Why Showit is Our Preferred Platform

As a digital marketing agency, focusing on all aspects of business, we tell every potential client that you need to have a website. As busy professionals it is extremely important to build a system outside of your trusted social media accounts. 

Why, you might ask? 

Well, for starters, you don’t own your social media account(s). At any point the platform could no longer exist (RIP Vine), you could get hacked and have everything wiped… the list goes on. Our job is to point you in the right direction when you are choosing a web platform to create your website on. A lot of factors go into this – your current business tools and integrations, your needs for the business, what you are achieving now with your platform, what you AREN’T doing so well on with your platform, and what can be done to make everything run smoothly. 

There are plenty of web platforms out there to choose from, but knowing which one is the right one for your business is the hardest part. As a graphic designer turned web designer and developer, I have had the opportunity to use every major platform out there to date. I started my journey building custom coded websites through Adobe Dreamweaver and FTP, then moved into WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify and then Wix. When Kat and I formed The Illunis Co, we both worked with Wix extensively and both wanted to be able to work and edit the site as we needed to, so we started off on Wix. Behind the scenes, I was learning and designing off Showit while our business was forming and growing in its first year. 

Shortly after, Kat and I moved over to Showit and we haven’t looked back since. If you haven’t heard of Showit, it is a 100% customizable drag and drop website builder, backed with the power of WordPress for blogging capabilities and plugins. Since The Illunis Co has been in business, we have launched over 25 websites built within the Showit platform.

To say we love Showit is an understatement! Need more convincing? Let’s talk about the 10 reasons why we love Showit & the reasons we put more businesses on Showit than any other web platform combined.

1. No Code Necessary

Years ago, before website platforms like Showit came into existence, code was the only way any business could get a functional and beautiful website. However, the problem with that is someone had to be an expert developer on the team in order for real time updates and fixes to occur. Showit allows for you to build a website completely within their design dashboard without a single line of code. Showit gives you the power to make your design dreams come true with a few clicks of your mouse. Without having to worry about coding to get your website functioning, Showit gives business owners the time and space to create what they want for their website and get back to the things that really matter to them. Plus, who doesn’t want to be on a platform that promotes the uniqueness of YOU?

Now, if you are interested in coding and integrations, Showit lets you get creative that way, too. You can integrate almost every business need through Showit’s HTML embed box option in the design dashboard or using WordPress plugins (by being on the advanced tier pricing plan). Basically, if you use it in your daily business activities and there is a HTML code and WordPress integration, you can add it to Showit with ease. For example, we use Flodesk as our email marketing platform at The Illunis Co. With the ease of Flodesk’s embed feature, we are able to copy the code for each form we create and add it to an embed code block within Showit. Looking for a new email marketing platform that integrates well with Showit? Get 50% off your first year of Flodesk on us!

2. Blogging Capabilities

Showit on its own is a beautiful web design platform that would make anyone’s heart skip a beat. But with the power of WordPress as their blogging system, you have a powerhouse platform that can’t be stopped. On the basic Showit plans, you do not have the blog features. In their Basic Plan you have the start of a basic blogging backend with their preselected plugins to help your blog still reach top page ranking results. With their Advanced Plan, you have the power of blogging as well as customizing and uploading your favorite WordPress plugins to your admin dashboard to make your WordPress 100% customized to your business needs. Showit pricing plans can be found here.

WordPress has been the top competitor for blogging since its inception. Other platforms like Squarespace, Shopify and Wix all have their version of blogging installed, however, they aren’t as robust as WordPress. But building a website on WordPress can be a little more complicated than what a business owner is prepared for. With the help of Showit, you have website hosting AND they set up your WordPress blog for you! As an added bonus, if you are moving over from another platform, they will help migrate your existing blogs over to your new blog home (on the advanced Showit plan)! If that doesn’t excite you (and clear your weekend schedule of mundane tasks), I don’t know what will.

3. Customer Service

With the many, many different website platforms out there – it could be hard to determine which is right for you. If talking to an actual human being is among your top priorities, Showit is the way to go. How many times have you gone into your website chat feature to talk to customer service only to be looped through endless and mindless questions that are auto-populated to “get you to the right representative” only to be 50 questions deep and still having to wait hours to talk to someone? On top of that, how likely is it that you will come into contact with a representative who just reads from their HR-mandated script?

Yeah, no thanks.

Showit has live chat support with actual wonderful human beings, emergency support on off-business hours and many different Facebook groups with Showit users and designers ready to give advice, the Showit community is ready on the sidelines to help you out!

Need more convincing? Showit support uses GIFs and emojis to communicate with you as well. I don’t know about you, but when I see someone use a GIF of David from Schitt’s Creek, I get really excited.

On top of all this, there are help docs ready to help you figure out your problem quickly, which is a great feeling when you conquer a problem you are facing and don’t need to ask for customer support!

4. Mobile Design Freedom

Every other platform in the WORLD raves about how they are the universe’s answer to “the ultimate responsive web platform”. Spoiler alert… They aren’t. With over half of your audience using mobile devices, it is important to make sure your mobile is just as functioning as your desktop is. With Showit, you have complete control over your mobile design, down to adding additional elements that only show up on mobile! Now, don’t get me wrong, there are options that give you mobile freedom on the other platforms. However, as a web designer and developer, I will tell you that none of the other platforms are as easy to use as Showit is. Our number one tip within designing with Showit is to design side by side, or at least design with canvas intention. What we mean by this is when you start adding elements into your desktop design, know that every element is going to be stacked together on mobile. You have to resize and move things around with Showit’s custom mobile design build. Now, if you thrive in chaos like I do, you can always go back and design mobile later.

