Cue the confetti and champagne sprays y’all!!! 🎉🎉🎉 We have launched the new SOWBO website and it’s GORGEOUS! See the beautiful gal in the pink dress? That’s our website developer, Makena! Trust me… you want to know & follow her. For now, keep reading to find out WHY we made such a drastic change this year.
If you’ve been following us for a while, then you know that we’ve always been big fans of the WordPress platform for websites. There are so many positives about WordPress and as a small business owner, it just makes sense. Well… it did… until Showit came onto the website scene.
Before we dive into why we ultimately decided to make the switch from WordPress to Showit, we want you to know that this beautiful website you’re clicking through was designed by the incredible Makena Delaney of the Carlyle Creative. She was a complete joy to work with! Makena’s experience uniquely qualifies her to work with those looking to grow their businesses online. She brings business and marketing strategy to the table along with beautiful design skills. Makena is one of the most generous, patient, diligent, and warm souls you’ll ever meet. If you need a website – she’s your gal! We couldn’t have asked for a better experience!
Showit vs. WordPress
What I love about WordPress (and the reason why SOWBO remained on the platform for many years) is that it’s an affordable platform that allows unlimited customization with great SEO capabilities. Sure, you may have to learn some HTML coding and plugin maneuvering along the way, but it’s a platform that allows you to go as robust (or as simple) as possible. AND. With WordPress, you’re not bound to a specific design platform. You can use their simple editor—called Gutenberg—or download plugins like Elementor or Divi to easily create designs from templates.
Yes, there is a major learning curve with WordPress for those who don’t consider themselves tech savvy, but it’s truly an affordable way to have a great presence online. With a WordPress site, you only pay for the hosting of your website and your domain. We used SiteGround* for hosting, which is only about $2.99/month.
Probably one of the greatest attributes about WordPress is that you can build powerful elements on your website like digital courses, member areas, and sales funnels. Many do not realize that WordPress is an alternative to expensive and limiting platforms like Kajabi, Kartra, Teachable, Thinkific, etc. The only caveat is that you have to find the right plugins, learn how to connect everything properly, and make sure that it doesn’t slow your load.
Why We Left WordPress
Just as much as I love WordPress, I dislike it for equally valid reasons. Probably the most frustrating part of a WordPress site is that it easily becomes a slow loading website. Though the platform allows for as many photos and template blocks as you want, those special elements can really slow down your load speed if you don’t know what you’re doing. Load speed impacts how your visitors interact with your site. If it’s too slow, it can deter your visitors from clicking around on the necessary links.
Another frustrating thing about WordPress is that you have to add multiple plugins in order for the site to properly function. We had 20+ plugins on our last site; everything ranging from photo squishing to cart checkout. It felt complicated and overwhelming on a normal day. If something stopped working (usually because of a plugin update), there wasn’t a great way to troubleshoot the root cause. It often felt like searching for a needle in a very large haystack.
Why We Switched to Showit
Showit combines the ease of a drag-and-drop website platform with the power of WordPress. It allows you to have complete creative freedom, but without knowing a lick of website mumbo jumbo. For those of you utilizing WordPress for the blog feature, you can link the two and have your blog powered by WordPress but designed on Showit. The blog you’re reading right now was written in WordPress, but is presented to you through a Showit designed blog template. This allows for the great SEO capabilities of WordPress and the beauty of Showit.
I often hear that designers love the ability to edit both the Desktop and Mobile version of a website separately through the Showit design platform. For example, if you pull up the SOWBO website on your phone and on your computer screen, the designs will look a little different. Those were edited separately by our website designer, Makena Delaney. It’s a really cool feature that designers appreciate.
Probably my favorite part of the Showit platform is how smooth and quick it loads. I always compare the feel of a Showit website to cream; every Showit website I encounter reminds me of thick, yummy buttery cream spreading on a biscuit or maybe a beautiful white cream pouring into my coffee. It’s just so smooth and flawless!
Okay… that’s enough breakfast talk. But I’m serious about how beautiful a Showit website presents online. I can now spot a Showit website pretty much anywhere! It’s no wonder that the platform is growing so fast in the creative space. I made it a goal in 2021 that we would launch a new website on the Showit platform by the end of 2022. We made it! 🙂
Other Website Platform Options
There are many website builder platforms out there that you can choose from: SquareSpace, Wix, Shopify, GoDaddy, etc. We’ve played around with many of the options, but none of them impressed us quite like Showit and none of them met all of our desires in a platform.
Want to try Showit for free for a month? Snag a free month on us HERE*.
*Many of the links on this article and throughout our website are referral links that pay us an affiliate commission should you decide to purchase from them.
