Showit vs Squarespace: What’s the Best Website Builder for Small Business?
When you own an online business, your website is truly the storefront of your company. That’s why choosing a website platform is a big decision! You’re not only choosing the tools that you’re building your storefront with, but how you’ll be able to build it.
That’s why today, we’re setting two of the top choices amongst freelancers and creatives head to head: Showit vs Squarespace.
What’s a website builder?
Website Builders, otherwise known as Content Management Platforms, are software platforms that allow non-techie people create a beautiful website without having to touch a line of code.
It gives you a way to design the main pages on your website, like the about and home pages. They also allow you to write and publish blog posts, share photo galleries and more based on your business’s needs in an easy and organized way.
There are quite a few leaders in the website platform space, some include:
- Squarespace
- WordPress
- Showit
- Wix
- Weebly
- Shopify
- and more!
Each one has its positives and negatives, so it’s really about choosing what works best for you.
However, there’s two that tend to be utilized the most by virtual assistants, freelancers and online business owners: Squarespace and Showit
That’s why I decided to focus on these for our comparison today.
Honestly after working with both, I don’t think there’s a wrong decision either way. They’re both great systems that will allow you to create a beautiful, client friendly website.
But there are some pros and cons to each that might make one a better fit for you than the other. So let’s talk about them!
Importance of choosing a great website builder for your small business
There are a few considerations that go into every small business owner’s website platform choice.
I’d wager a bet that you have at least one of these running through your head right now.
The first is the ease of use. How easy is it to actually get in there change something? If it’s a nightmare just to login and swap out your new headshot or to add a new testimonial from a recent client, that’s going to get old fast.
Small business owners often manage their websites themselves, even if they paid a designer to create it initially. They are the ones going in and making those small tweaks here and there. So it’s important that it’s easy to manage on a day to day basis.
It’s also critical that the platform can grow with you as your business does.
When first starting out, you only need those core website pages like your home, about and services pages. But three years from now, you might need a products page, opt-in landing pages, and a blog feed. So the website platform that you choose has to be able to grow with your business without needing to switch later.
Last but not least: Is it pretty?
We all know at this point that having a beautiful (or ugly!) website directly reflects on your business’s reputation.
People trust good design and if your website looks like it hasn’t been updated since 2001 because your website platform hasn’t kept up to speed – you’re going to see that in your bottom line.
Let the games begin: Squarespace vs Showit
Ease of Use
Showit
The Showit design interface is very user friendly! The only thing I don’t like about the platform is that it’s more difficult to setup from the beginning because it operates in conjunction with WordPress. So you really have to learn two systems instead of one from the start. However, once you get through that initial hump, the design interface and navigation is easy to get the hang of without a huge learning curve. Just keep in mind that you’ll always be managing both showit and wordpress with a Showit website.
Squarespace
Squarespace is also extremely user friendly! The benefit they have is that because it’s an entirely closed platform (meaning they handle everything within their own systems) you can literally go to squarespace.com, design a site and launch it just by following their guided, step-by-step process. The user navigation when working to make updates is also very minimal and simplified as well. So it’s easy to understand what you need to navigate to when you’re making changes and redesigning.
Winner in this category: Squarespace
Design Capabilities
Showit
One of the biggest features that Showit has is complete design freedom. You can literally drag and drop an individual hexagon shape or logo anywhere on the screen and it will stay there, just like an art canvas. So the options are truly limitless with what you can do on their system. If you need something that is entirely unique to you, Showit gives you the capacity to make it happen.
Squarespace
You are a little more limited in your design freedom as their platform is designed with drag and drop content blocks rather than design elements (like an individual rectangle). You have the capability to make deeper customizations with CSS code, but that’s not always feasible for the average DIYer. However, I find that 99% of the most commonly used drag and drop content blocks are available and it’s rare that your needs aren’t met with what’s available already.
Winner in this category: SHOWIT
Template Availability
Showit
Showit has a wide variety of free and premium templates available on their website for use. So you can invest in a paid template that’s perfect for your business or make a free option work for you if you’re on a budget. There’s also a family of Showit website designers that sell custom templates that they designed themselves that you can take and implement on your site. This is most likely your best option if you aren’t a wedding photographer. Showit started as a system for the photography industry, so a lot of their free templates are targeted towards these creatives rather than Virtual Assistants, Coaches, etc.
Squarespace
Squarespace also has a wide variety of free templates available directly from the company. However, I find that they have a wider range of industry templates as they’ve served a broader customer audience for a longer period of time. So they have free template options for people other than just photographers. There is also a huge community of Squarespace website designers who create their own beautiful, customized templates that you can purchase and use. So you’ll definitely find what you need!
Winner in this category: Both! You’ll find something pretty regardless!
Blogging Navigation
Showit
Unfortunately, this is one area that Showit doesn’t cut it for me. Since their system utilizes the WordPress framework (which is great on it’s own!) you have to login to WordPress to manage your blog. This is completely doable, but it gets a little old when you’re a beginner and you have to learn a whole second interface just to manage your website design and your blog.
