Showit is a great website platform for authors, particularly because it combines easy-to-use design flexibility (no coding needed), newsletter incorporation, and WordPress blogging. Showit gives authors more design and strategic control over their author platforms.
I work almost exclusively with Showit to build all of my clients’ websites. If you’re an author who is doing SO FREAKING MUCH on their own, I truly think you’re doing yourself a disservice if you use any other website platform.
Sounds pretty extreme, right? I hear it too, but, y’all, I stand by that statement. Showit is hands-down the best website platform for authors. Your website should be the central hub of your business, which means that the platform you choose matters. I know that starts to feel tech-y and stressful, so I want to lay out exactly why I love Showit and recommend it without reservation.
I feel like ease of editing is a thing lots of website platforms say they have, but none of them (including Squarespace) come close to the user-friendlieness of Showit. And, I recommend purchasing a Showit website template. You get a designer-made website that you can customize completely.
Showit lets designers like me make high-quality, UX/UI designed websites into templates you can download and customize yourself. And I know for my templates I include video tutorials and a video walkthrough of the template you purchased so that you know how to edit every part of it yourself!
After working with clients who were pressured into using a WordPress website and had to pay a designer every month to “maintain” or update their website, the fact that Showit makes it easy for you to maintain makes me so happy! You should feel capable and empowered with your website.
Your stories bring readers into a new world, and your website should be able to reflect that same aesthetic and feeling. And, do I really have to say it, your website should not be boring! No creative should have a clinical, corporate, or bland website. Your website should reflect your creative genius.
Showit has so many unbelievable customization capabilities, and they’ve made it so easy to use. You can infuse so much originality into your website templates that it will feel like a reflection of your brand.
Plus, the backend of your website will (maybe for the first time ever for you) feel easy to use and work with. Want to change a picture, all you have to do is click on it. Want to change the words, click on them. So, so easy! And, to move elements you click on them and drag them anywhere you want.
This is a complaint I get from clients on platforms other than Showit. They tell me they hate the way their website looks on mobile.
Now, this gets a little tech-y, but stay with me. Most website building platforms rely on the desktop design to “create” the mobile design, which means that your hands are pretty tied when it comes to the mobile design. Or, worse, they’ve made the mobile design code-reliant, thus making most people unable to edit their mobile version.
Showit has it set up so that you can separately design the mobile version of your website! You can drag and drop items easily so that the mobile design is completely original and beautiful.
I’m sure you’re thinking, “Wait, I thought you said earlier that I don’t have to use WordPress?” Technically, your website is built on Showit, but Showit essentially outsources your blog to WordPress. And that’s a good thing because literally no platform does blogging better than WordPress.
None of your pages are designed on WordPress, so don’t fear you’ll never have to mess with that headache. And, if you opt not to have a blog, then you won’t interact with WordPress at all. All Showit does is let WordPress do what they do best, organize and promote your blog. You can’t beat the SEO gains of a WordPress blog, so you’re getting the best of both worlds. A gorgeous, easy to use Showit website and a WordPress blog.
While you may be sharing the links to book stores or online retailers for people to purchase your books, you still may want or need an online shop in the future. Maybe you’ll add merch or host a retreat and need to sell tickets – and your Showit website will be able to handle that!
Showit seamlessly integrates with popular e-commerce platforms, like Woo and Shopify, providing a secure and flexible solution for setting up and managing an online store. While you can absolutely handle the edits and customization of your website on your own, I do recommend working with a professional designer (like me!) to set up your online store.
You can absolutely build an SEO-friendly author website with Showit. The platform gives authors control over many of the on-page SEO elements that matter, including page titles, meta descriptions, heading structure, image alt text, URLs, and blog content. That means you can optimize your website around the topics your ideal readers are searching for, from your book titles and genre to your expertise, speaking topics, or other areas related to your author brand.
Showit also makes it possible to create a visually compelling, mobile-friendly website without sacrificing the foundational SEO elements search engines need to understand your content. Of course, no website platform can guarantee search rankings; effective SEO also depends on the quality and relevance of your content, technical optimization, backlinks, and your ability to consistently meet search intent. But for authors who want creative control and a solid SEO foundation, Showit is a powerful choice.
I offer a detailed SEO Guide for Authors that comes included in all of my Author Website Templates. There are so many ways your Showit website can help you rank high on search engines!
Nothing can make you more frustrated than tech troubles. I feel like that’s a “truth universally acknowledged.” And that is why Showit’s customer service makes it into my specialized list of why I love Showit so much.
When you have a question or can’t figure something out, you can immediately hop onto a chat with a real, live human! They are genuinely so helpful and nice and can walk you through your tech trouble. Plus, they love a GIF, especially if it’s from The Office or Parks & Rec.
If you’re trying to set your author website up for long term success it’s completely natural that you’d want to compare some of the most popular website platforms. So, I’ll answer a few practical questions: Which platform is easier to use? Which is better for SEO? Which gives you more design control? Both platforms can create excellent author websites, but they are built around very different approaches.
For most authors who want a beautiful, easy-to-manage website, Showit is the better fit.
