The differences between Showit and Pixieset
There are so many solutions out there for your website, and two of the most popular ones for photographers are Showit and Pixieset. It’s not easy knowing the best one for you. The internet is also full of advice and recommendations, many based on affiliate links or just giving you a “use xxx” kind of answer without any real reason as to why they think so.
To make a good decision, you need to start by asking yourself what’s most essential for you when it comes to your website.
This is not only a blog post about helping you select between Pixieset or Showit. This is a blog post that will help you make a decision that aligns with how you run your photography business and let you easily see the differences between Showit and Pixieset.
What are the differences between Showit and Pixieset?
As a web designer using the Showit platform, it’s obvious which one I prefer. So I will start and say that I will always recommend Showit.
But this post is here to make it easy for you to understand why.
Not only why I think it’s a better platform but also to help you feel confident about the choice of website platform for your photography business.
Because selecting between Showit and Pixieset is a decision that should be from a place anchored in the foundation of your business. And a decision that aligns with the purpose of your business.
I’m sure you are wondering what I’m talking about.
We are all at different stages of our business journeys. You can just have started out, or you can have been in business for a long time.
No matter where you are, it’s the goal you have that is what should help you decide what platform is the best for you.
Do you want to run your business as a side hustle that will give you some extra money, or is it your dream to take it full-time?
Once you know your goal, all your business decisions (not just the ones regarding your website) should be taken with that goal in mind.
What I mean by this is that when you run your photography business full-time, you will have higher demands on your website than if it’s your side hustle.
Do you have the right money mindset?
But most of us dream of taking our business so far it can go. And to really see growth in your business, you can’t play small.
You need to invest in yourself and your business. A classic quote is that “It takes money to make money”.
Why am I mentioning this?
It’s because many photographers I am in contact with are afraid of expenses. And often decide to go the less costly way, even if we are not talking about big amounts of money.
I have all respect for everyone that’s on a tight budget. I’ve been there myself, trying to cut every possible expense. But I also have a history of redesigning my photography website five times since I started my photography business. And that experience tells me it would have been more cost-effective to pay for the better platform from the beginning.
The truth is that I thought Showit was way too expensive and ended up with a platform that only cost me $5/month. But I can’t tell you how many hours I spent trying to fix that website. Only to end up unhappy anyway.
And with that said, it can sound a bit harsh that I’m telling you that if you don’t change your mindset from playing small, you will never reach the level of success you dream about.
I mention this as there is a price difference between using Showit and Pixieset (more about pricing later on in this post). Even if Pixisiet has a free option, I’m bold enough to say that the difference is like pennies in the bigger picture because your website is that important for your business.
Your website is your business’s most important asset.
As a web designer, I see the website as a business hub. It should be the center around which all other parts of your business should circle.
Your marketing should help drive traffic to your website. Potential clients will there have all information needed. And when they have booked you, they can be served via your website as a part of your client experience.
It silently works for you 24/7.
And such an asset is nothing you should be cutting back on. It’s an investment that will pay off in the long run.
What do you want from your photography website?
All website platforms out there will give you a website.
But to be pleased with your website, you need to know what you need from your website. This can be a bit difficult, but a good start is to review your current website. What are the good things and the not-so-good things? Is it something you are missing, and is it something you really like?
When you do this review, you will notice that most of it will focus on the design. If it’s pretty or if you think it looks good, which is an important part. Having a gorgeous website is something that will affect you more than you think. Read more about it here.
But what’s really making one platform a better option for your photography website over another is the impact you have on design and settings.
This is very easy to know for me as a web designer and very hard to find out yourself. But this is also why I’m writing this blog post, to guide you and help you see the differences between Showit and Pixieset.
How is it to work with the Pixieset editor?
Pixieset is very similar to the website giant Squarespace. You can start with a theme and then customize it. If you want more information, add blocks already designed for you.
Colors and fonts are set separately and will show up depending on each block’s settings.
It’s very easy, and the design Pixieset provides is beautiful. You can have a very professionally-looking website when you are done.
It’s also very simple as you drag and drop what you want without design skills.
Even if it’s very nice to have everything laid out for you, it can also be a bit frustrating when you, at some point, want to change anything.
If you want to change the font of the text, you need to change the type of text, and here the problem with SEO comes.
Each type of text gets a text tag, which should be used throughout a page to make it easier for Google to read your site and determine what it’s all about. So when strategy and design are kept together, one can’t be optimized. Sometimes it does, but you don’t have any control over it.
Another thing that you don’t have control over is the mobile design. And even if you have design skills or not, this will frustrate you. The mobile design will render from the desktop design, and in a world where most people use their phones, it’s important that the design on mobile devices is well-optimized.
The editor is very simple to work with, but the lack of control will affect your strategy and SEO results.
How it is to work with the Showit editor?
The Showit editor can best be described as a mix between Photoshop and Canva. You can add elements exactly where you want them, similar to Canva. At the same time as you are working in layers as in Photoshop.
I won’t lie and say it doesn’t have its learning curve. But once you understand how everything is connected, it’s not difficult to work with.
Another thing that is actually very unique with Showit is that you can design the mobile version completely independent from the desktop version.
An example of this being very useful for you as a photographer is when it comes to vertical and horizontal images. Horizontal pictures often do not look good on mobile and the other way around due to their opposite sizes.
And as a photographer, it’s extremely important that your pictures are shown in the best way possible on your website. Something Showit makes that easy.
As a designer, I, of course, love total freedom. Not only because I can design it exactly how I want it, but at the same time, have complete control.
As mentioned before, regarding the Pixieset editor, design and functions go hand in hand. At Showit, I can control both individually. Which is a win both from a user experience for your site visitors and from an SEO perspective.
I always recommend starting with a template. Showit offers free ones that are more simple. But investing in a paid template is something you never will regret. It will save you so much time and keep away frustration as everything is already done for you. It’s a matter of updating text and pictures.
And purchasing one of mine, the template comes with both strategy and are SEO prepared. Plus an SEO guide that helps you with the final settings.
How SEO-friendly are the two website platforms?
I’m sure you have stumbled over comments like “xxx is not good for SEO”. Let me be clear, SEO is nothing that comes within a platform. Most of your SEO success comes from the structure and settings, which is independent of which platform you are using.
But, different platforms make it more or less easy to work with SEO structures and how to add settings like page titles and meta descriptions.
No matter if you are using Showit or Pixieset, you need knowledge about how SEO works or hire someone to do that for you in order to rank (start with downloading my free SEO guide here)
A website platform that is great for SEO will not automatically make you rank in Google searches, and it’s possible to rank when using a platform that does not have a reputation for being good for SEO.
When we now talk about Showit and Pixieset, we have one good and one bad platform. Showit makes it easy for you as you have total control over all settings. Plus, the blog via Showit runs via WordPress, the world’s most powerful blogging tool.
On Pixiesiet, you can’t give headline tags in design blocks where you enter the text via the menu on the left instead of directly into the editor, as done when using slideshows, for example.
This is not optimal, as each title on each view in your slideshow will get the H1 text tag. For optimizing your pages for SEO, each page should only include only one H1 tag. Using a slideshow can make you have as many H1 tags for this page as you have slides (as you can’t decide this yourself), which will confuse Google with the result that you will not rank.
Another thing is that the text tags are decided depending on what of your text options you are using. If you want to use a specific font, you can’t choose individually what text tag that text will have. And again, you can end up having several H1 tags if you use your title font, for example.
And even if Pixieset is a gallery service from the beginning, how the galleries are structured within the premade designs is not optional.
Preferably you should have a portfolio showing an overview of your galleries, and then every gallery should have its own page to be optimized for SEO. This can, however, be made within Pixieset, but it requires manual work.
On the other side, in Showit, it requires the same manual work to have the portfolio and galleries structured. Unless you are working with a template that has this solution already (like all of mine).
When the templates for Pixieset do not include this solution at first glance, it’s easy to keep working on the pre-designed solution.
What’s the difference in blogging between Showit and Pixieset?
Something every photographer should do is blogging. You can read more about why and also how to do it here.
Blogging is something that really boosts your SEO if it’s done right. And you can blog via both Showit and Pixieset.
At Pixieset, it’s already there, and you can start publishing blogs. It’s very easy and works basically as on the other pages. You add predesigned blocks, and then you have some general settings for the post itself.
For Showit, you must choose the payment plan with a blog to start. You also need Showit support’s help to set up the blog for you.
It’s because your Showit blog runs via WordPress. In my opinion, this is both good and bad.
Good because WordPress is the most powerful blogging tool out there, and you can utilize the benefits from that.
But I can’t say that the WordPress editor is especially user-friendly. It took me a long time to become friend with it.
But in the end, even if it’s a struggle to get the first blog posts out there, I prefer this setup because you have total control over everything. Such as title tags etc., which, as you might have understood by now, are crucial for SEO.
What does the pricing for Showit and Pixieset look like?
The difference between Showit and Pixieset when it comes to pricing is not that big, despite the fact that Pixieset is having a free option.
But that free pricing option comes with minimal options. You can’t connect your own domain, for example.
Moving on to heir next tier ($8) is less than half the price of Showit’s lowest fee ($19).
But even if you are paying $8 for your website at Pixieset, you are still very limited when it comes to font selection. Plus, your website will come with the Pixieset bandage. Which makes your website feel very unprofessional and can give an indication that you are not taking your business seriously. Especially if your goal is to grow your business)
So when it comes to pricing, both platforms have an equal price for the same level of service ($18 for Pixieset and $24 for Showit).
However, Pixieset has a bundle of their whole suite (galleries, website, studio manager) for $38 (at the compared level to Showit)
And I get it. It’s very affordable and smooth to have everything in the same place. But I don’t want you to let this be your crucial decision.
And with this breakdown, the conclusion is that it’s not a big difference in money when you look closer at what you get for your money.
My opinion is if you are going to use Pixieset for your website, you are going to need their highest offering to be able to optimize your website as much as possible.
But yet again, this depends on where you are on your business journey. If you just have started it as your side hustler, go for the free version. But once you begin to think of taking your business beyond that, you also need to start to level up when it comes to the tools you need.
Conclusion about the differences between Showit and Pixieset
As a web designer, I will always recommend Showit. It’s a platform that gives you as much control as you need without any need for coding.
If you just have started out and are on a tight budget, yes, Pixieset is great, as it offers a free option and also makes it easy for you to design your website.
Pixieset is not a horrible platform, it will serve you and you can get a beautiful website without enormous effort.
But out of my experience and the photographers I have been working with, you will come to a point where you want more of your website.
It’s not easy to know the difference between all the platforms out there, especially regarding the technical parts beyond the design and look of your website.
But I repeat, don’t let the pricing guide you when making a decision. Focus on your goal and what should be the better option in the long run. Which I hope this blog post has helped you with.
Let me help you
And if Showit feels like the right platform but building the website yourself really doesn’t, I also create custom Showit websites for newborn, maternity and family photographers, including the design, copy and SEO.
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