(Yes, this is a screenshot of one of our page designs that we were working on – We are humans and sometimes chaos works better for us)

But this will inevitably add more time to your designing and less time doing what you do best in business. They do have an option for Page Canvases to use a feature called “Layout Mobile”. Use this with caution, however. It isn’t perfect, and can sometimes make things more challenging.

5. Drag and Drop Platform

Custom code is not for the faint of heart. As a web developer who has spent many hours in the various coding options on the other web platforms, it is not easy. Things like to break when you custom code and that makes for a frustrating work day (or all nighter in some cases). With Showit, you can design everything on your own and have your expert coder jump in only when absolutely necessary. With that being said, gone are the days of waiting for your developer to get around to your tasks because they have other clients to focus on too. You can design and publish everything you want within Showit in just a few mouse clicks. As a developer, I am not saying that you will never need an expert coder ever again with Showit. There is always something that I am coding or working on in the backend of Showit (through the advanced settings) or on the WordPress backend to make things function better for our clients. However, as a stand alone website platform, you do not NEED to have coding unless there is something in your business that needs it.

6. Endless Customization

Speaking of coding, while there are endless possibilities when it comes to designing in Showit, there may be a time where you need custom coding installed on your site for a particular plugin or service you plan to offer. For example, one of our clients The CRNA Club hired us to build a custom Showit website last year. Sachi wanted to have an interactive table that could filter out various programs, schools and states based on what the CRNA applicant wanted/needed. We were able to integrate a WordPress plugin that required custom coding to further build out her ideas and now she has an amazing and functioning design that filters for her clients around the United States!

7. SEO Tools

As a digital marketing agency, our biggest focus is to make sure SEO is on the forefront of our minds at all times. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is extremely important for ranking purposes but also just to make sure your website is being read correctly by Google and other search engines. On the basic end of SEO, Showit makes it effortlessly easy to add backlinks, image optimization, SEO titles, metadata, meta tags and descriptions, text tags and more all within their platform. Interested in more control when it comes to your blogs and other needs on the WordPress side of the pricing plans? With the basic plan, Showit has Yoast SEO pre-installed for you to use. On the advanced plan, you can choose whichever system you want as long as there is a WordPress plugin for it (you can even get Yoast SEO Pro if you want)!

8. Design Aesthetic Meets Business Functionality

Showit started as a platform for photographers and creatives, but has since grown into a web platform that ANY business can use. In fact, The Illunis Co creates more websites for non-creative business owners than any other industry on our roster. From franchising companies, to healthcare and insurance, we believe that Showit is the best platform for many businesses. Looking into other platforms like Squarespace, Wix and even the builders within WordPress like Elementor, there is that pesky grid locking situation that gets in the way of designing. Want something to go over to the left and stay there? Nope, sorry. With Showit, your design stays in the positioning that you placed or locked it in – the only caveat being that it adapts to the screen in use. So, the larger the screen the wider the design will stretch. Showit makes it super easy to install all your brand elements like fonts and colors through their design settings. You can customize every little detail of your paragraphs and headers with ease, upload branded fonts (just make sure you have the rights to your web font files) and get back to the designing and publishing process quickly!

9. Fun and Creative

As a trained graphic designer, I love Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I am a ride or die girl for those programs. When I found Showit, I immediately felt at home in their design dashboard. While it is everything I want and more as a designer, it is also beginner friendly. So, don’t be scared to test drive Showit (they have a 14 day free trial – no credit card required) just so you can see what I really mean! If you are not a fan of Adobe programs, it is like the big sibling to Canva. Drag and drop all day every day. Whether you are looking at creating from one of Showit’s blank designs or a template from their design market, what you see is what you get! There are no nasty surprises when it comes to a Showit site and for that alone we are big Showit stans.

10. Video Elements and Content

And finally, if we haven’t sold you already, Showit allows you to embed video content in three different ways to keep your ideal customer or client on site for longer. There are Video Backgrounds where you can upload ready-for-web videos into that background on your canvases within your design. You can add GIFs easily with the use of your favorite GIF maker just like how you would upload an image into your Media Library. You can also embed your Youtube or Vimeo video directly into Showit with the video code at the end of the URL. To say that you have options on options is an understatement.

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Final Thoughts

Showit is 100% our preferred platform and we will be forever grateful for their platform, the people that make up the Showit community and our fellow Design Partners who make this platform push creative and development related boundaries in the web world daily. Trust us when we say that no other platform compares to Showit and checks all the above boxes with total ease.

If you are completely sold with everything we talked about in this blog, you can sign up for Showit and get your first month free here. Or if you are a big believer in doing rather than reading, Showit provides a 14 day free trial for you to have fun in the design dashboard in using their basic design plan as well as a demo design dashboard to play around with.

Have questions about Showit that weren’t answered here or just want to talk to a human who eats, sleeps, breathes Showit? We’re happy to chat! Email us here for all your questions!