P.S. I have a newer blog post here that also compares the Pros & Cons of different platforms!
TAKE A PEEK HERE!
Well, this is officially the first blog post to celebrate the launch of my Design Shop! This means I’m super excited to start sharing more about my website templates! I thought it would make the most sense to chat about something pretty important to me…the reason why I moved from WordPress to Showit (P.S. my blog is still on wordpress, but now I have FULL CONTROL over design and creativity! So, today I’m discussing: 01 My website history and experience 02 Why I moved my website from WordPress to showit. 03 Comparing platforms side-by-side
01. The History of My Website
{and where I started…}
Yep, below was my first ever blog, Witty and in Love (don’t judge) but back in 2009 blogger was they way to go and by far the easiest and cheapest way to get started…and I loved it :)
Blogger was great because not only was it free but I was able to start teaching myself how to use CSS and HTML (which I recommend all designers should know) to be able to customize the headers, buttons, sidebar, etc. But after about a year or so I soon realized I needed something that was more adaptable and customizable..
Enter: WordPress.org (self-hosted)
(and my new blog Saffron Avenue)
I bought hosting, got my new domain, and purchase a theme off of Code Canyon. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But, I spent hours, upon hours, upon hours trying to customize and learn more code to try and style my first ‘real’ website.
I think I ended up changing my theme again a bit after and soon realized how insanely difficult it was to keep up with constant theme updates and how different each theme was (aka: having to re-learn it each time you switch)…it was getting frustrating.
Enter: A Custom Coded WordPress Theme
(and my first ‘real’ website)
This was the first time I got to experience what it was like to hire a developer to help me actually take a theme and customize it to my liking (moving graphics, adding custom pages, etc). I was loving it and it was also still in my budget..but I still felt confined when it came to design…
Enter: A completely custom WordPress Website
(and the site I had forever)
This is the first time I was able to actually design outside however I wanted! Because I had to teach myself code from my first couple sites, I knew the possibilities when it came to stretching the code limits (which my developer probably hated). But, I wasn’t confined to a ‘theme box’ and could start creating sites that felt custom and unique.
I had my last site for probably 3-4 years (which is crazy) and I did love that that it was still on WordPress, that I could always add a new page, add a shop, or add some plugins. But, the times were a changing over here…
02. Why I moved to showit
{and what I love about it}
What I struggled with on WordPress
- I hated that it was constantly having outdated plugins and theme updates (that would sometimes crash my site)
- My first hosting company sucked and had a lot of downtime.
- My site wasn’t mobile friendly
- My blog editor was started to have image uploading issues
- I was getting spam notifications constantly
- Every time I wanted a new page designed or edited I would have to pay my developer to do it and wait for it to happen.
I’ll be honest, I had a ton of hesitations about Showit because I believe it used to be flash based (which iPhones didn’t like), but I kept seeing all of these beautiful sites being created with it.
So, when my husband became a realtor I said I would dedicate ONE WEEK to figure it out.
Guess what..it took me 4 days to design, learn, and build my first full site on Showit!!
No, I wasn’t a Showit wiz by any means but I was liking it and saw a very bright relationship in our future. Not only that, but I gained control again of development and project timelines.
The Benefits of Showit
01 – It was insanely easy to design by literally just dragging and dropping (very similar to illustrator in which I design my sites in). This might be the best part for me :) Not only that but within your account, you can design as many sites as you want. So as a designer, I develop my client’s sites within my account then when it’s done I have them set up their showit and just pop in the ‘share key’ which enables the design. (No more having to use child themes, FTP, and a developer)!
02 – It uses a self-hosted WordPress blog! YES, I’ve had WordPress for years (so a TON of blog posts, and guess what…nothing changed my posts nor did I have any issues with them when I moved to showit. – Yes, my pages changed, but the permalink was just fine (so nothing hurt my SEO)
03 – They have an entire library of HELP DOCs that I easily referenced when I couldn’t understand something or figure it out. AND I’m in their Showit Facebook Group and Designer Group which is beyond easy to just search and find questions/answers instead of waiting. I’ve posted a handful of questions and they all were answered very quickly
04 – They handle website hosting (which is Amazon servers) as well as transferring your website/domain/blog posts. (This was huge) BUT, They do not host emails, so when I switched my site, I actually had to go on G-suite for Gmail and start over. But I didn’t mind that, it was like a fresh start and I can still access my old one.
05 – They have Chat Support, which may not be super immediate, but really great when you get stuck. As well as an emergency email you can reach out to if needed.
06 – My Website has been up since April and has never been ‘down’, crashed, or had any hacking (my old site did).
