Are you getting ready to create or upgrade your photography website? Picking the right website builder is the most crucial first step; luckily for us, there are many good options. Since I get asked a lot about why I chose Showit and what I think, it was time to list the pros and cons for others thinking about jumping over to Showit soon.
Read on to find out why Showit might (or might not) be suitable for your photography business.
What’s the right website builder for your photography business?
When people ask me what website builder should be using, I always answer with this – The one you feel comfortable using, updating, and tweaking often. I’ll go a step further and say it’s the website builder you enjoy using.
The best website tools don’t mean anything if you aren’t using them. I know many people who are happy on Wix or Pixieset and wouldn’t ever use the tools of a more robust website. The trick is finding the sweet spot between tools, customization, and your comfort zone.
I have personally used WordPress and Wix. They are both ends of the spectrum. Wix is an “out of the box,” easy-to-use platform with minimal customization, and WordPress is a beast with little feeling like drag and drop. For me, Wix wasn’t enough, and WordPress was too much. Showit, for my photography business, was the sweet spot.
Three Reasons Why I Love Showit
- SEO. The biggest driver of new leads in my business is SEO, by far. Showit lets you quickly get granular and detailed with on-page SEO optimization. Many website builders will have templates that pre-determine your H1 or H2 tags, but Showit allows me, with one click, to change them to my liking.
- WordPress Blog. As I mentioned initially, my roots with websites are with WordPress. However, they can be complicated to update, and as a small business owner, I needed to save time spent designing a site. But blogging with WordPress is far superior to everything out there. So instead of Showit trying to reinvent something already done well, they partnered with WordPress on the blogging side. So now I get the ease of designing a website with the power and SEO prowess of a WordPress Blog.
- Almost every website builder comes with a library of templates, but Showit’s Design Partners take it one step further. The drag-and-drop templates make me feel like I have a degree in design. Plus, many designs are created with a photography business in mind.
3 Reasons You Might Not Love Showit
- While Showit does market as an easy, drag-and-drop platform, it’s easy but not the easiest. Can anyone set up a beautiful site without website design knowledge on Showit? Absolutely. But because of all the available options, it’s not as fast to set up as some of the other plug-and-go website builders.
- Blogging is life for websites and SEO. You can read more about blogging and SEO here. However, if blogging isn’t your jam or blogging won’t ever be your jam, you can find a more straightforward solution elsewhere. A big part of Showit’s appeal was the blogging integration with WordPress. If I didn’t plan to blog, I might have looked harder at other options.
- If you intend for something other than SEO (or your website) to be the primary driver of new leads for your business, Showit might be too much. Many photographers get the bulk of their business from social media and props to them because I still need to crack the IG algorithm. If this is you, there might be more accessible and affordable options, especially if your website will mainly be serving as a reference point or online portfolio only.
A final thought about switching over to Showit
As I said in the beginning, there is more than a one size fits all answer for photography websites. However, if you want a beautifully designed website that can convert on SEO gains, Showit is the answer for you.
The combination of thoughtfully designed templates and customizations, matched with SEO grit, is a winning combination for my business.
If you decide to try Showit, you can use this link for a free month.
Full disclaimer, this is an affiliate link, and if you sign up, I promise I will absolutely buy my dog a new toy for his bin. Because of priorities, you know.
If you still have questions on Showit, I’d love to answer them. You can email me here at mb@mbbryantimages.com
