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Website Design

5 Best Ways To Customize Your Showit Template

Showit Website Design Photographer

April 6, 2022

Oh hello!
I'm Chelsea.
Passionate design partner for creatives who want more than just aesthetics. We're here to craft a strategic, intentional online home for your brand.

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So you’ve finally purchased your dream Showit Template, and now want to want to (rightfully) make it yours – to tell your story and be authentic to who you really are. 

Let’s be honest. Nowadays, your dream clients and audience fall in love with not only your area of expertise – but also your personality and style of work. You do the work to connect with them through social media and newsletters, and now want to be sure that your presence carries over to the place where you will send them most: your website.

Your website should be an extension of yourself, and a place that you confidently call an online “home”. Throughout the Showit platform, you’re be able to seamlessly use tools that are designed to ensure that your template looks and feels like a custom website design. Trust me, I’ve been absolutely mindblown by countless Madewilde template buyers who completely transform the original template into a website home that is reflective of their brand. (Plus, they have the conversion stats to prove that the design brings in the client bookings!)

Here are my top five tips for customizing your Showit Website Template:

1. Write Your Copy Beforehand

When you have a shiny Showit Website Template on hand, it can be incredibly tempting to jump right into adding your imagery and branding elements. Many of us (cough, cough – I relate) are rather visual creatives, and this has been the moment that you’ve been waiting for.

However, I cannot stress enough that writing your copy beforehand is an absolute must. The amount of words that you have for your website will ultimately determine the layout of your pages.

Regardless of whether or not you have outsourced your website copy (we love small businesses supporting each other!), organizing your words for the Showit Template will be extremely beneficial in streamlining the process. One of the best ways to do this is in these three steps:

  1. Organize your copy by page: Home, About, Services, Products, etc. This will correspond with each of the pages in your Showit Template.
  2. Once you have these, structure your copy into titles, headings, paragraphs, and standout quotes. Having these will make it easier for you when transferring them into the designated areas on your website.
  3. That’s it! Simply copy and paste your words into the Showit Template, and adjust the spacing to fit everything.

When your copy is completed and added to the website, you’re ready to step into the visuals.

2. Optimize Your Imagery

Imagery is oftentimes the reason for a fast or slow website loading time. This affects your score within Google rankings, and competes with people’s ever-shortening attention span.

Showit recommends that you use JPEG files for any imagery that is placed within your website template. While these are automatically optimized by Showit, you can help this process along by doing this on the front end (hint: I’ve found that this consistently speeds up page loading). A few tool options to use in this process include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, and TinyPNG.

Once you have optimized the size of your imagery, add a title to each image that is relevant to your business niche. This will help your website’s SEO and let the imagery do the work for you.

The last (and best) part: upload your photos to Showit and place them into your website template! This step really brings the website to life, and breathes your story into the pages.

3. Hide (Don’t Delete) Canvases

Many Showit Website Templates (including my own shop’s) are built for your brand’s growth over time. This means that, while some of the canvases may not be relevant to your business today, they may come in handy later on.

For example: not everyone has a podcast. However, the majority of my website templates include a podcast page so that you have it available as your brand grows. The same goes for individual canvases on a page. Some may be helpful to you now, and others will be beneficial down the road.

Because of this, be sure to hide (rather than delete) any canvases that aren’t in use. This way, the website template layout is preserved for you. You’ll be able to easily access and “unhide” the canvas or page, once it becomes relevant to your brand.

4. You’re Not Alone: Ask For Help!

Just as we weren’t meant to do life alone, we also weren’t made to be alone when building within the Showit platform. That’s what the Showit support team is for!

When you build a website on Showit, you get access to a true dream team. They are an incredibly friendly bunch who genuinely care about the success of your website. The best ways to receive support from them include:

  • Madewilde Help Center: I’ve compiled a list of the top essentials to save you some time.
  • Showit Help Center: A space for email, blog posts, and emergency requests.
  • Showit Chat: This is accessible in the bottom right corner of your website editor.

And of course, if you purchased a Madewilde Showit Website Template – you are always more than welcome to send me a message. You’re a part of the family, and I really mean that with my whole heart!

5. Let Your Story Shine Through

Your clients and audience are there for you. Your story, voice, and personality matter more than anything else!

Once you have your copy, imagery, and branding elements added into your Showit website template – go freely with your own customizations. Remove imagery placeholders if you don’t need them. Add canvases for extra testimonials. Create shapes, borders, and icons for your content within the Showit website editor.

The final touches will make the website template truly yours. It allows you to stand out from the sea of websites that are currently online today, and attract your ideal clients + audience.

A great Showit website template should give you the foundation for a seamless user experience, and then empower you to customize it into your personal online home.

Quick disclosure: If you happen to sign up for a service from a link, I may receive a small commission as an affiliate. All products are genuinely used in Madewilde’s daily studio life, and I wholeheartedly recommend them to you as a friend. My puppy thanks you for funding his ever-growing toy collection!

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