At some point, website building stopped feeling creative – and started feeling like a series of small, inexplicable obstacles that shouldn’t have been obstacles at all. I wasn’t unclear about my business or my brand. I had a mental image of the kind of site I wanted, a sense of the design and feeling I was aiming for. But getting any platform to cooperate with that vision?

That was another story.

Layouts fought back. Small changes turned into disproportionately big problems.
Every time I tried to adjust one thing, something else shifted in a way that made absolutely no sense. What should have been a straightforward process slowly turned into frustration, self-doubt, and a growing sense of, why is this so $%#! hard?

I wasn’t incapable.

I would have been perfectly capable if the tools had met me halfway.

And that, more than any side-by-side comparison or feature chart, is why I chose Showit: it was the first platform that didn’t make the design process feel like a technical negotiation. 

Showit finally let the creative part actually be creative – without the sense that everything was going to break if I breathed on it wrong.

A Brief (and Slightly Traumatic) Website Platform History

I actually started way back with a WordPress blog, and I loved it. Writing, publishing, tweaking posts – it all felt intuitive and strangely empowering. But building a full website was something else entirely.

So I tried Squarespace. (We didn’t last long.)

The grid felt rigid, like everything had already been decided for me. I could move elements… but only within its preferred boundaries. And no matter how carefully I arranged things, the final result always looked a little DIY – and not in a charming way. In a “this doesn’t match the level of my work” way.

It wasn’t wrong, exactly. It just wasn’t the intentional, elevated experience I saw in my head.

Convinced I simply needed more flexibility, I went back to WordPress.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time was that WordPress sites are really a stack of systems: a parent theme, a builder layered on top of that, plugins layered on top of the builder, and updates layered on top of all of it. I started with the Divi parent theme, then eventually switched to Elementor. Technically impressive, sure – but the learning curve felt like a test I hadn’t studied for.

Nothing was straightforward.

If I wanted to nudge an image slightly to the left? Code.
If I wanted to layer one image over another? More code.
And if I finally found the right snippet after an hours-long Google search and pasted it in, something I hadn’t even touched would break.

I spent more time trying to save money by DIY-ing my site than actually building my business.

I’ll be honest – there were tears. More than a few. Just out of the kind of frustration that builds when your ideas are perfectly reasonable and the software insists on disagreeing.

Finding Showit Felt Like a Deep Exhale

When I first came across Showit, I remember seeing a video titled something like “Learn Showit in 30 Minutes.” 

I actually laughed out loud. After everything I’d been through, the idea of learning any website platform in half an hour felt… optimistic.

But here’s the thing – it really is that intuitive.

For the first time, I could drag an image exactly where I wanted it. I could layer elements without worrying I’d collapse the entire layout. I could try something, undo it, and try again – without opening a single line of code or bracing myself for the ripple effects I’d come to expect everywhere else.

Everything made sense in the way you hope software will but rarely does. The learning curve felt more like a gentle slope than a climb, and the more I experimented, the more the process felt familiar – almost fun.

I wasn’t fighting the tool anymore. And when you’re no longer fighting the tool, your creativity has room to come back. 

For the first time in a long while, opening my website didn’t feel like stepping into a problem I needed to solve. It felt like stepping back into something I enjoyed.

That alone was huge.

“But Can I Actually Learn This?”

This is usually the real question – and honestly, it’s the one I asked myself too.

The truth is: yes. Especially if your goal isn’t to become a developer, but simply to manage your own site without dreading the process. Showit works visually. What you see on the screen is what you’re building. You’re not translating ideas into code or trying to understand the logic behind someone else’s system. You’re designing in real time.

Is there a learning curve? Of course. Anything new has one. 

But this is the kind of curve that feels reasonable – the kind where you can update text, swap images, adjust layouts, and customize pages without feeling like you need to whisper a prayer before hitting “save.”

And if you do get stuck, Showit’s help chat is actually helpful. Real humans. Thoughtful answers. People who genuinely want you to understand what you’re doing. I’ve since met some of the people who helped me through chat, and yes – they’re exactly as kind as they seem.

That level of support matters more than most people realize. It turns “Can I learn this?” into the much better question:

“How far can I take this once I’m comfortable?”

Why Those “Easy” Platforms Didn’t Stay Easy

A lot of website platforms are marketed as beginner-friendly. Clean. Simple. Easy to use. And in the beginning, they usually are.

