Showit vs WordPress for creative services

So I’ve talked about this before but I realised I haven’t actually written a blog post on it yet, so here goes!

I’ve previously been a WordPress girl so before you read this and think I’m slating it as a platform – I’m NOT! It’s actually really good, it’s why it’s generally seen as the go to for most service based businesses who want an amazing website. In fact it’s really good for product based businesses too! I’ve used WooCommerce with my own WordPress website when I ran a bespoke product business with an online shop.

BUT, on thing I found frustrating (and it’s something I’ve heard from SO many other creatives) is it isn’t the most flexible in terms of the design UNLESS you have some knowledge of coding and are able to amend the appearance of various elements using CSS.

Now if you’re working with a designer who is going to do all of this for you, that’s great!

If, however, you would like to be able to add in pages, amend designs of pages and make some changes to the layout, you are pretty likely to hear yourself saying “why won’t it just work? I’ve done that and it’s still not showing”, or “all I want to do is xxx, why won’t it let me do it?” or “I want that graphic to go there, why won’t it stay and why does it not work properly on my mobile website?!”.

Sound familiar?

So for me, my clients are mainly service based businesses who have no need for a shop. This is where Showit is honestly hands down the easiest and (in my opinion) the best platform to use!

Why?

1. It offers a really simple drag and drop design so it literally couldn’t be easier to put things where you want them on your website. Guess what, they stay there too! One thing I know is not always the easiest to do on WordPress!
2. You can view and edit your desktop AND mobile website design side by side. I LOVE this feature! Honestly until you’re designing a website and have to keep going in and out of the mobile view on WordPress you won’t know how annoying this is. Showit make this super easy. You can even adjust the width of the viewing panel to zoom in and out of each of the designs which is just so good!
3. If you have an existing blog with WordPress, guess what? You can even pull that across to your Showit website. In fact the two work side by side perfectly and you actually write and post your blog posts via your WordPress dashboard as you currently do.
4. You have your page list on the left hand side when editing. So instead of having to keep going out into the dashboard in WordPress, then going to the page you want, then hitting ‘edit’, you can simply click the page you want to look at on the menu on the left hand side and swap pages iwthout having to go in and out of the editor. Another win for me!
5. It’s really easy to add in your SEO for each page using the settings on the right hand side of the editor. No having to install extra plugins and again, going back into your dashboard. The editor and settings are all in one place in Showit.
6. Even though I provide tutorial videos for my website design clients as part of my process, if any help is needed the support from the Showit team is fantastic. With a really useful help guide you’re bound to find the answer to any questions in there. If not, the support team are so helpful and can be contacted via the instant messenger (again, in the main design view so no need to jump in and out of anything!). They reply pretty promptly – way faster than WordPress! (I’ve waited over a week for a response from WordPress in the past, Showit reply usually within a few hours during their opening times, sometimes even within half an hour!)

This all sounds great doesn’t it?

But what are the downsides?

To be honest, the only downside I’ve found with Showit is currently the builder doesn’t allow more than one section of coding on each page. This is something they are reviewing so hopefully it won’t be an issue for much longer but I’ve found this doesn’t impact mine or my clients websites as it’s unlikely I’d need more than one section of coding on a page.

I found the issue when I had an embedded form from Dubsado for my client booking AND my Instagram feed plugin in the footer. One of the two wouldn’t load on the page but I’ve found a workaround and it honestly isn’t an issue for me so all in all, I would 100% recommend Showit over WordPress for any creatives who want more flexibility to amend their website themselves.

Want to give it a try?

Sign up here with my affiliate link to get a FREE month when you sign up.

Give it a try and let me know how you get on.