Table of Contents
Introduction
Hey there, listeners! Are you tired of feeling restricted by clunky website builders? Then this episode is for you because today, we’re talking all about why having a Showit website is the ultimate secret weapon for creating stunning websites with ease. Whether you’re a service provider, creator, influencer, blogger, digital product owner or just have a personal brand, get ready to discover the power of a Showit website and unleash your inner website design badass!
Watch The Episode
Key Points For This Episode
- Lauren prepares to go on a vacation.
- Meg works on a new VIP offer for her existing and past clients.
- Today, we’re talking about why Meg switched from WordPress to Showit and what she has been doing with the platform.
- Backstory.
- What Meg loves about having a Showit website.
- Complete design freedom.
- Feels like a mix between WordPress and Photoshop.
- Great SEO capabilities.
- Access to amazing plugins for the blog component.
- Clients can easily go in and edit their websites.
- Categories of people who should explore Showit.
- Who Showit might not be suitable for.
- Meg builds incredible website templates that require no code knowledge for service providers.
- Special copy audit offer from Lauren and Meg.
Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave us a 5-star rating! Ratings & reviews will help this podcast grow so we can make the world a little more Sparkly!
Links We Mentioned
Try Showit with a 14 day trial (affiliate link)
Transcript
Lauren: Hello and welcome to Your Sparkly Brand, the podcast for game-changing badass business owners who aren’t afraid to sparkle and stand out. We’re all about fighting the status quo in marketing and branding so you can reach more people and make more money, coaches, creatives, and thought leaders. Here you’ll discover how to become magnetic AF so you can build and scale a sparkly empire.
I’m Lauren Tassi, a digital marketing expert for coaches and course creators, and I’m joined by my co-host the branding and web design queen Megan Gersch. Hi, Megan.
Megan: Hey, how’s it going?
Lauren: I’m doing good. How are you?
Megan: I’m good. I’m good. What was your sparkly moment this week?
Lauren: I’m getting ready to go on vacation next week, so I’m just, we’re just gonna put that as part of it, you know, it’s a little like, it’s a little bit stressful, but it’s also like, okay, but you gotta, you gotta figure this out.
You gotta figure out how to go on vacation too.
Megan: That’s gonna be so fun.
Lauren: Yeah, I’m excited. Yeah. What about you? What’s your sparkly moment?
Megan: So this morning I was working on a new sparkly VIP offer. At first, it’s only gonna be for my existing clients and people that I’ve worked with in the past, just cuz I wanna kind of like, test it and see how it goes, how it feels in like, my energy, how it feels for them.
And, I wanna make sure that, you know, like everything is running smoothly. But I’m pretty excited about it. It’s not something that I’ve ever offered before. Basically, it’s gonna be – if you wanted to just hire me for a whole day, then I am just at your disposal to work on, you know, any number of priorities that you might have design-wise.
So pretty excited about that. So more details on that coming soon if I decide to roll it out to more people.
Lauren: I love that. That seems super smart, especially for like people you’ve already worked with. So you have that like foundation there that you really can just jump in on whatever.
Megan: Yeah, exactly.
Lauren: Alright, so what are we talking about today?
Megan: So today we’re talking a bit about why I made the switch from WordPress to a Showit website, and also what I’ve been doing with the platform. So, as kind of a starting point, I created my business and kind of launched my very first, like on my own kind of style website, when I started my business four and a half years ago.
And it was just getting to the point where it was kind of getting hard to update. It was like one of those things where, the theme wasn’t like updating as much as like, staying up to date with WordPress standard. And it also started to like not feel aligned with where I was at in my business.
Like it felt like very much like where I was at four years ago. And it was like one of those things where it’s like you keep like patching things here and there, but like, it just, you know how it goes. Like, it just wasn’t up to where I’m at now. Things have changed. A lot of my business I’ve. Also updated my services quite a bit since I first started, and so now I’m only offering branding and website design.
And I needed a website that really kind of spoke to that and really you know, I’ve also changed, my audience has shifted quite a bit too since I first started my business and I really wanted my new Showit website to really speak to those creatives, those out-of-the-box thinkers, those folks that are not afraid to kind of go bolder in their business.
And so I really needed that website to attract those types of people. So it just felt like the right time for a redesign. So, This is where I had to make a choice basically. I could have, you know, redesigned my website on WordPress. It was already on WordPress. That probably would’ve been an easy option.
But I also had heard about this platform called Showit, and I was curious about it because, Showit is a platform where it’s basically, it’s very drag and drop. Like, it’s very much like a pick something up, put it over here, and that is where it is. You can literally have complete design, creative freedom when it comes to like, the placement of things on the page.
So that part of it was really appealing to me. And so I started to dig into it a little bit and once I started playing with my Showit website, it almost is like, If a website met like Photoshop is how I think of it and it’s like kind of creates like this design playground for you to create whatever you’d like.
And so once I started digging into my Showit website, I was like, this is incredible. Like I know that I wanted to redesign, my website with my rebrand in my shift in my business. And so I got to thinking like, what if I just use my own platform as kind of like the, the testing ground for like, you know, do I want to pursue this other website platform?