But that ease often comes with boundaries you don’t see right away – the kind that only reveal themselves once your eye sharpens, your brand evolves, or you want something that isn’t already baked into a template.

Those platforms work beautifully… as long as you stay inside their rules. As long as you place things where they expect you to. And most importantly, as long as your ideas stay modest.

The moment you want to adjust spacing, layer elements, or build a layout that doesn’t already exist, that ease starts to disappear. What once felt simple now feels oddly restrictive, like you’ve hit the ceiling of what the platform believes you’re capable of.

Showit doesn’t remove the need to make decisions – it removes the unnecessary obstacles. You still get structure, but you also get room to experiment. You can try something, undo it, try again, and refine without worrying that one small tweak will set off a chain reaction.

That balance is what makes it sustainable.

Not just easy at the beginning – but easy to grow with.

The Unexpected Bonus: WordPress Blogging, Without the Headaches

One of the things that sealed the deal for me was realizing that Showit uses WordPress for blogging.

I’d always trusted WordPress for that part of my business. Blogging is what it was built for – and it shows. The editor is intuitive, the publishing flow makes sense, and the SEO tools, plugins, and structure behind it are unmatched. It’s the reason so many content-heavy sites rely on WordPress as their backbone.

The trouble had never been WordPress blogging.

It was WordPress website building.

With Showit, I didn’t have to give up the part that actually worked.

My posts still live in WordPress – with all the SEO advantages and content tools that come with it – but the design and layout live in Showit. Which means every article, case study, or blog post appears styled, cohesive, and fully on-brand, without me wrestling with themes, builders, or accidental layout shifts.

It’s the best of both worlds: the power and reliability of WordPress where it matters, and the freedom and ease of Showit everywhere else.

Having all of that available – while still being able to create a site that feels like my work and is genuinely easy to maintain – was, honestly, heaven.

The Mobile Editor That Finally Made Sense

And then there was the part I didn’t expect Showit to get so right: the mobile editor.

Designing for mobile had always felt like a separate, slightly hostile activity – something I had to fix after the “real” design work was done. Every other builder I’d used treated mobile as an afterthought, and editing it felt like trying to rearrange furniture in a room that refused to stay still. One change on mobile would topple something on desktop, or vice versa.

It was the part I truthfully dreaded – the endless back-and-forth between the builder and my phone, knowing whatever I fixed in one place would almost definitely break somewhere else.

Showit ended that entirely.

Designing desktop and mobile side by side – simultaneously, intentionally – was almost disorienting at first. In a very good way. I could adjust sizing, spacing, even entire layouts without worrying that the other version would unravel. I could design mobile as its own experience, not a compromised echo of the desktop site.

It worked so well it genuinely surprised me. After years of bracing myself before tackling mobile edits, having them work so smoothly and naturally felt almost indulgent.

And honestly? It was one of the first times my jaw actually dropped while learning Showit. The difference was that stark. In every other builder I’d used, you designed in desktop first and then crossed your fingers, hoping the mobile version didn’t collapse into something unrecognizable. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it did.

These days, when roughly 65% of browsing happens on phones, great mobile design isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s critical. Being able to create a mobile experience that feels intentional, polished, and genuinely aligned with your brand… without fighting the platform to get there… changes everything about how you approach your site.

Once you’ve felt that kind of ease, it’s hard to go back to anything that treats mobile like an afterthought you still have to fight for.

Why I Keep Choosing Showit

At the end of the day, I keep choosing Showit because it supports the way I work. It lets me design the way my brain thinks – visually, intuitively, without unnecessary friction. I can build what I see, adjust what I can almost see, and experiment without worrying that the whole thing will fall apart.

It doesn’t demand a workaround mindset.
It doesn’t make me choose between design and ease.
It just works. In all the ways that matter.

And if you’ve ever felt like your website platform was complicating things that should be simple, or making you question your own abilities, I want you to know two things: you’re not imagining it, and you’re not the problem. Some tools create resistance by default. Others remove it.

Showit has consistently removed it for me.

If you’re curious and want to see how it feels for yourself, Showit offers a 14-day free trial you can explore without any pressure. You’ll get a few starter templates already installed, plus the (now very un-laughable) “Learn Showit in 30 Minutes” video – which genuinely delivers on what it promises.

And if you decide to keep going after your trial, you can use my code to get your first month free.

No pressure.
Just options – and support – for when you’re ready.