Whether you’ve heard of Showit before or not—it’s a great website builder for web designers and it’s fairly simple to become a Showit designer. Not only is it awesome for your own website but also for your clients. Showit is an easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder (unlike other platforms *cough* Squarespace) that offers truly UNLIMTED design freedom. So it’s really no surprise that it’s a favorite among web designers.
You can also become a Showit Design Partner once you’ve designed a certain number of client websites on Showit.
In this blog post, I’m going to go over how to become a Showit designer—whether you’re new to the web design world or just want to add Showit to your repertoire of builders that you use for clients.
You already know that learning web design (or a new platform) for the first time can be overwhelming sometimes. That’s why I’m going to break down step-by-step how you can get started on Showit as a web designer without getting overwhelmed. And don’t worry—Showit is very intuitive to use and you’ll be navigating the platform like a pro in no time.
Before I go over how to use Showit, let me explain what Showit is exactly briefly.
I break this down further over in this blog about why photographers should use Showit—but in summary: Showit is a drag-and-drop website builder that offers pixel-by-pixel design freedom.
Showit focuses on offering its users the most creative freedom compared to other website builders.
Unlike Squarespace, which *still* (even with the launch of Squarespace Fluid Engine) partially limits you to work within a grid. Showit on the other hand allows you to literally edit by the pixel. <<< Simply put, if you can dream it you can design it Showit.
Why I Moved My Website from Squarespace to Showit
Showit vs Squarespace Fluid Engine: Which website builder drag-and-drops better?
With this unlimited design freedom, you’ll have the flexibility to make each of your client’s websites unique to their brand with ease. AND while might have a slightly longer learning curve than other platforms—it’s not hard to learn. So you’ll be able to confidently hand off the website to your client so they can update it themselves instead of having to reach out to you for every small fix.
When you’re building your client’s websites you can either be a contributor on their account (if you have an active Showit subscription) or you can design their website in your account and transfer it to them after the design is complete. <<< I personally prefer the latter but the choice is up to you.
Showit Website Contributor Access
Now that we’re all on the same page here’s how to become a Showit designer—so that you start designing awesome and unique Showit websites for your clients.
Step #1 Watch learn to use Showit in less than 30 minutes
The very first thing you should do is watch this video by the Showit team on learning how to use Showit in less than 30 minutes. This will help you learn the terms of what different things are called within the backend of Showit. For example, Showit pages are made up of Canvases. Showit Canvases are basically sections of a page.
5 Showit Website Terms You Should Know
I watched this before I designed my first Showit website and highly recommend it so that you don’t get confused trying to figure out the platform on your own.
Step #2 Read about Showit’s design market standards & how to become a design partner
Showit has a design partner program for web designers that you can apply to join once you’ve made a significant amount of custom Showit websites for your clients. Once you’re accepted to the program you’re also eligible to sell website templates in Showit’s design market.
You don’t have to be a design partner to sell Showit templates on your own website—but if you want to sell them in the design market you’ll have to wait until you become a design partner.
Even though it might be a while before you qualify for the design partner program—it’s best practice to create your client websites and any Showit templates sold from your website following (as close as reasonable) the same standard as required for the design market.
Showit Design Partners are required to take the Design Market Standards Course to be eligible for the program. BUT again it’s best to take this even if you don’t qualify yet to make sure that you’re familiar with Showit’s standards so that you can do the same for your current clients and any Showit templates that you build. <<< You’ll also need to take this if you want a Designer Test Blog.
Design Market Standards Course
Step #3 Try out Showit for Yourself
Now we’re on to the fun part actually diving deep into trying out Showit for yourself. Showit offers a free 14-day trial for new accounts—so you’ll have 2 weeks to get familiar with the platform before you commit to it.
Click here or use the code “madewithboldness” to get your first month free in addition to the free trial
When designing custom websites you need to make sure you start the design with one of Showit’s approved Designer Starter Templates. Any Showit templates you create need to start with one of these templates.
You’ll also need to start your client’s custom websites with one of the Designer Starter Templates if you want to be able to claim site credit for the design. If you’re customizing a template from another designer for a client or your own website—you’ll need to follow Showit’s guidelines for handling site credit.
If you decide you like using Showit for yourself and/or clients—you can ask the Showit support team to set up a Designer Test Blog. You to use it for checking to make sure your blog pages have the correct setting in place before publishing your designs. <<< You’ll need to take the Design Market Standards Course and have an active Showit subscription to qualify for a Test Blog—but you don’t have to be a Showit Design partner to use it.
Design Market Standards Course
You can design your client’s websites in your account & transfer the design to them after it’s finalized (my personal preference)—or you can become a contributor on your client’s website and design within their account. Both you and your client have to have active Showit subscriptions to use the contributor access feature.
Showit Website Contributor Access
4 Ways to Make Your Client Communication Better
Step #4 Become a Showit Design Partner
Once you’ve designed multiple websites for clients on Showit—you can apply to become a Showit Design Partner and enjoy the additional benefits of the program.
Currently, to qualify you have to have at least 3 custom websites for clients on Showit and show consistent use of the platform for clients. Template customization for clients and purchases of your Showit templates can be used for proving consistent use of the platform.
Click here or use the code “madewithboldness” to get your first month free in addition to the free trial
Showit Development for Designers
Once you’ve got the basics of Showit down—it might be time to outsource part of your design process to another designer (like me 😀). Click here to check out my Showit Development for Designers service if you want to outsource ⅓ of your work to another designer so that you can focus on the business tasks you want to.
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