And so I started kind of playing around in there and I started kind of toying with like putting together pages for my own site. And I was like, at a certain point I was like, absolutely, this is the way that I wanna go. So I went all in on it and I just decided to dive into redesigning my website there.
Lauren: Okay, so question for you, and I know we’ve sort of covered this, but I just feel like even I don’t fully understand, a web designer and a web developer are generally not the same person. Like maybe you could do both, but they’re kind of like different strengths, right?
Megan: Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Lauren: So like the designer is you and that’s somebody with like a vision and like an aesthetic and can do that where like the developer is the coder, right?
That’s the person who like makes it work and doesn’t just make it look pretty.
Megan: Yeah, exactly. And in the past I had been doing both. I really love like the design side of things, and that’s why I think I was really drawn to the Showit website platform just because like, you don’t need a developer, to put together a website.
It’s very, very simple to go in, click the piece that you wanna edit and update the text or click the piece that you wanna move to the other side of the page and drag it over there. It makes it extremely easy to navigate. Super customizable.
The other thing that I love about having a Showit website is that it has amazing SEO capabilities. So this is something that I was definitely looking for, especially because I was overhauling my website. I wanted to make sure that I had SEO at the top of my mind when I was redesigning my website. I feel like when I did my first website of like my business on my own, It wasn’t top of mind for me when I was kind of putting that together.
And so there was a lot of pieces that, I didn’t put in place when I was building that first website. So all of that. And not to mention also, I learned a lot of things along the way in those four and a half years about SEO – about how to optimize and all of that kind of stuff. And so I wanted to integrate all of those new findings into my new Showit website build.
And so when I was researching platforms show, it was also, it was a platform that accommodated all of these SEO capabilities, which like. If anybody follows me on social media, they know that I gripe about like Wix not being like what it needs to be for SEO. And there are other platforms out there too where it’s like they’re great design-wise, but like, You know, when it comes to function, it kind of lacks in a few places.
And so a Showit website just felt like this like perfect place where it was like I got all of the design functionality that I wanted and I could get all of the technical pieces in place to really like help to boost my organic traffic and. The other part of this too is that if you have a blog on your Showit website, it actually uses WordPress as like the backend.
And I know this is kind of getting like a little bit confusing, so you have Showit to actually build your regular pages on your site. So like your homepage, your services page, your contact page, all of that. You use Showit to build the skin of your blog, but then the word, there’s a part of Showit where it’s WordPress backend, where you actually input all of the, like the post content, the tags, all of that stuff.
So it looks like WordPress when you’re going to create your blog posts, but it brings it into Showit and skins it and Showit so that we, you have that. Design flexibility of like – it’s like a beautiful marriage of these two platforms. So if you’re familiar with WordPress, it’s a great option to make your posts look even more customizable.
I honestly like look back at like some of my old WordPress builds, like for clients and I’m like, man, I wish I would’ve known about building a Showit website sooner, because some of them have like really extensive blog components and I wish I could. Given this gift of like design flexibility to them and built them a Showit website.
But, you know, hindsight’s 20-20.
Lauren: I feel like I’ve been hearing a lot about Showit over the past year, but I feel like I didn’t hear much about it before that. Has it really been around that long? In terms of like use, like people actually using it.
Megan: I think it’s been around for a few years.
It’s just one of those things where it’s like WordPress and Squarespace and a few of the other ones have been kind of like the leaders in website development. So it, it definitely feels like a. It feels like that, like cool kid that like not everybody knows about yet.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Megan: But like, it’s such an amazing platform and like, as a web designer, like, I wish I would’ve known about it sooner too because like I would’ve made the switch a lot sooner.
It’s one of those things where it’s like you get into the platform and you’re like, as a designer, you’re like, oh my God. Like there’s, there’s just so much possibility you can just, you know, put things upside down if you want to. Like, so yeah, it’s pretty.
The other thing that I wanted to mention, going back to the blog really quick, is that because the blog is based on WordPress, you also get access to all of those amazing, WordPress plugins. And so you can use rank math, you can use cash plugins, you can use, different recent post kind of style plugins and stuff like that to really beef up your WordPress blog.
And like I said before, like this is a platform that like, I hope to start designing sites on this platform for clients because, it’s gonna make it super, super easy for clients to be able to go in after the site is done and, you know, just be able to update whatever they need. Just because like it’s so user-friendly.
Lauren: How many of people that come to work with you, maybe in the past year or so, like are committed to their platform or like you, you know, you’re like, Showit’s this cool thing. They’re like, no, I wanna stick with Squarespace. Like where, where does your clients, people that are sort of at that point where they want like a real professional custom website, where are they at and are they like open to it?
Megan: I think it really depends on the client. I would say they’re about 50-50.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Megan: When I’ve had clients that have a really extensive blog, most of the time those have been on WordPress and those people are very much like they wanna stay on WordPress because that
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Megan: WordPress has a steep learning curve.
And so I think once you get to like used to that platform, like I think that’s like you need to stay there. That being said, Showit would be an easy, you know, kind of lateral shift for you.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Megan: Just because it uses the same backend for the blog, but yeah, I think it’s about 50-50.