Squarespace
I have found Squarespace’s blogging interface extremely easy and straightforward to use. They have a normal blog thread with drafts, scheduled posts and published posts (like WordPress does!). So you can see everything you’re working on from one spot, including your primary website design, where in Showit you can’t. It’s really easy to find within your Squarespace navigation, too!
Winner in this category: Squarespace
Customer Support
Showit
In the effort of being totally transparent, I haven’t had a ton of experience working with Showit customer service. However, the few times that I have – They’ve been incredibly helpful. The response time was quick and they understood and handled my concerns with really strong communication. You can feel confident that you’ll get any tech support you need from their team if and when you need it.
Squarespace
I’ve definitely had a lot more hands on experience with the Squarespace support team than I have with the Showit team. However, my communication with them has been wonderful as well. They’re more than happy to sit and walk you through your issue step by step until you get it worked out.
Note: Both of these companies understand that the majority of their user base is DIY or self-managed website owners. They’ve both done a great job facilitating a high-level of support for the beginners (read: tech impaired) that utilize their website builders most.
Winner in this category: It’s a tie!
Mobile Optimization
Showit
Showit has the unique ability to customize the mobile version of your website independently of your desktop design. This allows your mobile site to be the best it possibility can be. This is one of the major benefits of the complete design freedom Showit’s builder allows for. You can look at your desktop and your mobile designs side by side and tweak the layouts of your pages to work for both. Even if they end up being really different!
Squarespace
Squarespace has great mobile optimization capability as well. However, it’s a little more set in stone than Showit’s platform. There are pros and cons to this. You won’t find yourself tweaking both your mobile and desktop designs every single time you make a small change like you will with Showit (which gets old fast). But your Squarespace mobile design might not be 100% perfect because of Squarespace’s automated mobile optimization feature. Don’t worry though, I’ve never seen a Squarespace mobile site that was anything less than great and it requires zero extra effort on your part to make it that way.
Winner in this category: Showit
Need for Coding + CSS
Showit
This is another situation where Showit’s extreme design freedom truly allows you to have little to no need for coding customization on your website design. When you have the ability to place that one squiggly line three pixels to the left with the drag of your mouse – There’s rarely a need to code anything in.
Squarespace
Squarespace is also customizable on a deep level, but it does come with the effort of using some CSS code. Don’t let that scare you away though! Like I mentioned before, most start-up businesses and Virtual Assistants really need a just a handful of great drag and drop content blocks – all of which Squarespace does beautifully. It’s truly just that deeper stuff (that most newbies don’t even think about) that you need coding capabilities for.
Winner in this category: Showit
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Showit
This is the one area that Showit’s dependency on WordPress is actually a benefit. Since you manage your blog posts through WordPress, you can use the SEO plugin called Yoast. This gives you customized tips to make your posts for SEO friendly as you write.
However, there’s one big caveat to this. Google has some core requirements that they require for websites to perform well in search. There’s one of these core requirements that Showit’s system simply does not meet no matter what you change. I’m not going to get into the specifics of it all in this post because it’s way too deep to cover. But if organic traffic is essential to your business, know that Showit might hold you back because of this. I’ve even had clients switch away from Showit because of the effect it’s had on their organic traffic performance.
Squarespace
Although Squarespace doesn’t have any native SEO optimization tools like WordPress’s Yoast, you don’t really need one. They designed their website system so that it naturally has SEO optimization working in the background for you. Of course, you should still follow basic SEO guidelines when creating content on a Squarespace site for best performance, but you don’t have to worry about having any specific plugins to make it happen.
Winner in this category: Squarespace
Pricing
Showit
Showit currently has three different pricing tiers available. However, most small business owners and Virtual Assistants are going to need at least the middle pricing tier of $29 per month when paying monthly.
If you create content on a consistent basis and need the full control over your blog, you’ll more than likely need their highest pricing tier at $39 per month when paying monthly. This allows you to use any plugin on the WordPress side of your site to gain the capabilities you need.
Squarespace
Squarespace does a lot of E-Commerce websites and has set pricing for these options. However, I know that you and the other 99% of people reading this post won’t need or utilize that. So I’m not going to cover that today.
What you do need to know is that Squarespace has two main pricing tiers at $19 and $33 per month when paying monthly for standard websites.
If you desire anything more than a very basic website design, you’ll more than likely want to hop in at their $33 business plan so you have access to their premium content blocks and get a professional email address with your domain (XX@bytebodega.com)
Winner in this category: Squarespace
Squarespace vs Showit: What Website Design Platform Should You Pick?
Like I mentioned earlier in this post, I truly don’t feel that either is a bad decision whether you’re a Creative Business Owner or a Virtual Assistant.
I generally recommend Squarespace as my #1 choice of the two if I know absolutely nothing about your business. They have the easiest interface overall and can do anything anyone needs with average to great success.
Want more guidance? Okay I gotchu…
Choose Showit if the following align with your needs:
- Complete design freedom
- SEO optimization is not a priority
- You’re a wedding photographer
- You already know the wordpress interface
Choose Squarespace if the following align with your needs:
- You want to avoid a learning curve
- Need a one-stop-shop solution
- SEO optimization is important
- Budget-friendly is a must
- Beautiful design capabilities (without nitty gritty customization)
Alright my friend! So what are you going to choose? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this Squarespace vs Showit Battle below!