Switching from Wix
Wix got you started. It is holding you back now.
Your business outgrew the builder. Moving to a custom site does not mean losing your rankings, your domain, or your email. Here is how it works.
Signs you have outgrown it
- The site feels slow, and Google’s speed tests agree.
- You have hit the edge of what the templates and apps can do.
- Competitors with custom sites outrank you for searches you should own.
- Small edits take an evening, and big changes feel impossible.
- Your business does $500K or more a year, and the site does not look like it.
None of this means Wix is bad. It means it did its job. It got you online cheap while you built the business. The business is built now.
What carries over. Everything.
- Your domain
- If it is registered through Wix, I move it to a registrar in your name. Your address does not change.
- Your email
- Email keeps working through the whole move. Nothing bounces.
- Your content
- Wix does not offer a clean export, so I migrate pages and images by hand and improve them on the way.
- Your brand
- Logo, colors, fonts, and voice carry straight over. If you have a brand package, I build from it.
- Your rankings
- Every old URL gets a permanent redirect to its new home. Google follows the map. This is the step cheap rebuilds skip.
Questions
The five fears, answered.
- Will I lose my Google rankings?
- Not if the move is done properly. Every existing page gets a one-to-one redirect, titles and content carry over, and I watch Search Console daily for the first weeks. Most sites gain ground after the move because the new site is faster.
- Will my site go down during the switch?
- No. The new site is built and reviewed on a private link while your current site stays live. Launch is a DNS change that takes minutes.
- Wix says I cannot take my site with me. Is that true?
- You cannot take the Wix code, and you would not want it. You can take everything that matters: your domain, your content, your images, and your brand. I handle the move.
- Am I trading one lock-in for another?
- No. The domain stays in your name, and the site and the content are yours once the build is paid for. I run the DNS, the hosting, and the analytics as part of your care plan. If you ever want to move on, thirty days notice hands all of it back. It is in my terms.
- Is it worth the price difference?
- A custom site costs more than a Wix plan. It also does a different job. Wix makes a site exist. A custom build makes the right people call. For a business past $500K a year, the site is usually the cheapest employee you can upgrade.
Builds start at $6,500. Most Wix upgrades land in the Growth tier, from $12,000. Full pricing is public.
The move
How a Wix site comes across.
Wix has no clean export. That is the honest difference between leaving Wix and leaving almost any other platform, and it is why some developers quote a migration like it is a rebuild from nothing. It is not that bad. It is hand work, and it is the part I take time over.
01
Week one: the map
I crawl your Wix site and list every page and every address on it. That list becomes the redirect map. Nothing gets built until the map exists, because a page nobody wrote down is a page that turns into a dead link later.
02
Weeks two to six: the build
The new site gets designed and built on a private link. Your Wix site stays live and stays live the entire time. Nobody visiting your business notices anything.
03
Launch day: the switch
Redirects go in, then DNS points at the new host. That takes minutes. Email is untouched, because email runs on your domain, not on Wix.
04
The month after
I watch Search Console daily for the first weeks. Any address that slipped through gets a redirect the same day. Then you cancel Wix, once we have both seen the new site working.
Because the pages get rebuilt by hand, they get improved on the way. Thin pages get written properly. Six near-identical service pages become the two that people search for. A migration is the cheapest time to fix a site's structure, so we fix it while we are in there.
Your part
Three things from you. That is the whole ask.
- Logins
- Wix account, domain registrar, Google Business Profile, and analytics. I need to see them, not own them.
- Photos
- The originals if you have them. The versions on a Wix site are usually compressed past the point of being reusable.
- Your list of complaints
- Everything the current site cannot do. That list is more useful than any brief.
Everything else is mine to chase. If your domain sits inside Wix, I move it to a registrar in your name first, so you own your address before anything else changes. That step alone is worth doing even if you never build a new site.
Ready to talk?
A 20 minute call. No pitch. What you need and what it costs.
Or text 778-692-5555 or email mj@duforddigital.com. I reply within two business days.