So if this is sounding interesting to you, if you are a business owner that is looking to maybe shift your website to a Showit website, it would be a really good choice for you if you are a service provider, if you are a creator, if you’re an influencer, if you have a personal brand, if you have a blog. Or if you have a handful of digital products, it’s not really set up for robust e-commerce stores.
I would say the maximum for products is probably about like 20 products – I would say. I wouldn’t wanna manage 20 products on a Showit website to be honest with you. Just because like you’re gonna have to use some kind of outside plugin, like ThriveCart or some kind of integration like that actually takes the payments and has to integrate with the platform.
It doesn’t have built-in e-commerce functionality, so that is an extra cost that you would have to account for as well.
Lauren: So for me, like and maybe some of our listeners, like you say WordPress and I just go, Ugh. Like, I think maybe like 10 years ago I wasn’t like, I’m gonna build myself a website. And like, it was just like, I couldn’t comprehend it.
I couldn’t like, it just, it was a hard no for me. Maybe now I’d be better, you know, maybe now I’d be better at it. But I feel like there’s maybe a, a number of people who are in that boat who, it’s just like not user friendly. Especially if you’re like looking at like a blank, you know, I don’t know, the gray box or whatever it is.
How can Showit help us with that? Because it seems like there’s so many possibilities and it looks so good, but like, what if we’re just, we’re not you, you know?
Megan: Yeah, definitely. So this is why I have started to create website templates. So I’ve had this idea for a while in my business, and it’s one of those things where it’s like I kept putting it on my to-do list, and I’m like just now getting around to executing it.
But once I dug into the Showit website platform and I saw the potential there. I was like, this is the perfect platform for building out templates for other people to implement just because I think the reason that I hesitated on making templates for so long is because like if you make a WordPress template, you have to send out updates.
To the different marketplaces and places where you sell them, like, you know, every few months or so. You know, with Showit, all of your pages are built within the platform so, you know, you don’t have to keep updating things. I started to build these website templates for service providers because I wanted to create essentially like solutions for those business owners who wanted a kind of bolder website, wanted to.
You know, get their hands on something a little bit different than what you see on all of these Creative Market kind of style sites and marketplaces. Because if you go on there, a lot of those templates look all the same. They all look beige. Very boring, very much like, almost like if you’re going to like a house staging, right?
Like everything is just like white and beige and they just, make it that way so that anyone can really envision, you know, being there.
So I wanted to do something a little bit different. So this is why I have started creating these website templates, which they take the guesswork out of, essentially how to lay out your pages.
I’ve strategically created them from a marketing mindset. So I have put the different sections in, in the order that you’re gonna need them. I’ve added the different elements to each section that I imagine you might need. Literally, all you have to do is go in, swap the images, swap the text, and this is gonna set you up in a position to launch in days instead of weeks waiting for your website, sometimes even months if you have a huge website.
So it’s a huge advantage. Again, this is like a platform where you don’t need any coding knowledge, everything. Super drag and drop. And also, when I was creating these templates, I wanted to include some SEO image optimization instructions, so that way, you wouldn’t make the same mistake that I did when I was building my first website, and you get those keywords, integrated into your website on, an image level and an alt text level. All of that kind of good stuff.
And one last thing that I wanted to mention here too is that Lauren and I have partnered to offer you a special copy audit. So if you wind up getting one of these Showit website templates, you can run your website by Lauren to see if the actual text on your website looks good, if it can be improved, and all of that good.
Lauren: Yeah. I love doing copy audits. I actually need to start, putting it out there more is like an offer because I, I forget about it. But I really love going through people’s websites and being able to give somebody like valuable, actionable items in like 10 minutes that you can just like, change this, do this.
So I’m super excited about that.
Megan: Yeah, for sure. And if you’re interested in any of the templates and checking them out, we’ll put a link in the show notes, but it’s just megangersch.com/shop.
Lauren: Awesome. Yeah, they look so good. Everything that I’ve seen you share, I just love, they’re just so bright and colorful like you are, and all your work and anybody who like, Has been eyeing you and has like, oh, I wanna work with Megan one day.
Like this is a great sort of baby step towards that. That is not the investment that you, you know, your custom services are.
Megan: Yeah, exactly. That was the goal.
Lauren: Awesome. So if you are ready to make the switch to a Showit website and want an easy way to do it check out Megan’s Showit website templates there’s a link in the show notes, and that’s all we’ve got for today.
So until next time, stay sparkly.
About The Your Sparkly Brand Podcast
Your Sparkly Brand is a podcast for badass, game-changing business owners who aren’t afraid to sparkle and stand out from competitors. We’re all about fighting the status quo in marketing and branding so you can reach more people and make more money. Coaches, creatives, and thought leaders — here you’ll discover how to become magnetic AF so you can build and scale a Sparkly Empire.
Let’s Connect
Is there a topic you’d like us to cover in an upcoming episode? Are you a business owner who wants to join us on the podcast to share your story? Send us an email at yoursparklybrand@gmail.com to get in touch.
Find Lauren at laurentassiagency.com or on Instagram
Connect with Megan at megangersch.com, on TikTok and Instagram