07 – It’s easy to make your site mobile. You can design a page and a mobile layout at the same time.
08 – It’s very SEO Friendly! But, I’ve heard that you really need to focus on that within showit (its on each page) or it can hurt. So, if you do it right and pair it with the Yoast SEO plugin on the blog you will be all good.
AND I NOW OFFER STYLISH THEMES HERE TOO!
Why it might not fit you..
- It is however limited when it comes to e-commerce and certain capabilities. Yes, you can use a small Shopify embed code for their ‘buy button’ which allows you to still have that custom feel. That’s how my new shop will be created.
- It can be tedious. It’s so easy to make small changes here and there and can end up taking way more time. If you make some changes on one page it doesn’t always reflect on the entire site, so a lot of testing is required first.
- You will have 2 separate logins: 1 for Showit, where you build the design and add content to all interior pages – 2. For WordPress, simply where you publish posts.
- You have to use Google Chrome with the app (because it’s an online platform), so if you hate chrome…?
- One HUGE thing I keep requesting in their facebook group is the option to have hover dropdowns on the navigation. So, if you need a hover dropdown, it might not be a good fit ;)
- AKA: because it is so custom drag-and-drop and you don’t have a lot of knowledge in website design, flow, etc..it could hurt you more than help you…but that’s why I made themes!
03. WordPress VS. Showit
Let me just start out, I still do love WordPress because the true capabilities of the platform itself are beyond impressive. You can build it out to be a machine and that’s great for those businesses who have additional needs (a full e-commerce shop, scheduling app, members-only section, online courses, etc).
But, for smaller businesses, I think Showit is a great option. Businesses like: Wedding Planners, Interior Designers, Photographers, Stylists, Realtors (if not needing home filter searches), Calligraphers, Attorneys, etc. Basically, any business that really requires the basic number of pages, a blog, and even a small shop if needed.
Also, a lot of people ask me if I can do squarespace, and I hope to say I can in the future..but I’m focusing on WordPress and showit currently. BUT, I did some research to show you a comparison of them as well. Bascially they are very similar BUT squarespace is limited in terms of truly designing and customizing, but much better for online shops!
Guess What?
My new website templates / themes are going to be for Showit (as you probably already know)…so here’s your time to ask me any questions you might have or take a peek below at the stylish designs!
– TAKE A PEEK HERE! –
Want to join the FREE 5-day Email course?
This will be a detailed mini-course that will teach you how to plan, establish and create content for your new website in order to help you attract your ideal client and customer.
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– JOIN THE COURSE! –
If you click on my affiliates/products/advertisers links, I may receive a tiny commission. P.S. the products that I share are the ones I believe in.
I used WP and I’m sill using it on a lot of websites, even for my clients. Its capacity to be fully customizable is its strenght. Of course you have to learn a bit of coding… simce you want to sell themes and call yoursel a designer ;) but as for ShowIt even WordPress has its documentation with the examples about hoe to use their codes. Also, a lot of webdesigners during the years published tons of tutorials about doing… everything. There’s a huge WP support forum and plugin forum, like there are anti-spam plugins and free security plugins and backups. For what I read maybe you didn’t dig enought in the WP world… but a drag and drop platform has its design limits!
Same here! I have clients I still design and build WP sites for, because it is so powerful with what it can do! When I first started back in 2011 (I think) that’s when I first taught myself wordpress and taught myself code. Then I realized how much I hated PHP and loved designed much more, so now I have an developer :) – But yes, still a wordpress fan (and my blog still is so I can get all the good plugins), but never realized how easy the drag and drop of showit is as a designer!
Great article!
If you were curious, Squarespace does have plugins through a site called square.studio. You can’t access them specifically from the squarespace site, but through third parties!
And you can use Shopify Lite to do-e-commerce through Show.it! It’s super cluth!
I’m super tempted to learn squarespace..as I hear it is still quite customizable! And yes! My shop is on showit and just uses that Shopify buy bottom, so awesome! I’m also currently testing woocommerce through showit..so hopefully someday that can work too 👌🏼
Thanks for the in depth breakdown of WordPress vs. Showit. I’ve been contemplating on which platform to start my website. My head is starting to hurt with all the options out there. But this article helped to narrow it down. I also love the drag and drop feature of Showit. The price is a bit high for blogging (Advanced option). But I guess it’s expected since the site will be hosted by Showit. I don’t like the limited storage. I feel it can be a bit more.
I have a question…do you think it is a good idea to use Showit as the platform to host a small online magazine? The foundation of the site will be the ability to produce a number of articles every week or month.