. Wix explains how in its help centre. If you bought the domain somewhere else and just connected it to Wix, it stays where it is and we only need to point it at the new site.

Either way, keep it. Your domain is the address customers know, and it’s what Google knows too. With us one domain is included in the £47 a month, registered in your name. If you ever leave, we transfer it to you free. Our domains page has more on transfers.

Will I lose my Google ranking?

We can’t promise rankings, and nobody honestly can. What we can do is avoid the things that cause trouble when a site moves:

• Keep the same domain. Changing it is the biggest risk, so we don’t unless you want to.
• Keep page addresses where we can. If your services page lived at /services, it can live there again.
• Redirect the ones that change. An old address should send people, and Google, to the matching new page instead of an error.

It’s normal for things to move about a bit for a few weeks after any site change. Your Google Business Profile isn’t part of your website, so your reviews there stay put.

What about my email?

Before we change anything on your domain, we note the records your email depends on and keep them, so messages keep arriving. If you use Gmail or Microsoft 365 on your domain now, that carries on as it is.

If you bought mailboxes through Wix, find out which company actually provides them before you cancel anything, and check what happens to them when your Wix plan ends. If all you need is an address like hello@yourbusiness.co.uk landing in the inbox you already use, email forwarding is included in the £47 a month.

When should I cancel my Wix plan?

Only once your new site is live and your domain is pointing at it, or the domain transfer has finished. Wix plans are commonly paid yearly and renew automatically, so look up your renewal date in your Wix account and turn off automatic renewal if you don’t want another year.

What does it cost to move?

Our managed website is £47 a month with no setup fee and no contract. That covers the design, the writing, UK hosting, your domain, email forwarding and 10 changes a month, which you send us by email. Picture a hairdresser in Bridgnorth who’s been spending Sunday evenings fiddling with their Wix pages. They’d send us the new price list in an email on Monday and we’d change it.

If you’d rather build your own site somewhere else, our web hosting starts at £2.99 a month. You’d still have to rebuild the site yourself, though, as a Wix site can’t be moved across.