For a long while WordPress was kind of the “it” website platform, but for all that WordPress does many things well, it is one of the most difficult for non-tech professionals to design on.
Showit combines extensive visual design freedom with a straightforward editing experience, allowing authors to customize their website without needing to manage code, themes, or a complicated collection of plugins. WordPress is more flexible from a technical standpoint, but that flexibility can also mean more maintenance and a steeper learning curve.
Showit wins here because it has all the design flexibility you could want but is easy enough to use that you don’t have to pay for continued design maintenance. ALSO, if you want to blog, Showit utilizes WordPress’ blog system so you’re actually getting the best of both worlds.
Heck yes. Yes, Showit is generally easier for non-technical users to manage. (Ahem, no coding needed!) Its visual editor lets authors make many design changes directly on the page, while WordPress websites can involve themes, plugins, settings, and other technical considerations. For an author who wants to update a book page, change a photo, promote a new release, or make a homepage announcement without calling a developer, Showit offers a particularly approachable experience.
I’ve had several clients say that it feels like the website equivalent to Canva.
Showit and WordPress can both be used to build SEO-friendly author websites. WordPress offers an extensive ecosystem of SEO plugins and advanced customization options, while Showit provides access to the essential on-page SEO controls authors need, including page titles, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, and image alt text. Neither platform automatically ranks better simply because of the technology behind it. Your content quality, keyword strategy, technical SEO, backlinks, and ability to satisfy search intent all play a much larger role.
So, essentially, both platforms have set you up with the ability to succeed with SEO ranking. However, the difference to me is that on WordPress you’ve got to download, learn, and integrate multiple SEO plugins, while on Showit you can simply type in SEO settings like title, meta data, etc directly from your design area.
This depends on what you mean by customizable. WordPress offers enormous technical flexibility through themes, plugins, and custom development. Showit, however, gives authors exceptional visual control without requiring that technical expertise. If by customization you mean being able to create a unique layout, move design elements where you want them, and build a website around your specific author brand, Showit can be the more user-friendly choice.
If you’re a non-coding author who wants to create a platform that feels beautiful, unique, and is built for your growth strategies, I would recommend Showit.
Choose Showit if you prioritize custom design, ease of use, low technical friction, and control over your author brand. Choose WordPress if you need advanced functionality, extensive plugin options, or highly customized development. For the typical author who wants a professional website they can confidently manage themselves, Showit is my preferred choice.
Authors often compare Showit vs. Squarespace because both platforms make it possible to build a professional website without extensive coding knowledge.
The biggest difference is how much control you want over the design. Showit is designed around visual freedom and highly customized page layouts. Plus, I find it’s back end where you would design the website to be much more user-friendly that Squarespace’s maze of overlapping menus.
For authors who want a highly customized website that reflects their books and personal brand, Showit is often the better choice. Squarespace is an excellent option for getting a polished website online relatively quickly, but it has so many more limitations on how individual pages are designed. That can reduce your options for growth and marketing funnel strategies. Showit gives authors more freedom to create a site that feels completely unique while still being built for growth.
Both Showit and Squarespace can support an effective SEO strategy for an author website. Both allow you to optimize important elements such as page titles, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, images, and website content. The more important question isn’t which platform has a magic SEO advantage, but which platform allows you to consistently create, optimize, and maintain useful content for your target audience. And to me, Showit makes it so much easier to handle your on page SEO.
Both platforms can support blogging, so it really comes down to what you want to get from your blog. If blogging is primarily a way to publish articles, resources, and updates that support your author brand and SEO strategy, either platform can work. Showit’s advantage is that the blog can be incorporated into a highly customized overall website design rather than forcing the entire site to follow a rigid visual system.
Showit is the better author website platform because of it’s WordPress blogging incorporation, design freedom, and easy drag-and-drop design platform. You can incorporate website templates on both platforms which is even more helpful. I’ve found that even websites built from templates however look much more original and unique to authors brands and their goals.
Choose Showit if you want greater creative control and a website that can be designed specifically around your author brand. For authors who consider their website an important part of their marketing and brand identity, Showit is our preferred platform.
Your website remains a reflection of your brand, storytelling, and perspective. To keep you looking and operating at your best, Showit is absolutely the best choice for an author website. Its intuitive interface, customization capabilities, and SEO prowess make it the ideal platform for authors. Get you a gorgeous, strategic website and then get back to writing!
Showit is one of the best website platforms available for building a professional, memorable, and SEO-friendly author website. Its combination of creative freedom, easy editing, professional design capabilities, and strong SEO foundations gives you as an author the flexibility to create a website that grows alongside their careers. Instead of being limited by a rigid template or spending your time managing technical details, you can focus on what matters most: connecting with readers and selling your books.
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Having been a visual designer for over 10 years, I know that every part of a brand (even the parts that are often unseen) deserve to be expressed with honesty, beauty, and joy.
I am happiest standing behind the scenes, creating every design and detail for focused and intentional business owners. When I’m not designing website templates, brands or illustrations, I’m getting my glitter shoes metaphorically muddy with my own artistic pursuits.
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