I decided to break up my “For Photographers” series into two different series. From now on, I’ll still blog photography specific tips and tutorials as “For Photographers” posts and the rest of the business knowledge I’ll share will be under the umbrella of “For Business Owners“. I realized that there are so many small business owners out there and whether they’re wedding industry friends or not, other sections of the business world don’t seem to share their knowledge as freely as wedding photographers do. I tend to be a pretty open book, so hopefully even more of our business owner friends can benefit from these posts!

This first post is all about why I LOVE my Showit site. I’ve been using Showit for my business since my first professional branding experience back in 2012 and I have so many good things to say about it. There are tons of different options as far as websites go, but I’ve been happy enough with my site and my experience with Showit to stick around at LEAST for the life of my newest branding, which is also on a Showit site.

(Note: This blog is a ProPhoto blog. Go here to view my main website, which is a Showit Site!)

Here’s why I think Showit is so great for small business owners and why you should check it out if you’re looking for a website platform!

Tons of customization options

Whether or not you hire a designer, you have endless options to customize your Showit site! I think there are so many unique looking sites created through Showit and that’s one of the things that I really loved about it. I love that my site doesn’t look or feel exactly like any one else’s, so when potential clients see the site they’re not going to feel like they’ve just seen another one of thousands of photographers. If you’re savvy at design, you can build your own site from scratch. You can also hire an awesome designer like I did, OR you can purchase templates for Showit called Stylegroups that you can make your own.

Flexibility

Showit’s software is drag and drop, so it’s easy to make any kinds of changes you’d like to without having to learn code. I love being able to update my site on my own without having to bug my designer and then wait until she’s able to make the updates for me! I can add new images to my galleries whenever I want, take them out, change pricing, and more in just minutes on my own. Instead of having to take a half day or more to update my website galleries once a year or biannually, I can update my image galleries after every single wedding if I want to since it’s so quick! I usually try to do this about once a month if there are images from newer weddings that I really love.

Plus Sites

Showit allows you to create as many mini sites called “plus sites” off of your main domain name as you’d like. I use one for all of my pricing information instead of a PDF, which is what I used to do. I love this for three reasons: 1. I think having an attractive, interactive site dedicated specifically to pricing sets me a little bit apart from others that potential clients may be checking out. The site is definitely memorable AND clients can’t accidentally delete it like a PDF. 2. I can literally change my entire pricing scheme in a few minutes time. Back when I did a pricing PDF I would have to open the file, edit it, save it, and then make sure I reuploaded the right one every time. Now I just log into my Showit account, make the updates quickly, and publish the site again. SO easy a cat could do it! 3. It’s so much more interactive than a PDF!!

Mobile Sites

It’s more important to have a mobile site now than ever before! Google really looks for you to have a mobile friendly version of your site in order to rank well as far as search engine results go. Showit gives me the ability to create a custom mobile site that’s branded like my main desktop site and it just as easily updatable! With people searching for vendors more and more on their phones, having a great mobile web presence is so crucial. Showit makes this so easy!

Easy SEO 

I have heard those who don’t like Showit say that the SEO is really terrible for Showit sites. I strongly disagree! I’ve been on either the first or second page for my main keyword (Virginia Wedding Photographer) for the past two years! There are SO many things that go into SEO, but I’m happy with my ranking and where my site has helped put me. Within the Showit software there are options to set keywords and page titles on every single page. There are also other options as far as what you can do with this, but I tend to keep it pretty simple as far as SEO goes.

I’m always re-examining the products and services I choose for my business and my Showit site continues to be something that works really well for me! If you’re interested in trying it out, you can download the software here and try it out before you buy it!