How to Become a Showit Website Designer
Please note that this post contains affiliate links and any sales made through such links will reward me a small commission – at no extra cost for you :)
You want to be a Showit website designer? Well, I’m excited you’re here!
Find out what it takes to become a Showit designer and find out whether it's the right fit for you.
As a website designer since 2017, I started with Squarespace and then added Showit into my offerings in the summer of 2019.
I have absolutely loved using it for client work because of its advanced flexibility and customization compared to Squarespace.
Here is a preview of Showit websites I’ve designed over the past few years:
Here are my top tips for becoming a Showit website designer.
1. Take a Showit website design course
If you want to become a Showit website designer, your first step is to learn how to design a website. A good starting point is one of the many online courses available on Showit design.
It’s okay if you don’t have any design experience - that’s what the course is for!
If you already have some experience in designing websites and have taken a few courses on graphic design or similar subjects, then congratulations — you’re well on your way!
The best ones are often taught by industry experts who have years of experience behind them, so they can pass on their wisdom to students like yourself.
Here are some options:
If you’re wondering, “why would I pay for a course when I go online and learn for free?” then listen up.
Sure, you can scour Google and YouTube, but as someone who has taken a couple dozen courses, there’s nothing like learning in an organized format. These courses are built to tell you everything you need to know and tend to leave out the fluff.
Some courses are better than others, but they definitely save you time and tend to be straightforward. I love learning through online courses.
Learn website design strategy
Beyond how to use Showit, you need to know how to set up a website from a strategic standpoint. It’s not just about pretty colors and whimsical fonts.
A Showit course you purchase may already cover this, but it’s worth mentioning in case it only covers how to use the platform.
Strategy leads design choices so it will only make you a stronger designer to have this knowledge in your back pocket.
Not to mention your clients will have better results if their websites are infused with strategy to lead people to take action, which increases happy testimonials and referrals.
2. Create a couple mock homepages
This is where you’ll really be tested to see if you actually like using Showit and (if you haven’t designed a website before) if you enjoy the process of infusing elements to build a page.
You’ll want to create a Showit account and sign up for the trial. Inside any of the templates, you should play around with the features.
Think about these questions…
Do you enjoy piecing together a web page?
Do you find it exciting to play around with different elements?
Do you find yourself losing time because you’re having so much fun and so lit up?
This is why starting with a trial and using as much of the 14 day window as you can is important.
If you don’t enjoy the time you’re spending in the backend of Showit, then designing a website may not be the right direction for you, and that’s okay!
Once you’ve become familiar with the backend of Showit, then you can create a couple homepage mockups for your portfolio to showcase what you can do.
You can either start with a template and make it your own or start blank. I’d recommend starting from a template since it will require less work to set the foundation .
Think of a sample kind of business you want to work with, choose fonts and colors, and add filler text.
You don’t need to do a website for free since these mockups will still showcase your skills and what you can do for people interested in your services.
3. Learn SEO
It’s not enough just to know how to build a great looking website – you also need to know how to make it look good to search engines too.
This means using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to increase traffic from search engines like Google.
These techniques include things like adding keywords to title tags, image file names, and alt text. You also want to understand how to write proper meta descriptions and the importance of resizing all images before uploading them to your clients’ websites.
If this all sounds like gibberish to you, no worries! A lot of designers don’t know what SEO is at first.
And sadly, SEO is commonly overlooked by Showit website designers.
But I promise it’s not as scary as it sounds.
Since SEO tips and best practices can range immensely depending on the type of business you have, it’s definitely best to learn from a course. In other words, the SEO you implement for an international ecommerce brand is going to be different for a small business owner like an online coach or photographer.
I might be a little biased but I recommend my Showit SEO course, SEO Strategy Simplified ;) You can sign up for my free training, where I give an intro to SEO and the importance of blogging to reach page 1 of Google. I’ve been in the SEO space since 2016 and spent 3 years at agencies helping billion dollar global brands improve their online search presence, so if you want to learn from someone with real world experience, I’m your go-to SEO gal!
Read more SEO tips and tricks:
SEO for Web Designers: Why It Should Be Part of Your Packages
SEO Elements I Implement on Every Website and Why They’re Important
SEO is commonly overlooked, but if you want to be a sought after Showit web designer, you need to know at least the basics of this topic.
It can be frustrating to a client who spends thousands of dollars on a new website but it’s extremely slow because all the images weren’t properly resized. This is an example of how SEO directly impacts user experience, not just the ability to rank high on Google.
4. Set up an onboarding and offboarding process
This is an often overlooked step in becoming a website designer. In order to deliver an excellent experience to your clients, you need to have a seamless process for onboarding and offboarding.
This is one of the biggest pieces of feedback that I get from my clients - how easy it was to work together and figure out each step of the process. Clients will greatly appreciate an organized approach to their project.
I love using Dubsado (get 20% off your first month) for my business. It’s great for sending invoices, contracts, and forms. You can also add canned emails and automate their delivery which is an amazing workflow to have set up in the backend.
In terms of project management, I love using Asana for all tasks, deadlines, and messages/feedback throughout the project. If Asana is foreign to you, I learned so much from Louise Henry’s Upevel with Asana course.
You can also use Clickup or another project management software.
5. Start marketing to ideal clients
Once you have the knowledge of Showit (affiliate link), learn SEO, create a couple mock homepages, and establish a way to collect payments, you are ready to start working with clients!
There are so many ways to get clients. Here are a few:
Instagram
Facebook
Referrals
Family/friends
Masterminds/group coaching programs
Podcasts
Blogging/SEO
Whichever you choose, focus on 1-2 in the beginning. Trying to sell your services on too many platforms dilutes your efforts and you’ll be spread too thin.
If you’re an aspiring Showit web designer, I hope you found this post helpful. Do you feel confident in becoming a Showit website designer? Drop questions below if you want to ask me anything 🙂
Happy designing!
Looking for more posts about Showit? Check out these blog posts: