Website Design Tips Archives - Elizabeth McCravy

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Thanks to our blog sponsor, Christian Healthcare Ministries (CHM)!

CHM is a faith-based alternative to health insurance—at about half the cost. You can enroll at any time and join a proven, faith-based solution that’s both reliable and affordable.

My family has been CHM members for over 5 years, and their maternity care shared all expenses for all 3 of my children’s births—from c-section to home birth. They even shared costs for key parts of prep and postpartum care, like pelvic floor physical therapy and lactation consulting.

Beyond birth, CHM has helped us through ER visits, surgeries, and procedures. Those bills were shared by other CHM members, leaving us responsible only for our monthly contribution.

I can’t recommend Christian Healthcare Ministries enough! It’s more than financial help—it’s also spiritual support when you need it most.

Learn more here! And if you’d like to hear our full story, check out episode 305 of The Breakthrough Brand Podcast, where Adam and I dive into our experience with CHM.

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8 SEO Blogging Strategies for Google (and ChatGPT) that Most Biz Owners Skip with Kara Duncan

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 10 minutes

I am so thrilled to introduce you to Kara Duncan from The Kara Report on today’s podcast. This episode is absolute gold. I just finished listening to it myself and walked away with a to-do list full of important SEO updates I need to make in my own business. I was literally taking notes as I listened. In this episode, Kara is sharing eight SEO blogging strategies most business owners are skipping—or, honestly, may not even be aware of. I personally learned a ton from what she shared.

These are not the usual SEO tips you hear everywhere; Kara goes deep and gets really specific. She’s someone who has helped me rank better on Google for my website and especially for blog posts related to this podcast so trust me, she knows her stuff.

Fun fact: Kara is actually also on my podcast team. She’s been my podcast manager for about a year and a half now. When I came up with the idea for these guest episodes during my maternity leave, I pitched it to her and added, “By the way, would you also be one of the guests?” I had several topics in mind that I thought she’d be perfect for (and this one especially stood out!).

Kara’s been a long-time listener of the show, a Showit template customer, and she’s also taken my Podcast Success Blueprint course. Like I mentioned, she’s now a vital part of my business and is so sharp when it comes to blogging and SEO.

She also talks about how blogging is changing because of AI, and I really loved her perspective on how we can adapt our strategy as business owners (even if you’re not using AI yourself).

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 314!

Hey there, friends! I am so excited to be coming at you from this side of the mic. I'm Kara, and my business is The Kara Report. We’re a content marketing agency that specializes in done-for-you blogging and Pinterest services for creative business owners just like you!

I also have the absolute privilege and delight of helping Elizabeth behind the scenes with some of her podcast work, so I’m really excited to be chatting with you today. And hey - we already have one thing in common: we both love The Breakthrough Brand podcast.

Today, I’m going to share eight things to consider with your SEO in 2025. These are underrated SEO blogging strategies or things that most business owners tend to skip over. I feel like we’re all trying to diversify our marketing in 2025, right? We’re trying to stop relying so much on algorithms and if you’re not there yet, trust me, it’s only a matter of time. We’re all working on building more authority and creating marketing that lasts. Let’s get started!

1. Introduce yourself at the top of your blog post with a keyword that explains what you do.

This sounds so simple, but you’d be surprised how often I see blog posts where, if I landed on the page without context, I would have no idea that the writer offers a product or service. It might look like just another informational site.

Instead, I start every blog post with a quick intro to the topic, then I introduce myself. For example: “Today I’m sharing X, Y, Z. By the way, I’m [name], and I specialize in [what you do].” Then I move into the main content and end with a clear call to action.

Including that quick intro does two things: First, it adds another keyword to the page, which is great for SEO. But more importantly, it reminds us that a blog post is often someone’s first interaction with your brand.

A lot of us design our websites with the assumption that visitors will follow a linear path: they’ll land on the homepage, read the about page, check out the services, etc. But that’s not always how it works. If you’re blogging regularly or using SEO strategically, people are often landing on a blog post first (totally bypassing the homepage).

And because we live in a world overflowing with content, a lot of blogs are purely informational. They exist to make money through ads or affiliate links. But that might not be your goal. You might be trying to sell a service, a digital product, or something else, and your blog post might not be doing that effectively if you don’t introduce yourself.

So, that’s the first of the SEO blogging strategies, and honestly, it’s also a human-first tip: Always introduce yourself in every single blog post. Yes, it might feel repetitive to you, but it’s not for your audience. Because again, for many people, this will be their very first touchpoint with your brand.

2. Clearly Lay Out What You’re Going to Cover At The Beginning

The second thing I recommend doing when you're writing a blog post is to clearly lay out what you’re going to cover right at the beginning. I already mentioned having an introduction, but this goes a step further. Too often, we end up burying the lede.

It kind of reminds me of looking up recipes on Pinterest back in 2016—remember when you'd have to scroll through eight paragraphs about someone’s life story before you even got to the actual recipe? It’s the same thing with blogs today. We're still doing that, and people just don’t have the patience for it.

So, in your first paragraph, make the topic super clear. Then, go one step further and include a little list of what you're going to cover. For example: “In this post, we’ll go over X, Y, and Z.” Make sure those points are keyword-rich and specific (not vague!).

Because here’s the thing: if you write something like “The #1 secret business owners miss,” no one is typing that into Google. It might be catchy, but it’s not helpful for SEO.

If you don’t want to manually list the topics, you can also use a tool like Rank Math’s table of contents plugin (or another one compatible with your platform). It can automatically pull in your headers to generate a table of contents, which helps surface your keywords at the top of the page.

3. Optimize Your Images

The third thing I want to talk about is optimizing images. Some of these SEO blogging strategies might sound basic, but they really matter.

I recently read a study that said 78% of SEO issues are image-related. That’s huge! And I think it's because image optimization seems like a small detail—something we either don’t know how to handle or don’t think is that important. But images actually play a big role in helping Google understand what your content is about.

That’s true whether you’re a photographer with tons of images in a blog post, or a business owner who includes just a few. So here are three easy ways to optimize your images:

Rename your image files before uploading.
Don’t wait until after they’re uploaded—some website platforms let you rename them afterward, but that doesn’t always carry through in a way that Google recognizes. When renaming, use dashes between words, like: website-copywriter-nashville.jpg
You can use keywords related to your overall niche or the specific topic of the post.
Add alt text that describes the image.
Alt text is important for accessibility and also gives you an opportunity to naturally include a keyword. If you're a photographer and you have, say, 100 images in a post, don’t overdo it. Maybe aim for around 20% of the images to include keywords. For fewer images, maybe 40%. Keep it natural and descriptive, not just stuffed with keywords.
Resize your images before uploading.
This keeps your site loading faster and improves user experience. I like to resize based on width—800 pixels wide is usually a good starting point for blog layouts. You can always adjust if things look blurry. A tool I recommend is bulkresizephotos.com—it's free and really fast, especially if you're not using editing software like Lightroom.

So to recap: Rename, add alt text, and resize your images.

4. Add Internal & External Links

The fourth thing that’s often underrated but is super effective when talking about SEO blogging strategies is using links strategically. There are three types of links to think about for every blog post:

External links to high-authority websites.
If you reference a study or helpful resource, link to it—just make sure it’s a trustworthy site (not spammy). Google sees this as a credibility signal.
External links to your other online platforms.
Send people to your Instagram, Pinterest board, YouTube channel—wherever else you show up online. These are technically still external links (since they’re not on your domain), but they keep people in your orbit. Pro tip: always set external links to open in a new tab so you’re not sending people away from your site entirely.
Internal links to your own content.
Link to your services page, your contact page, your email opt-in—anything relevant.
Also, don’t forget to link to older blog content! If you've been in business for even a year or two, you likely have a lot of helpful posts you can resurface. Link organically when it makes sense. For example, if you mention optimizing images and have a whole blog post about that, link to it right there.

Think of it this way: people reading your blog are likely in different stages of their buyer journey. Some are ready to contact you now, others are just starting to realize they might need your help. Linking in different ways throughout the post helps serve all those readers and keeps them engaged.

5. Add The Most Important Keywords For Your Website To Your Footer

Now, this won’t make sense for every business, and sometimes you’ll make design choices that don’t prioritize SEO—and that’s okay. You don’t want your site to feel robotic or overly optimized.

But if you have a high-value blog post, say, a software review you’re an affiliate for, or a post that explains your unique process, it can be smart to include that in your footer. Even just a short list of key blog posts is helpful.

We see big software companies do this all the time. Their footers are full of links to help with SEO, and while most small business owners don’t need to go that far, you can still apply this strategically.

And while you're editing your footer, it’s also a good idea to include a short, 1–2 sentence description of what you do. This helps both with SEO and with clarity for first-time visitors.

And if you’re a location-based business, definitely make sure your location is included in your footer. The footer is kind of an SEO hotspot because it appears on every single page of your website. That makes it a great place to be intentional. It’s worth investing a little extra time there because it can have a real impact on your overall SEO.

6. Increase Your Word Count

Now, I’m not saying you need to write a 5,000, 6,000, or 7,000-word blog post—but I do think we need to push ourselves beyond the typical 500 words. A good sweet spot is usually somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 words, depending on how competitive the keyword you're trying to rank for is.

However—and this is important—if you’re using AI to help write your blog posts, there's a good chance the tool (like ChatGPT) may just bulk up your content with fluff to hit a word count. And we don’t want that. Humans don’t want to read it, and search engines are smart enough to see through it.

So, here are three simple ways to add both word count and value to your blog post:

Add a Frequently Asked Questions section at the end.
With the rise of AI, people are getting very specific in their searches. Instead of just searching “website copywriter,” someone might now search for “website copywriter who’s been in business five years and works with service-based businesses.”
Including FAQs helps you target these long-tail keywords and answer real questions your audience might be asking.
Introduce the topic more thoroughly.
For example, if your post is “8 Tips for Better SEO,” don’t just jump in—start by briefly answering, “What is SEO?” It adds useful context, naturally includes keywords, and gives real value to someone who may not be as familiar with the topic.
Explain why the topic matters.
This helps frame the content and engage the reader. For instance, I could say: SEO is important because I want you to get leads for your business or sales on autopilot. I want you to invest upfront and reap long-term rewards. I want you to build a system that doesn’t rely on constantly fighting the algorithm.
Adding this kind of "why it matters" context can make your blog post richer and more compelling—and it gives you more space to use relevant keywords naturally.

7. Pin Your Blogs on Pinterest

Pinterest isn’t exactly a social media platform, it’s more of a search engine, and it’s a fantastic place to build free backlinks to your website.

Even if you don’t want to dive into a full Pinterest marketing strategy, I still recommend creating a few graphics for each blog post and pinning them to relevant boards. Be sure to use keywords in your pin descriptions too.

Doing this sends great signals to Google:

People are linking to your content
People are clicking on your content
Your business is active across platforms

All of that helps your SEO. So even if Pinterest doesn’t feel like a major platform for your business, or if your audience isn’t super active there, it’s still worth using it for the SEO benefits alone.

8. Use Bing Webmaster Tools

And then last but not least, I told you I was going to share something super fresh and relevant to SEO in 2025—and that is: signing up for Bing Webmaster Tools and making sure to submit your site there.

So, as of right now, ChatGPT is actually using Bing’s index instead of Google’s to search the web. If you have Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools is basically their equivalent, just for a different search engine.

A lot of times when we talk about SEO, we’re only talking about ranking on Google. But the reality is, in 2025, we want to rank on multiple platforms. We want to rank on Bing. And more importantly, we want to “rank” on ChatGPT.

There’s more and more evidence that people are heading to ChatGPT first to search for things. And if ChatGPT is searching Bing’s Rolodex, we want to make sure that we’re on Bing’s Rolodex.

And hey—if you’re not using Google Search Console, just as a quick aside—it’s super easy and free to set up. It’s basically like Google Analytics, and you definitely should have it. You’ll be able to see how your website is performing SEO-wise, what keywords you’re ranking for, what pages are showing up, and all of that good stuff.

So definitely worth setting up both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

Also, when you publish a new blog post, you can submit it directly to these search engine tools to get your content indexed faster. Google is pretty good, and I should say Bing is pretty good, at finding your site organically, especially if you’re a regular content creator.

But if you’re not publishing consistently, if you’re new to blogging, or if your content has been a little inconsistent, then submitting your blog posts to these tools manually as you publish them is a great way to make sure your site isn’t getting ignored.

So that’s kind of my last of the SEO blogging strategies (and one that’s super relevant for blogging and SEO in 2025!).

Recapping What You Need To Know About SEO Blogging in 2025

Okay, I don’t know about you, but that just flew by for me! So I’m going to recap really quickly with my eight SEO tips:

Always introduce yourself at the top of a blog post.
Include a list of what you’re going to cover or a table of contents that includes your keywords.
Optimize your images every single time.
Add internal and external links throughout the page.
Put your most relevant blog posts in your footer.
Increase your word count (but make sure it’s valuable).
Get your content on Pinterest.
Submit your site to Bing Webmaster Tools.

That seriously felt like it flew by!

Thank you so much for spending time with me. Again, I’m Kara, and my business is The Kara Report. I also have a podcast, very creatively named, The Kara Report. I’d love for you to come hang out with me there.

If you head to my website, you’ll also find my private podcast called Build It Once, Get Found for Months, where I break down more of how I do this: how I create content that you build and invest in upfront and that can keep working for you over the long term.

I’d love to see you there. Thank you again, and a big thank you to Elizabeth for having me—this was so much fun!

Links Mentioned:

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The post 8 SEO Blogging Strategies for Google (and ChatGPT) that Most Biz Owners Skip with Kara Duncan appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 Tiny Website Updates to Maximize SEO and User Trust in 2025

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The new year means it's a great time to make some small website updates to your existing website. So in this quick episode, I'm going to share a few things for you to do to your website for the new year to keep things up to date and fresh, both from an SEO perspective and that improve the experience for prospective clients. Let’s get into it!

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Alright, so first, these three things that I'm going to recommend you do to kick off the year are going to take you less than five minutes, okay? This is seriously quick stuff to go through real fast and by the time you're done listening, you'll be ready to go.

1. Update The Copyright in Your Footer

This is one of the easiest website updates you can make! If you have the fun little copyright © in your website’s footer, you likely have last year’s date on it. So, you’ll want to update this to the current year (and make sure your starting year is included too!). So yours may look like 2015-2024 and you want to change that last number to 2025 now.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that you have automatic rights to the content you create on your website, so YES you can add this little © and the year without filing any government paperwork and stuff like that. It’s your right.

To get the little ©, just google copyright C and find an icon then you can copy/paste it into your website with ease! Or just copy the one I have here: ©

Updating it communicates to views that you actually update your website. Right at the beginning of the year it matters less, but say it’s June of 2025 and your footer still says 2024, people will think you just aren’t updating stuff and trust purchasing from you less!

This is sooo important as online businesses, like I know so many of you are. For me, people buy on my website often without ever speaking to me or contacting me first and this little change shows that my site is updated.

On most sites this is something you change ONE PLACE and then it’ll update everywhere. Or, if you use Kajabi or Shopify, this is automatically done for you on most templates because it’s built into the site design and is not something you customize yourself.

2. Update Any Dates On Your Website

This happens more than you think! There are so many DATE opportunities on a website. For example, you might say “I’ve been in business 5 years”, and now it’s 6 years. Or, maybe you put that you’ve served 100 happy customers, but you haven’t updated that in a year so now it’s actually 125.

Even subtle things on your about page, like if you mention your own age or your children’s ages, usually don’t get updated often enough and the new year is a great time to do it.

As someone who has a really large website, for me this looks like going on every page and looking for these things that need tweaking!

And actually, when I redesigned my website last year, I thought ahead about this and I made an area in ClickUp where I added parts of my website that have dates (and I put due dates on things so I know when something needs updating!).

For example, I have:

Numbers on my media page
Quiz results page (in my about me I have my current number of kids… which needs updating soon!)
Booked Out Designer coaching page
Meet the designer on my template pages (says the number of years I’ve been in business)

But my advice for you would be to just LOOK for date problems that you can fix and I’d consider too where you can use years instead of dates to make this something you have to do less overall. For example, say you started your business in 2015 instead of saying you’ve been in business for 10 years. But sometimes this is unavoidable.

3. Update Your Plugins and Delete One’s You’re Not Using!

This is another simple one! If you’re a WordPress user (Or, Showit user since we blog via WordPress), you want to make sure your plugins are up to date.

In addition to just going in and updating, it’s also worth checking to see if there are any plugins you actually aren’t using. Then, deactivate and then delete those! Having active plugins you’re not using and don’t need will slow down your website.

In WordPress, in your dashboard in the top left corner you’ll see an icon with a number and a little arrow in a circle and that’s where you click to update. I just did this myself and had 18 to update and a few I needed to delete! You likely do too!

If you’re not sure if it’s really being used, try deactivating it and seeing if anything changes or ask your designer.

Website Updates for the New Year

These three website updates will take you just a few minutes and make a big difference on keeping your website fresh and clean for the new year ahead. If you want to do some additional things (that take more time), consider things like updating your testimonials, your portfolio work displayed, and checking that links are all working properly on your website! You can also make yourself a little area in your project management software like I did to help manage these tasks more easily for next year!

Make Website Updates with Add On Templates (or Grab a New Template!)

That’s it, friends! I love bringing you these short and tactical episodes, and I hope you take some time to review your website and make these changes.

If, as you’re going through your website, you find yourself thinking, “Hey Elizabeth, this is great, but I don’t love my website and don’t even want to work on it right now,” that’s okay! If you’re feeling like it’s time for a new website for the new year, or if you just want to add some new pages to make your current website feel more elevated and functional for where your business is now, check out my website templates.

Just recently—about a month ago—I launched four incredible new add-on templates:

A Favorite Things page template
An Affiliate Marketing template
A Link in Bio template for Instagram
And my personal favorite, a Timeline template.

The timeline template features advanced Showit design elements that you can use to enhance your About page, Work With Me page, or wherever you want to showcase your processes and story.

Plus, there’s the Landing Page Bundle, the Speaker Template, and the Quiz Template. These add-ons can really help you take your website to the next level. And, of course, I also offer full-site templates if you’re ready for a complete overhaul.

That’s it for today, friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and more importantly, I hope you take action on it! I’ll be back next week with another episode.

Links Mentioned:

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Thanks to our sponsor, Christian Heathcare Ministries! CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry and is a faith-based alternative to traditional health insurance. My family has been using CHM for our healthcare for 4+ years now, and we couldn’t be more pleased. As a business owner we all know healthcare is outrageously expensive with CHM you can save money on your budget and know if a medical situation ever arises CHM will be there to take care of you and share 100% of your eligible bills. Learn more here!

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How to Choose the Best Showit Template for Your Business (WITH EASE)

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Are you feeling overwhelmed trying to choose the perfect website template? Maybe it’s your first, maybe it’s your twentieth. You love certain elements in one template and different features in another, and you’re finding it impossible to choose the best Showit template for your business.

Is this you? You’ve spent hours flipping between browser tabs, analyzing every page of every template, and asking others for opinions—only to feel more unsure. If choosing a website template feels challenging, you’re not alone. It’s a big decision, and it’s normal to feel overwhelmed. I’ve been a website template designer on Showit for six years, and this is one of the most common questions I get from potential customers: "How do I choose the right template?"

If this sounds like you, I want to help. In this episode, I’ll share straightforward tips to make selecting a template easier. You might even learn a few things about templates that can clarify your decision-making process. Often, the difficulty in choosing and indecision comes from not fully understanding what’s customizable, what’s fixed, what’s easier to change, and what’s more challenging.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 294!

Okay, before I get to these simple seven tips to choose your Showit template, I want to say if you're listening to this live-ish think congrats my friend, because you have found the best time of year to buy a template for my shop! It’s Black Friday time and my sale officially starts on November 22nd, 2024, and it goes until December 2nd. It's the biggest sale of the year so if you want to choose a Showit template, this is definitely the time to buy. Get all the details here!

1. Focus On the Layout and Structure of the Site More Than the Colors and the Business It’s Modeled For

The first thing to think about when choosing a template is to focus on the layout and structure over colors or the specific business it’s modeled for. Layout and structure are the core elements you’re actually buying in a template. Colors, fonts, and images can be easily swapped out later—I'll talk about that later. And as for the template’s "business model," you might see a template designed with filler content for, say, a business coach, even if you're a photographer. This doesn’t mean it isn’t a great fit for you. There’s a good chance the components you need are all still there; they’re just presented in a different style.

So, pick the layout that feels right for your business. Everything in Showit is fully editable. If you haven’t used it before, think of it as more similar to Canva than a rigid website builder. Unlike some platforms where it’s challenging to move elements like logos or headers, Showit allows you to rearrange everything as you like.

That’s why I think it’s important to focus on layout and structure: these are the elements you probably don’t want to alter much, which is the main reason you’re choosing a template rather than building from scratch.

For instance, the layout of the contact or about page is already optimized. You might make minor adjustments—remove a section or reorder something slightly—but the core layout is what you’re investing in.

2. Changing Out the Colors Is Insanely Easy (So the Colors Should Not Be Part of Your Buying Decision).

Next thing to know as you choose a Showit website template, is that changing the colors on your website template is super easy, so don't let that hold you back from choosing a design you love. While I obviously love the colors I choose for my templates, they really don’t need to be a big part of your decision. If you happen to find a template and think, “Wow, I love these colors!” that’s awesome. But if you like a template's layout but think, “This is way too bright; I want something moodier,” don’t stress. You can change any color to suit your style in just a few clicks.

In Showit, you can adjust all the colors through a feature called "Global Design Settings." Most templates use about eight colors, with white almost always included. So really, you're working with seven main colors, usually set from darkest to lightest. For example, color slot one might be black or dark gray, and slot eight is typically white.

To change colors, just swap out the hex code (a color’s code for the web) or use a color wheel to find your shade. Hit save, and voilà—the template updates wherever that color appears! So if pink was set as color number three and you change it to blue, every pink element instantly becomes blue. It’s fast and super cool.

If you’re torn between templates because you love one color palette but prefer another template’s structure, reach out to us! For example, if you like the colors in the "Jena" template but prefer the layout of the "Gabby" template, email us. We’ll happily send you the color and font info for one template, so you can easily apply it to the other. It takes just a few minutes, and you get the best of both worlds without compromising on design.

3. Changing the Fonts Is Also Easy, but Will Require Some Realigning and Resizing

Third thing to know when choosing the best Showit template for your business: changing the fonts is also easy, though it requires a bit more tweaking than colors. Like with colors, you’ll find font settings in the same "Global Design Settings" area, where you can switch them out with one click. This change will apply across your entire website wherever that font appears.

However, fonts do render differently, so after you change them, you may need to adjust the alignment and sizing in certain areas. For example, if the title font size in the template is set to 40, it might fit perfectly with the original font but look huge or awkward with a new font. So, while fonts are easy to change, you’ll likely need to make some tweaks afterward.

That said, you might want to weigh fonts a bit more in your decision than colors. My templates usually come with free fonts, but when I use a paid font, I always include info for purchasing the web license, typically under $40. So, you won’t face any surprises or need to spend much extra. Just be mindful that, if you’re shopping around, some templates could require expensive paid fonts, which might unexpectedly add to your overall cost.

4. Think About Your Own Content and Photos in the Template and Which One Feels Like a Better Fit for You

Next, think about how your own content and photos will look in the template. Imagine how the structure and fonts align with your brand style. Photos especially play a big role in shaping a template’s vibe, and people don’t talk about this enough. Try to picture your brand photos in the template—whether you’re planning a photoshoot or using existing images—and see if they’ll complement the design.

If you want inspiration, check out my showcase page. You’ll find hundreds of examples of customers using various templates. Plus, you can filter by template name or industry to see how people have customized colors, fonts, and photos. For instance, if you like the "Gabby" template, you can browse examples to see how others have adapted it for their brand.

Remember, it’s all customizable, so if there’s one small thing you’re not in love with, it’s probably an easy fix.

5. Ignore The Order Of A Page, How a Page is Being Used, Or If A Specific Page is Missing

Let me explain this one. Remember, while you're focusing on layout, structure, and fonts, don’t get too hung up on the exact order of sections on a page, how each page is used, or even if a page you need is missing from the template.

Here’s why:

Showit templates are organized by pages, and within each page are sections called “canvases.” Canvases are like building blocks for each page—they’re super easy to move around, delete, or even transfer to different pages. So if you see a service page, for example, and think, “I’d rather have this section at the bottom,” no problem! You can drag and drop canvases in seconds to customize your layout.

Also, don’t worry about how the template uses a page. If the service page, for instance, has filler content geared toward a different service, just remember that everything is customizable, and you can make it your own.

And if you need more pages than the template includes, Showit lets you add as many as you want. For example, if you want separate portfolio pages for each photography style but the template only has one, you can duplicate that page layout as many times as you need. You could even take the structure of your About page and repurpose it for something entirely different, like a podcast page.

In short, you have complete flexibility. Even though a template might start with 15 pages, you’re never limited to that. With Showit, customization is easy and nearly endless!

6. Take My Website Personality Quiz

If you’ve been following the podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me mention this, but I created a quiz to match you with a website personality profile. Based on your results, you’ll get template recommendations that fit your style, plus free Canva templates and a discount code for my Showit templates.

The quiz is designed not just around your personal style but ALSO around what will appeal to your clients and potential customers. I also include tips for each personality type to help you get the most out of your choice.

As a bonus tip, if you’re stuck between a few templates or need more personalized advice, feel free to email us! We offer awesome support, even if you’re not a customer yet.

7. Sometimes Choosing a Designer Who You Trust and Like Their Style Is a Good First Step

Seventh tip for picking the best Showit template: sometimes it’s easier to choose a designer you trust first, and then select from their templates. Rather than searching through all the Showit templates available and feeling overwhelmed, finding a designer whose style you connect with can narrow down your options and make the process a lot smoother.

Not all good-looking templates are functional behind the scenes. Some cheap templates may look amazing but are tough to customize or lack quality in design. Plus, many of these templates don’t support good SEO, don’t come with training, and offer no customer support. This can turn a seemingly great-looking template into a frustrating purchase. I talked about that last week!

By starting with a designer you trust, you can feel more confident that their templates are well-made, user-friendly, and come with the resources and support you need.

Choosing the Best Showit Website Template

In the end, choosing the right template comes down to picking a designer you trust, finding a layout you like, and remembering that most other elements can be customized.

When all else fails, go with your gut. If there’s a template you keep coming back to, even if another one has a single feature that’s tempting you, trust your instincts and go for the one that feels right.

Lastly, I also have a Black Friday surprise for you! If you’re excited to shop but don’t feel ready to pick a template by the end of the sale, you can use my new “Save Now, Choose Later” option. This lets you lock in Black Friday discounts and bonuses but delay your choice until as late as 2025! So, you can take advantage of the deal now, enjoy the holiday season, and pick your template whenever you’re ready. For more info, head here!

Links Mentioned:

Get on the waitlist for my Black Friday sale

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The post How to Choose the Best Showit Template for Your Business (WITH EASE) appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 Things to Do Before You Buy a Showit Website Template

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Today, we're talking about the things you need to do before you buy a new Showit Website Template. And I'm really ideally talking to people who are newish business owners or if this is one of your very first websites. However, if this is a rebrand for you and you already have a Showit site, some of these things will apply to you as well.

But first, good news—there's actually not a ton that I feel like you need to do because so much of the actions can take place once you have already purchased your template! But I also know choosing a template can be a really difficult decision, especially as a new business owner because there are so many steps you're taking at the same time (from choosing a business name to choosing what you'll offer and how you're pricing things).

It's easy to understand why buying a Showit website template could feel like another one of the many, many tasks on your big to-do list. And so as a website designer myself of many years (I've worked with clients on custom sites, I've sold thousands of templates at this point, and I'm considered a top Showit designer), today I’m going to share three things I think are worth doing before you buy your template.

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1. Research if your competitors are using the exact same template that you’re eyeing.

This is a huge one that you won’t typically hear template sellers talking about. A problem with templates is that it’s a template, therefore other people may end up with a website super super similar to yours. And this is absolutely ok in theory! And I really mean that.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a website template that is popular and used by many! And a thing I love about Showit templates is how customizable they are compared to templates on other platforms, like Squarespace for example, so you can have the same template and still have it not look like any one else’s.

However, something I’ve seen too many times is when your exact competitor is using the same big shop template as you.

For example, let’s talk about photography businesses. It’s fine if Kaitlyn in Idaho uses the same template that you in Arizona are wanting to use, but y’all are both local wedding photographers. Potential clients are going to notice that, right?

However, issues do come up when y’all are serving the same market with the same template. This is also something where not buying from the absolute biggest template shop can help because you’re less likely to have this issue with medium to small shops.

And if you don't know who your competitors are, there's a lot of different ways you can figure that out through Google searching keywords that you're going to use on your website if you are a location-based business, searching things around that location, and things like that and see what other people are using.

Plus, before we go to the next one, I just want to add here that I actually don't end up seeing this as an issue happening with my template customers because my shop is both small enough that not everyone on the planet is using my templates and also my shop serves such a wide variety of business types. So I do have wedding photographers buying my templates, but there's also copywriters, podcasters, content creators, social media managers, bookkeepers, counsellors. There's just such a wide variety that you're way less likely to end up with someone in your exact niche, in your exact market with the exact same template.

2. Get brand photos done OR have a video/photo plan for your website.

Basically, think about the photos and videos for your website ahead of time. This doesn’t mean you need everything finalized perfectly! But you need to start thinking about it because what you decide will help you in template selection.

For example, maybe you know you want to use some stock video/photos — I have an episode about using stock photos without looking cheesy here. Maybe you want to get fresh photos to match the new website as part of a rebrand, or maybe this is your FIRST TIME EVER doing brand photos and you have no photos of yourself at all so you need to find a photographer and do a shoot.

I do think this is something worth working on and booking before you buy the template. Even if you just start thinking about the COLORS you want on your website. Not all images need to “match”, in fact that can look like overkill when they do, but you’ll want some of the main imagery to match your brand colors. If you want more advice on this, head back to episode 15 for tips to plan an Instagram photo shoot.

If you choose to go for stock photos, I highly recommend Haute Stock (and you can use code ELIZABETH for a discount on your membership!).

I truly believe a great website is a combination of the website design, the words you say, and then the photos. Those are really the three things you're combining together to make the way the website looks on the exterior so to speak. So this is something you do want to focus on and think about.

3. If you’re a new business, choose a business name and secure your domain name.

The Domain name is the URL at which your website lives. People type that into their search bar and your website appears. This is something you don’t buy from Showit, but instead you “hook up” to Showit.

So for example, my domain name is elizabethmccravy.com and so I bought that on GoDaddy, and that's where I host all my domains. But there's so many different places you can buy domains and domains are really low cost compared to things like your website hosting or buying a website template. I would say paying less than $200 a year for sure should be your expectation. And if you're seeing thousands of dollars or something, that means it's a really, really high value domain and you need to be aware of that when you're buying it. It might even be trademarked.

So anyway, doing this prior is worth it I think because it's simple to just set up and get it done. And it is an important part of starting a business and also naming your business, right? That's the not so simple step. Buying a domain is really simple, it takes about 10 minutes total, but naming your business can be such a huge process, but obviously such an important thing as a new business owner.

If you need help naming your business, make sure to grab my free guide on naming your business here, or head to episode 50 where I share some of the biggest mistakes when naming your business.

Should you buy a Showit template before you write the copy?

I thought about adding to start on website copy prior to buying a template, BUT changed my mind on that, because I think copy is so overwhelming for so many people that you’ll actually be better off if you have a template to look at to help guide your copy writing. If you find copy comes more naturally to you, it can be a good idea, but isn’t necessary, in my opinion.

What happens after you buy a Showit template as a new user?

If you buy directly from a designer like myself, you’ll purchase and then you’ll get a confirmation email, a receipt for your bookkeeping purposes, and some onboarding type of content to help you get started. You’ll also receive a “site key” that you will need to input into your Showit account to add the template.

This is seriously so easy. All you need to do is just make a free Showit account, then add the template. My templates actually come with video directions on how to do this if you need help (it only takes three minutes). I offer 1 month free of Showit for my customers and community too with the code “ELIZABETH”.

From there, you just start customizing your template using the training resources. Once you have it in your account, you start customizing your template using Showits resources or something from the Showit designer’s shop (for example, my template customers get access to my Showit blueprint course!).

Then once you're done customizing it, you hook it up to your domain name and you can launch it. You don't have to have everything perfect before you launch. Maybe you have all the key pages done, but you know you want to add some other pages later, you still launch it and you can keep editing it once you launch it. You can literally publish and re-publish your website a hundred times a day if you want to as you make updates.

7 Things to Look for in a Website Template

I need to do a whole episode on this, and this is not the most extensive list ever, but I was thinking just now as I outlined this, if I was going to tell someone just a short list of things to look for in any website template from any company, these are the things I would say. And I want to add to that my website templates, because I really care about offering the best experience and the best templates I can, to match all these boxes. So if you want to just shop templates that match these, head here.

Here are the 7 things to look for in a website template

Designed by a legit designer to where you can trust that things are set up well behind the scenes. You would be shocked by how many templates that you buy, that are $50 full site templates on Etsy and it's actually just so poorly designed on the backend, it's a nightmare. You'll never be able to customize it, and you'll never rank on Google. You need something legit on the backend, not just something pretty.
A design that you think your ideal clients/customers will find engaging and appealing. It’s not just about what you like. Think about your customers: Will they like this website? Will the design be engaging and appealing to them?
SEO-friendly. So you can do some things on your end actually to see if the website template is SEO friendly or not. I also think it's worth just asking the designer like, “Hey, do you design for SEO optimization?” See if they have other customers who found themselves ranking on Google after using the template.
Support and training. You may not need this if you’re already familiar with Showit, but if you feel like “I want help with this and I want good videos”, then that is something to look for, a shop that provides that kind of support and training.
300+ words on the home page. This is a more nuanced one, but sometimes website templates don't really have places for you to add copy. And you look at it and you're like start customizing. You're like, wait, I have words I need to put on my website, but it's all photos. So buying a website that focuses on words so you can actually sell your stuff… I think that's important.
A template that doesn't look too custom, because that it'll be hard for you to customize. So some templates feel like they're not templates at all and therefore it gets really hard to actually customize. I know that doesn't really make sense when I say it, but I promise you when you see it, you'll know, you'll be like, oh yeah, Elizabeth said this, I feel this with this website.
Copy prompts. Again, if copywriting feels something like intimidating you, and you're not working with a copywriter, this can be helpful. Most templates are going to use some of that lorem ipsum text that's just like gibberish basically. That's normal. But what I really mean is looking for headlines. Sometimes even the first sentence of a paragraph kind of explaining like, “Hey, here's what you should consider putting here”. If you want a really strong example of what I'm talking about with that one, look at my sales page templates because I do that really intensely in those ones.

Sign Up For My Black Friday Sale

I want to say my Black Friday sale is just around the corner. And this is the biggest sale of this year and honestly is always the biggest sale I do every year. I'm going all out for this with super, super awesome deals. Plus, something new I'm offering this year that as you're looking through these steps of things to do before you buy a Showit template that might be interesting to you, I'm doing a save now choose later option for the first time, which basically means you can lock in the Black Friday deal and then choose your website template before February 1st, 2025.

I have all kinds of other stuff too, including some new template launches actually for new add-ons launching as part of Black Friday. So anyway, really, really excited about that. You guys know me, I love sales, I love marketing, I love launches. And Black Friday is such a fun time for me as a business owner. So you can hop on the waitlist here for all the details (and an extra day to shop).

Links Mentioned:

Get on the waitlist for my Black Friday sale

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Tune Into Episode 192: How to Use Paid Stock Photography to Completely Up Level Your Brand

Tune Into Episode 50: 8 Mistakes to Avoid When Naming Your Business, Course, or Program

Tune Into Episode 242: 3 SEO mistakes your website template might be guilty of without you realizing it

Tune Into Episode 201: SEO for Showit Hacks: Optimize Your Site to Be Found in 2023 with Sara Dunn

Not sure which template is right for you? Take the quiz!

The post 3 Things to Do Before You Buy a Showit Website Template appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

Do This ONE THING To Your Website to Increase Bookings, Revenue, and Email Sign Ups (Takes 30 Minutes or Less)

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 8 minutes

In this short episode, I’m spilling ONE thing you need to do to your website this week that will help you increase bookings, increase sales, increase your email sign ups, increase affiliate revenue — ALL OF IT. And the best part? Is that it will take you around 30 minutes (or LESS) to do. Sounds too good to be true? It’s not. I promise. But this is something I literally have never heard anyone else talk about YET is something I do regularly to improve my content. Let’s get into it!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

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Search for episode 291!

As this episode airs, I'm actually speaking today at Showit’s Spark conference about affiliate marketing! And this episode is actually a tip taken from that presentation. This tip, although shared in an affiliate marketing context today at Spark, really applies to ALL parts of your business. Here are the steps!

Here’s what you should do to your website to increase bookings, revenue, and email signups: Sign onto Google Search Console to find out which blog posts on your website are ranking well on Google and then improve those blogs drastically in some really specific revenue generating ways!

So, that’s the overview of what you’re doing. But I’m going to jump into the “how” for the rest of this episode but first, I just want to remind you that we want to work with what’s already working for you. Too often with content creation, it’s always “write a new blog”, “make a new Instagram post”, “record a new podcast episode”, etc. Most of the time though, we ignore the content that is already out there in the world working for us!

One of my best secrets to having a profitable business while working part time hours right now is THIS. Make what’s working, work better.

How To Do This to Your Website to Increase Bookings

First of all, use Google Search Console! It’s a great free tool by Google. Similar to analytics, but different. If you don’t have it set up, make sure to do that now!

Login to Google Search Console, and on the sidebar go to “Performance” > “Search Results” > then “Pages”.

Now, you’ll see your top ranking pages. For our purposes, you want to focus on the pages that are BLOG POSTS.

You can sort this to be top ranking blogs in whatever time period you want. I like to look at a longer timeframe, like over 3 months for example. You’ll see the clicks and impressions for each post, then you can click straight over to your blog post from there!

Now for how to update them.

Update Those Blogs On Your Website to Increase Bookings

Next, it’s time to choose which blog posts you're going to update. You can update all of them or just start with the first one. I get that updating them ALL starts to sound like a bigger undertaking.

I’d recommend starting with the one that relates most to actual things about your business. For example, you might have a post that ranks the BEST but isn’t going to be traffic that wants to buy from you at all, and that could be one to skip. Not always though, because I have a lot of motherhood/personal posts that rank well that I do make money from with affiliate links!

As you do updates, think about cold traffic versus warm traffic.

Here Is a List of Things You May Want To Update

1. Look at the images

Do you have more up-to-date or better photos you can add to the blog post since when you first published it? Look through the images, whether it's the featured images or just images that are in the blog post itself. Can you update any of them to make them better and more compelling?

2. Affiliate links

So this was a huge part of what I talked about in my Spark presentation, but update any relevant mentions of companies you're an affiliate for with affiliate links. So maybe in this well-ranking blog post you're writing about Showit versus Wix and you actually did not use your Showit affiliate link or Wix affiliate link anywhere in the blog post. That's a great opportunity. Hyperlink the text for whichever company you're an affiliate for (or if you're an affiliate for both) to that through your affiliate link. And you can also add a blurb about whatever your discount code is for it.

3. Add a Call To Action To Work With You

Add a call to action to work with you somewhere in the blog post. Maybe it's at the end, maybe it's at the very beginning, maybe it's mid post and you do a little call out. Add in a call to action to go to whatever page makes sense for working with you.

4. Add a Call To Action To Your Relevant Paid Offer

This one is similar, but add a call to action to your relevant paid offer. So for me, it might be a blog post that relates to stuff for designers where I say, “Hey, you're a designer looking to build an in-demand branded website design business, check out my course Booked Out Designer.” Maybe it's through a graphic, or maybe it's just text.

5. Add An Email Form Directly Into The Blog Post For An Opt-in That’s Relevant To This Post

The next tip for your website to increase bookings is to add an email form, like an email opt-in form directly into the blog post, ideally towards the top. So basically, look at your posts and see if you have a freebie already that is relevant, even if it's not a perfect match. Do you have anything that someone coming from Google might want? I bet you do!

Another thing you could even consider is whether or not you could make a freebie that compliments this well ranking blog post. Maybe you look at your freebie list and you're like, “wait, that would be awesome but I don't have any freebies that relate whatsoever to this blog post.” Maybe you could make one that compliments it (like a checklist or a workbook that goes with whatever the content is).

Adding the email form directly into the blog post has been one one website tweak that has just skyrocketed email opt-ins for me. And again, it's just making what is already working work better for you. I literally just add the opt-in and then you can literally see that web traffic and email opt-ins are coming from those blog posts.

6. Add An Exit Intent Pop Up Using a Tool Like BDOW!

An “exit intent pop up” would be when someone comes from Google and starts reading the blog, and then they go to leave for whatever reason, and then you have a pop up that's super specific to your blog post that encourages them to read something else or opt-in for something. BDOW! is a great tool for doing this (and not just this, like you can set something to pop up once they've scrolled to a certain percentage on a post, for example).

Real quick, I am an affiliate for BDOW!, and if you want to use my code, ELIZABETH, you can get 20% off your subscription. PLUS, I created a new form template for BDOW!. So if you're interested in trying this awesome email marketing tool, I made a form template so you can just add it to your account and customize it and have your first form. This could literally be the base for your exit intent popup. Head here to get it!

7. Add a Graphic To Promote An Offer

Graphics just embedded within the blog post can be really huge for making people take action towards something else. So again, this would open a new window, but maybe it's for an affiliate of yours, and the graphic is saying, “Hey, get 20% off,” you could embed that in the blog post. This could promote anything! But the idea is, the graphic stops the scroll and gets people’s attention.

8. Link to other relevant and more updated blog posts

Link to other relevant and more updated blog posts. So maybe this blog post that's getting a lot of traffic is not your most recent thing on this particular topic. You can link within your blog post “if you want to read more click here.” Encourage people to go other places and then maybe those blog posts better sell your services and things like that.

9. Update The Words

So first, I would encourage you to read this blog post. And then maybe as you read it, you realize like, wait, I have things to say on this topic that I didn't have to say back then. And again, this will vary depending on the post itself. But read it and decide what you could shift within your writing without hurting the SEO. So likely you'd want to avoid updating any major headings, but within your paragraph copy, see if there's something you can add or update.

This has actually been one of the biggest things I've done when I've gone and updated my old blogs that are ranking. Sometimes I will feel like, “Wait, I have a new perspective on this because I've changed as a person because my business has grown and I'm different than when I first wrote this thing that's ranking.” That’s normal and encouraged!

10. Add a Blurb About You

Add a little blurb about you to your blog posts on your website to increase bookings. So this could again be an interrupter within the copy or be something that happens at the very end of the post, but just add some information about you. Even something simple like, “Hey, thanks for reading this blog. My name's Elizabeth. Here's a bit about what I do. Click here to work with me,” with a photo of you. I think that can be really powerful.

To take it up a notch, you can also think about linking out to your social media. Or link to your About page or work with you page. But just adding some information to encourage this new “cold traffic reader” that came from Google to get to know you and your business better.

11. Link to Your Podcast or YouTube Channel

Next, link to your podcast or YouTube channel if you have one to encourage people to go over there too. So again, this could be at the end, this could be a button, this could be an interrupter in the middle of the post that says, “Hey, enjoying this blog post. You'd love my YouTube channel.” That sort of thing could be really, really awesome (and so easy to do!).

12. Add Images To It That Someone Could Easily Pin to Pinterest

Last but not least, add images for someone to pin to Pinterest. So this could be something you add just at the very end of the post (like one or two long vertical images) that are meant for someone to pin to Pinterest. Because again, if this post is ranking well, this might also be something where people are wanting to save it and pin over to Pinterest. So that can just be another way to optimize it.

Ready to Improve Your Website to Increase Bookings?

Finally, I want to just encourage you that you do not need to do all of those. In fact, if you actually did ALL of this in one post, your blog post would probably start to look kind of crazy. For me, I do have a wide variety of things that I do to update well-performing blog posts and what I do depends on the content that does rank well in my business.

Also know that this list isn't extensive. You might, as you start looking at your blog posts, think of something that I should have had on that list. I just want to encourage you to try this, set a timer for yourself and go update the content piece and then count it as done for now.

Links Mentioned:

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The post Do This ONE THING To Your Website to Increase Bookings, Revenue, and Email Sign Ups (Takes 30 Minutes or Less) appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 Things I WISH More People Understood About Their Website (From a Designer’s Perspective!)

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 5 minutes

What makes a great website? What makes a dud? Besides all the obvious things like don’t make your text too small, don’t use 1,000 fonts at once and things like that… What are the major keys?! No matter what you do in your work, if you have a website, you should ask these questions. Today I’m sharing 3 things that I consider top things to making a successful website, and people often miss them. I’m calling these “strong opinions”, but this could also be called “unpopular opinions” because these aren’t said enough. I hope this short and sweet episode gives you some business and website ideas to run with!

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Search for episode 257!

Strong Opinion #1: Copying an influencer's website will not give you their success; it will just give you a website that everyone obviously sees looks like "so and so's" website.

How many times have you been looking at someone’s website and thought to yourself “Wow this looks like Marie Forleo’s website!” or “Interesting… this is the same fonts and colors that Jenna Kutcher uses”, or “Lewis Howes site looks like this one.” As a designer, I see it all the time where the big-time entrepreneurs’ sites are everyone’s #1 inspiration.

And guess what? People have been loving their websites since early iterations that weren’t so beautiful and amazing because they love these people’s BRANDS. You may love the business they built, the success they have, the things they teach you, so you say “I want a website similar to theirs”!

Here's the thing: You're cutting your own brand short when you copy someone else's website. You have something special and unique to offer the world too, and it doesn’t look the same as their sites. (Whoever “their” is to you!). I've even had this with my own brand quite a few times where people reach out asking what fonts I'm using and I don't tell them because I really believe that you should figure out what fonts you want to use for your brand. Don't copy someone else's website because you want their success or because you just don't know what your own brand is yet.

So what I want for you and what I want for myself (and for my template customers!) is that when someone lands on your website, they feel your brand coming through and they're not saying in their head, oh, this looks like Jenna Kutcher's website.

So how do you take action on this? First, ask yourself what you like ABOUT the site specifically that you’re feeling inspired by. Do not consider this person's brand outside their actual site; look at the site itself. Do you like the way type is used? Or how things flow? How can you be your own person and be inspired by those things you love without being the same?

Strong Opinion #2: Simple websites with very few pages are amazing! You don't need a gazillion pages for your site to be incredible.

We often think more website pages = better results. But, when you’re just getting started, you may only need a few pages on your website, which means not using every page your template comes with. For example, my templates come with many pages, and that's not because you need all of them from the get-go. This is because I want you to have what you need to grow WITH your business.

I want the template you're investing in to be the site you're using years from now after you've gotten more clients, added more offers, started your course, made blogging a priority, etc. I want you to have those pages there to grow with you, but you don't have to use them all from the start and you might not even ever need them all.

For example, most of my templates have a "Ways to Work Together Page", that's basically an overview of your services. Maybe you never need that because you only have one main offer so you don't need a page with so many options. Maybe instead you utilize those different sections to create what you do need (that I've very strategically for you to go into other pages of your website). For example, maybe I have a section for your website viewer to schedule a call, but you repurpose it to link to a waitlist for your course.

If you look at your business and think, "I only need three pages," — that is ok. If you only need a Home page, About page, and Contact page - that's FINE! If you only need a sales page — that's ok! I've seen plenty of people do this with my sales page templates. So, don’t believe the myth that you need a gazillion pages to have a successful website!

Getting a New Website Live Fast

I also think too, as someone who's creating your website for the first time, this can take a lot of the pressure off and speed up your process of getting your site live so you can start making money from your website. If you're looking at your template and you're like, I have to get the blog set up, I have to get this call scheduler page and the contact page and all of this perfectly set up, that's a lot of pressure and it can feel a lot better to feel like, "okay, what are the essential pages I need to get started right now?"

Strong Opinion #3: You must have photos of yourself somewhere or your site will feel scammy!

I feel like MOST people agree with me on this - but it's still being missed on SO many of the websites I visit. You have to have photos of yourself somewhere on your website or else your site's going to feel scammy, illegitimate, not personable, and all other sorts of problems.

I know not everyone wants to or can invest in professional imagery with a brand photographer from the start, and that's ok! Relying on stock photography can work, but put yourself on your website too! You need to be on your site even if it's not the most “professional” image. Otherwise, it can feel scammy and cause you to miss the opportunity to let your audience put a face to the name.

Your face doesn't have to be front and center, but you need to be on there. To give you an example, the other day, I was searching for accountants and looked over different accountant websites, and I stumbled upon one that was using only stock images, even on their About page. I knew it probably wasn't a scam, but I did have to ask myself, "Is this legit? Where are the people who work here?" So, put yourself on your website — a great place to add a photo of you is on your About page and/or contact page.

So that’s it my friends — 3 opinions! I could do more and maybe we’ll do a part two later on. I appreciate you being here and reading until the end.

Links Mentioned:

Tune into Episode 192 to learn more about using paid stock photos with Haute Stock

Shop All of My Showit Website Templates

Not sure which template is right for you? Take the quiz!

Join me Inside Booked Out Designer

Join my FREE Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group

Showit Templates for Designers

Looking for amazing stock photography and videography? Check Out Haute Stock!

Thanks to our podcast sponsor, Haute Stock! Haute Stock is my favorite stock photo and video company. I've been a subscriber over 4 years now, and it's made my business' marketing both easier and more effective. I use Haute Stock images and videos for things like course and webinar slides, podcast promotional graphics and videos, on my website, for Reels and Reel covers, and so much more. You can get 15% off your Haute Stock subscription with the coupon code code: ELIZABETH at checkout or by clicking here!

The post 3 Things I WISH More People Understood About Their Website (From a Designer’s Perspective!) appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 Things You Need to Update on Your Website for the New Year (That Take LESS THAN 5 minutes!)

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes

A new year means it's a great time to make some tweaks to your website. In this episode, I'm sharing a few things for you to do for the new year to keep it up to date and fresh from an SEO perspective, make sure it’s attracting new clients and ensuring it works properly. These three new year website updates can be done in less than five minutes. Let's get into it!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 248!

1. Update the Copyright in Your Footer

If you have the fun little © in your website’s footer, you likely had last year’s date on it. So, you’ll want to update this to the current year (and make sure your starting year is included too!). For example, mine says: COPYRIGHT © 2016-2024 · ELIZABETH MCCRAVY, LLC.

This is one of the easiest new year website updates you can make and trust me - it has a huge impact on your conversion with cold traffic (nobody wants to buy from you if they aren't sure if you are still in business!)

So if you're thinking, "Wait, can I add a copyright symbol (©)?" Yes, you can! Adding that little © with the year you started through the current year is your right as a content creator.

To get the copyright symbol, copy and paste this one ©. If you have one of my website templates, the copyright symbol is already included in the footer. Just update the dates and you're good to go! This update is important because it communicates to viewers that you regularly update your website. If it's the beginning of the year, it's less critical to do it immediately. So if you're listening to this on the day it airs, it's okay to wait a week. But don’t let it be June before you realize you still have 2023 sitting in your footer.

Plus - on most sites this is something you change in ONE PLACE and then it’ll update everywhere (because your footer is usually a site canvas if you use Showit!).

2. Update Any Dates on Your Website That Have Changed Because of The New Year

So, for example, you might mention on your website that you've been in business for three years, but now it's actually been four years. Or perhaps you say you’ve helped over 100 customers but it’s been a while since you updated it and now it’s more like 300.

These “date” opportunities can be found all over websites. Especially on the about page so if you’re not sure if you need to update anything, check there first! Take some time to skim through each page of your website and look for any dates that need updating. Then, as you update, consider using years instead of specific dates to make it easier to maintain.

For instance, saying "I've been in business since 2015" instead of "I've been in business for eight years." This way, you can make your content more evergreen and reduce the need for frequent updates.

3. Update Your Plugins and Delete The Ones You’re Not Using

Okay, the third and final one, and this is another simple one that's so impactful for your website, but update your plugins and delete the ones you are not using. So if you're a WordPress user (or a Showit user since us Showit users blog through WordPress), you want to make sure your plugins are up to date.

In addition to doing the update, I want you to check and see if there are any plugins that you actually just aren't using. If you're not using it, deactivate it and delete it. Having plugins that you're not using and you don't need but are running activated on your website will slow it down. So that's really an important thing to check (and I think checking once or twice a year is perfect so this is a great time to do it).

How to Update Plugins on WordPress

To update your WordPress plugins, go to your dashboard and look for an icon in the top left corner. It will have a number and a little arrow in a circle around it. Click on that icon to initiate the update process. If you're unsure whether a plugin is being used, try deactivating it to see if anything changes. You can also check for any signs of usage or if you have set it up previously. If you didn't design your own website, consider reaching out to your designer via email to confirm the usage of a particular plugin.

Updating Your Website for 2024

Overall, updating should only take a few minutes of your time, but it will give your website a fresh and nice feel for the upcoming year. If you have a little extra time and want to make more updates to your website, consider things like: adding more testimonials, updating your portfolio work, and just spend some time clicking around on the main pages of your website to make sure that all your links are working properly.

If you need a new website for the new year, or even just new add-on pages, check out my website templates. There have been a lot of new templates added in 2023, with more to come in 2024!

Links Mentioned:

Fill Out My End of Year Survey Here!

Shop All of My Showit Website Templates (Use code NEWYEARNEWSITE for 25% off)

Not sure which template is right for you? Take the quiz!

Join me Inside Booked Out Designer

Join my FREE Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group

Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram

The post 3 Things You Need to Update on Your Website for the New Year (That Take LESS THAN 5 minutes!) appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 SEO mistakes your website template might be guilty of without you realizing it

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 6 minutes

As a designer, I absolutely love talking about SEO, and I incorporate SEO strategy into every template and website I design. It might surprise you, but before you even input your own information, a website template can already be SEO-friendly or be a disaster that you'll have to fix later. While most SEO strategies are implemented after you customize the template with your own content, images, and SEO settings, there are certain things you can look for in templates to ensure they're SEO-friendly before you even buy them. Today, I'm sharing three common SEO mistakes that website templates might make, along with tips for how to check them on your own template and website to ensure you're on the right track.

Basically - get ready to gain some major SEO knowledge because this episode is going way beyond the basics.

And hey, just a little disclaimer - while I design on Showit and sell Showit templates, the information I'm sharing applies to all types of website templates, including WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Kajabi, Webflow, and more. No matter what website software you use, these SEO tips matter. Whether you're a designer or someone DIY-ing your website, you’ll want to keep these things in mind.

Even if you already have a website template from me (so you know your website is SEO-friendly!), you'll still learn some cool SEO stuff that will benefit you as a business owner by listening to this episode. Now let's get started!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 242!

1. The Page Designs Lack Content and Word Count

This is probably the biggest and baddest SEO mistake in my opinion. The complexity or nuances here made me hesitate to include it but ultimately this is a mistake I see a lot of website templates making so I did want to include it anyway. In fact, my pal, Sara Dunn from Sara Does SEO, has told me specifically that she finds the lack of content frustrating on a lot of templates out there. But it also does depend.

What I mean by that is that pages on a website can have various lengths, and that’s okay. Not every page needs to be excessively long, and some pages should be short out of necessity. For instance, a lead magnet opt-in page may only consist of the lead magnet title, a compelling sentence to encourage opt-ins, and the opt-in section with an image. It's a short page, and there might not even be any scroll required. That is OK! If you check out my landing page bundle, which includes 20 designs, you'll notice that those pages don't contain a lot of content. Some pages don’t need a lot of text!

That being said, for pages like your homepage, service page, about page, and course sales page, it is important to have space for actual content (and by content I mean text). This is super important for SEO purposes and to improve your ranking. When choosing a template, you need to ensure that it allows you to easily add content. For example, if you work with a copywriter or an SEO expert, they need to have space in your templates to add their words.

While there is no minimum word count per page, Google's known to rank content higher when it has more words, therefore is more in depth and more helpful information. So it’s a bit complex BUT also so important!

Pay Attention to the Text HTML Ratio

What that means is that it's important for there to be more text content on a webpage compared to the HTML code. If the ratio is off, it can negatively affect your SEO. This can happen due to a low word count or issues like hidden text or text behind images on the website. Additionally, a slow site speed can result from excessive use of plugins or similar factors. But word count is a big factor!

What to Look for in an SEO-Friendly Website Template

Knowing this, what should you look for before you buy a website template? Look for templates that offer ample opportunities to add text, particularly on the homepage. Additionally, prioritize placing important information higher up on the page, preferably in the top hero section. If space is limited on the hero section of the template, make sure there is an area immediately following for you to add your copy.

When a homepage layout limits your ability to include keywords, describe your products and services, and share your location, you miss out on valuable chances to improve your search engine rankings! This can make a HUGE difference so it’s worth getting right when buying a new website template!

2. Text Tag Settings Are Set Up Incorrectly

I always make it a point to teach new designers whenever I can because it's something that many designers are not aware of. And don’t feel bad if that’s you - I remember when I first started designing on Showit, I had no clue about this. I find myself constantly explaining this to my Booked Out Designer students when I review their work, whether it's their own website, a template they've created, or a client's site. I’m always checking for this issue because it’s so common!

What I mean when I say “text tags” from an SEO perspective is the title tag, also known as the H1 tag or heading one tag. It's something that is found on every website, but it may be described or edited differently depending on the platform you use. For instance, if you're using Squarespace, the interface may look slightly different than it does on Showit. In Showit, you can find it under the advanced settings when selecting a specific section of text on your website. It's labeled as "text tag" and provides options such as div, H1, H2, H3, nav (for navigation), or P (for paragraph).

Every piece of text is declared one of these things on every page of your website.

So everything is declared something, even if you never said it, because your template or the custom site you got built, came with this stuff already declared.

Ideally, you want just one H1 per page. Although now it's said that Google is fine with there being more than one H1, it's still considered best practice to have just one. Regardless, you want the H1 to declare the most important piece of text on the page. That's what you're telling Google, like, "Hey, this is what this page is about."

The mistake I often see on templates is when everything is in H1 or nothing is in H1. Also, sometimes I see weird combinations, like when the button text on all the buttons on the page is in H1 or the navigation where it says home about services, contact, all those are in H1. Which is NOT ideal because then you are starting your site off on the wrong foot, SEO-wise.

If you want to check for yourself, there's a plugin I use. Before you buy a new template, you can check and view the demo website with “Header Checker”. It tells you the H1, H2, H3, and possibly H4 elements when you load it on any website. It won't tell you the paragraph, div, or nav text, but it'll indicate the headings. So you can check if it's set up well without having to go into Showit and click on each individual text box.

3. SEO Settings Already Being Set Up For Your Website

Another common mistake I often see is the presence of pre-existing SEO settings on your website, or worse, an accidental request for Google to IGNORE a page accidentally clicked on your template.

These unintentional settings can hinder your online visibility and affect how Google displays your information. For example, if you do start to rank for your chosen keyword, you're basically asking Google to show information about the template in the search results instead of what you would actually want in there! Obviously - this is not ideal. On Showit, you can check this on the overall page settings in the bottom section called “SEO settings”. That's where you're going to see a page title, meta description, and share image.

Then, make sure that your template is not asking Google to ignore the page! This is in the same area underneath SEO settings, called “advanced settings”. There is a box there that you can check or uncheck if you want Google to avoid ranking the page. Usually, you are NOT going to want that checked unless it’s a private client pricing guide or something like that!

Let’s Recap - these SEO mistakes your website might be making!

The page design lacks content and space for higher word counts.
Your text tags are set up incorrectly (especially your H1 setting!)
SEO settings are already set up and/or your template is asking Google to ignore the page!

If you're looking for a new website, make sure to check out my Showit template shop here! Black Friday is around the corner, starting on November 17th, and my sale will last for a while which is the perfect opportunity to shop while also enjoying some time off for Thanksgiving. It’s always my biggest sale of the year, and I am giving a TON of stuff this year in celebration of my 5 year shop anniversary!

Links Mentioned:

Learn More About Website SEO with Sara Dunn On Episode 201

Grab the Chrome Plugin I Use To Check Heading Tags

Shop Our Black Friday Sale + Enter to Win

Shop All of My Showit Website Templates

Not Sure Which Template to Choose? Take the quiz!

Join my FREE Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group

Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram

Join me inside Booked Out Designer

The post 3 SEO mistakes your website template might be guilty of without you realizing it appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

5 Ways I’m Growing My Website Traffic This Year

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 06:00:03 +0000

Reading Time: 8 minutes

We're already halfway through 2023, and today, I want to share what I've been doing this year to grow my website traffic. This list includes some experiments that have proven successful already, while the results of others are still up in the air (don’t worry - I will share which is which!). While my business goals are primarily selling Showit website templates, selling my course for designers, or even growing this podcast, I believe that ALL of these tactics can be applied in any business niche to help grow your website traffic. Whether you're a newcomer to these methods or are already using them, I hope you'll find some insights that will be helpful in growing YOUR traffic this year!

Before we dive in though, I HAVE to share my new website template with you. The Kacie template just might be my favorite yet - and it’s by far the MOST extensive template I’ve ever launched (to give you a taste, it includes: a podcast page, YouTube page, a course hub page, service page, discovery call, and all kinds of cool features!). Seriously, you have to DM me and let me know what you think about this one!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 221!

1. SEO Focused Blog Posts

While these are in no particular order, this one is kind of my favorite! I create a LOT of content in my business. For the past four years, I’ve put out at least one blog every week by blogging my podcast episodes. I’ve blogged every episode since the beginning of the show. Early ones were very short and then we got more lengthy and strategic, which I’ll talk about next (keep scrolling!).

I say that to say, I put out a lot of content so I was already “blogging consistently” to grow my website traffic. But in 2023, something we’ve been focusing on this year particularly is writing “SEO blog posts”. Which basically means: a blog post that we are writing to rank for a specific keyword! So these posts are written very very strategically with the goal of being on page #1 for that specific search.

These blog posts are independent from our podcast blog posts! For the podcast, I don’t write outlines with a specific keyword ranking in mind. When I write podcast blog posts, the goal is more to provide a way to read the content instead of just listening to it.

And hey - I LOVE doing these. Writing SEO Focused blog posts is a fun challenge for me. From researching what to even try to rank for (and making sure there is search volume there!), to looking at competing blog posts, to planning the structure of it all - there is a lot that goes into it. After all that, I still need to make it very normal and readable (I want my blog posts to be written for humans but I want the robots to like it too!).

Right now in my busines, we have a goal to do a few of these a quarter and we even just had one we published last week that is already ranking on the first page for the search. It’s fun seeing it work!

If you don’t do this in your own business, I highly recommend it. This is a great way to truly leverage your content efforts as what you write keeps working for you over time. It’s not “one and done” like so much of the other content we create as business owners! And this pays off - Google is the top place new people find me before purchasing a template. So this is a way to grow my website traffic that DIRECTLY impacts sales!

2. Creating longer podcast shownotes that are 100% independent of the audio to grow website traffic

Oh hi! That’s what you are reading right now. Many podcasters use their podcast blog posts as a place to have the same thing as they have on Apple or Spotify so the “blog post” for the episode is virtually a sales pitch to listen with some relevant links. That’s it! And listen, I TOTALLY get why people do this! It’s way easier. It requires a ton of work (and even the help of a team!) to help you write a TRUE blog post for each episode.

However, that’s what WE do and it’s WORTH IT. If you are a podcaster, a content writer can be a great first or second hire. Here’s why:

It increases time spent on my website and gives people a reason to go there. Even people who listen to the audio for the episode may want to see the episode in written format so that they don’t have to take notes and/or they can reference it later.
It’s a great way to leverage your content. I make ONE content piece, the audio, and now we have more places to find the same content because my podcast and blog are independent of each other. Someone can read the blog and never listen and still get a win.
It helps you rank on Google compared to shorter show notes. Those short show notes that are repurposed from Apple or Spotify are likely less than 500 words and will probably never get a chance to rank on Google.

3. Posting guest interviews from my podcast to Youtube

I told you I would be honest if the jury is still out on some of these tactics and that’s Youtube for me. However, I do believe at this point in my business it is worth it to try! You have to decide what season of business you are in to see if it is the right platform for you (with any of these tactics to grow your website traffic).

Both increasing my website traffic AND leveraging my content better this year were important to me, which is why it made sense for me to try. Initially, I was planning on uploading all of my podcast episodes to YouTube. However, I quickly changed my mind and decided to limit it to only interviews. I find myself more comfortable not being on camera and just talking to the mic and looking at my notes for solo episodes. I felt that doing it every time would be a hassle, especially since I would have to get ready for it every single time.

As for podcast interviews, I was already recording my podcast interviews on video (I use and love Riverside - click here for 20% off!), so it actually hasn’t been that much more work for me. Yes, it’s a few extra steps for my team which took a little bit of time to set up, but now it runs really smoothly! Plus, now that I've started a YouTube channel, I get three pieces of content instead of one. I get to upload the audio to the podcast, publish a new blog post, and share the video version on YouTube.

Ultimately, only time will tell if YouTube will be a profitable platform for me. I don’t really feel like I’ve made “sales” from it yet. With that said, I do know that it's a long game since videos posted years ago can still trend and get lots of views, so I'm still exploring and learning what will work and what won't. Stay tuned!

4. Saying yes to webinars, summits, and collaborations

Have you been considering participating in online summits or webinars to increase your visibility and brand awareness? These can be a great way to get in front of a new audience and bring traffic to your website, but I believe it's important to evaluate whether it makes sense for you and your business goals (like I said before about Youtube!).

For example, during my previous maternity leave, I decided to say no to these kinds of opportunities because it didn't fit with my season of life or business needs. However, this year I was interested in doing more of it very strategically (I still say no a lot - but I am saying yes a lot more!).

In Q1 of 2023 alone, I:

Was a speaker at the Creative Educator Conference
Participated in my first ever summit
Hosted a webinar for Dubsado (watch the replay here!)
Plus - I recorded NINE podcast interviews for other people’s shows

That seems like a lot for one quarter!

With that said, I know some of you are wondering: is participating in summits and other joint ventures worth it?

These visibility efforts brought significant traffic increases for me but ultimately I think it depends on your goals and the particular summit or webinar you're interested in. Before you say yes to anything, make sure to ask questions about what you're getting out of it and really think about whether you're comfortable with the requirements.

For example, the summit I participated in was for designers and while is WAS worth it, it was also a lot of work. I had to create and record a 45-minute presentation of new content, which means: making the slides, writing the outline, and preparing two freebies for different audiences (one for VIPs and one for free participants). I also spent a significant amount of time sending emails to my email list and even hiring my copyright to write content for it. It was a lot of work BUT I believe it made the next launch of Booked Out Designer stronger and definitely got me in front of more ideal people!

5. Focusing on Pinterest to Grow My Website Traffic

You likely already know that Pinterest is an amazing way to get more people to your website, especially if what you do has a strong visual element to it… like me with website templates!

This year, I’m taking a slightly different approach and turning it into more of a fun personal project and pinning more lifestyle content on top of business content. I’ve had some of my pins go slightly viral (this post about Colin’s nursery has done really well on Pinterest!) and then my goal is to have that lifestyle content result in affiliate income for me through Like to Know it.

Why try ranking for things that you don’t want to sell?

You may here me talking about ranking on Pinterest for pregnancy tips and Colin’s nursery and wonder if that really makes sense for my business. First, I just want to say that if you do this, make sure to link to an actual blog post and not just your home page. When someone clicks a photo of a nursery, they are hoping to find where you bought the furniture, the paint color, etc. One of the reasons I love doing this is so THAT I can help people the way I feel like bloggers helped me when I was researching things!

Next, it’s a great way to make affiliate income. People WANT the links, and it doesn’t take that much extra work to create an affiliate link for what you’ve already bought. For me - it’s FUN to do things like this! Not everything has to be “all business”.

Growing your website traffic in 2023

Here’s a quick recap of how I am growing my website traffic in 2023:

SEO Focused blog post
Longer shownotes that are 100% independent of the audio
Posting guest interviews to YouTube
Doing some summits and collaboration webinars
Creating viral Pins that link to important blogs

Did you love this episode? Are you in the Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group yet? It’s free to join, and it’s where we take conversations like this one about growing your website traffic and go even deeper. Pop in and ask questions, share insights, and even peek behind the scenes of my own business and what I’m trying lately. I would LOVE for you to join!

Links Mentioned:

Check Out My Newest Showit Template: Kacie!

Join my FREE Breakthrough Brand All Access Facebook Group

Shop All of My Showit Website Templates

Steal These 5 Secrets for Using Dubsado to Book More Clients

Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram

Join me inside Booked Out Designer

Check out my new Youtube channel

The post 5 Ways I’m Growing My Website Traffic This Year appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

My Top 3 Showit Design Hacks That Every Web Designer Needs to Know

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 06:00:01 +0000

Reading Time: 7 minutes

I’ve been using Showit for years now, and navigating the software is like second nature to me. In fact, I have had many dreams where I am literally designing websites on Showit (this always tends to happen to me when I’m deep into a client project or working on a new template). At this point, I’m an established Showit design partner (I was honored as a top Showit designer in 2020!) and I have had over 1,300 websites go through Showit’s system that was either custom-designed by me directly or with one of my Showit templates. So, you could say I know a thing or two about Showit. Today, I’m sharing my top three Showit design hacks for designing custom websites or templates on Showit, so if you are a website designer, you’ll want to tune in today!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 204!

Before I share my favorite Showit design hacks, I want to invite you to join me (virtually!) at the Thrive Summit happening on March 13-15, 2023. I have to be honest with you: I have been asked to speak at summits many, many times. This is the first one I’ve ever said yes to. And I said yes for a REASON.

Thrive Summit is a free 3-day event featuring 16 experts (I’m one of them!) who will help you improve your current technical skills and help take your design portfolio to the next level. They are going to be presenting on topics like: wireframing websites with ease, designing a timeless logo, and taking a deep dive into color, typography, and brand strategy. Additionally, there are presentations on Shopify, Squarespace, and Figma/XD if you’re interested in any of those software options specifically!

To my knowledge, it is the ONLY summit available that covers the strategy, design, the creative process AND includes feedback and support to help you implement what you learn. You’ll want to be there!

And spoiler alert, I’m going to be sharing all about how to design a Showit website that WOWs. And it is SO good. You’ll also get a really incredible Clickup template bonus when you come to watch my presentation.

TL; DR: This free summit is going to be amazing. I am excited to watch all the presentations and learn myself too! Grab your free ticket here!

While the event is free, you may want to consider snagging The Creator Pass for $97. Not only does it include lifetime access to the presentations AND full access to Live “In Action” Sessions, but it also includes over $1400 worth of premium resources from each presenter (including my Profit Sheet!).

Now, let’s get back to the three Showit Design Hacks I promised you in the episode!

Showit Design Hack #1: Don’t build every canvas from scratch.

This hack applies to Showit website template design and custom design but it DOES have some caveats (so don’t keep scrolling!). What I am saying is: you can use other things you’ve already built as bases for new projects. You can still make the custom website you are designing for your client completely and uniquely theirs without starting from scratch everytime. Because of how technical you can get with Showit, this is one of those Showit design hacks that can be a REAL time saver.

Just a quick note for new Showit website designers

For websites you’re building as designers, you need to start with one of Showit’s starter templates that are licensed to be used for that purpose. In case you are new to Showit, one of those canvases is literally nothingness, which is what I prefer. And then there are two other options that have some structure to them!

Don’t start with templates you purchased from another designer to build your template. Don’t start with someone else’s template for a custom site that wasn’t purchased as a customization for that client.

Looking for the designer starter templates? Find them here!

5 things I never design from scratch on Showit:

Buttons - I actually have a lot to say about creating buttons on Showit, but we will get to that next!
Menus - Whether it’s across the top or a hamburger menu, I start with a menu that I’ve already created as a base
Footers - I have a few different footer options in my canvas library that I will usually use as my starting point
Contact forms - Showit contact forms do NOT need to be built from scratch every time.
Blog pages - If you’ve ever designed a website in Showit, you know this one here. There are so many technical things on a blog page, it’s great to have a starting point where everything is linked correctly and then design from there.

Are you thinking about launching a template shop?

Here is a BIG caveat - if you’re building a template NEVER use other people’s templates as a starting point. I know as designers it’s common for us to have offered template customization previously, so maybe you have a template designed by another designer in your Showit library. Do not use that as a base for anything outside of the project it was purchased for. That’s likely against the terms of the template use and will get you in trouble.

This is not exclusive to template shop owners either. If you’re building a client site, you should not be using someone else’s template as a base.

So what can you use as a base if you are a Showit website designer?

While you can’t use other people’s templates as a base, here are a few things you can use as a base for future templates and custom website projects:

Your own templates
Your own past client projects
You can even create YOURSELF a starter template that you use for your own projects internally.

If you’re just getting started, don’t get discouraged here. You may have nothing to use as a base yet. That’s ok! You’ll build it up. As you grow with Showit, just make sure that you don’t try to recreate the wheel on everything every time. Just like how we designers use canned emails for messaging our clients (and then customize that message to their particular need), we can do that with our web designs.

Showit Design Hack #2: How To Make Buttons in Showit (Easily + Effectively)

Over the past 2 years, I have changed how I make buttons in Showit, and this new way is SO MUCH BETTER!

Originally, I would make a square button and then add a little strip of text across it. Is that what you are doing too? The biggest problem with this, is that then you need to link both the square and the text because someone’s mouse could hover over either and try to click.

This is kind of tedious, but it’s usually fine for us designers (because we are used to triple checking the details, right?).

But for clients who want to maintain their site (easily) and for our template shop, it becomes more of an issue. We don’t want things to be unnecessarily hard for them!

Y’all - I have FOUND a solution…

How I make buttons in Showit:

Take the text box and make it the entire height and width of the button.
Adjust the line height to be alot higher so that the text centers on that larger box.
Now, the button itself (the rectangle) doesn’t need to be linked to anything. And the text is the only link that needs to be changed!
Don’t forget to adjust it on mobile too!

Not only does this look better, it is easier to edit long term for your clients. This is one of my favorite Showit design hacks for buttons!

Showit Design Hack #3: Design Mobile While You Do The Desktop.

In case you are unfamiliar to Showit, the mobile view and desktop view need to be designed separately. Usually you will use the same “objects”, but you can put them in different places, hide some on one view and not the other, do different colors/font, etc. It’s awesome. The fact that you can customize the mobile version of your website COMPLETELY is easily one of my favorite things about using Showit as a website platform.

My Showit Design Hack for you is this: stop abandoning mobile to focus on the desktop. I see too many designers do this because it’s “easier” and can feel faster in the moment, but then when you have to go back through an entire page at once to fix the mobile site… it’s a MESS.

In my opinion as a designer, it’s better to go little by little instead. Adjust a button (for example) on desktop and then immediately adjust it on mobile. Now you have a great looking button that you can copy over to other canvases and pages too!

To be fair, Showit is trying to make this easier and has recently added some features where mobile settings carry over better! But it’s still alot of work to constantly go between the 2 versions. However, in the meantime, designing both the mobile and desktop “little by little” will ultimately help you create a cleaner website overall!

The way your website looks on mobile matters

When you try to do the mobile version all at once, it’s easier to rush through it and make mistakes. Plus, focusing only on desktop is like you saying that the mobile site doesn’t matter, when in reality - you or your client likely have the same if not more people seeing the mobile view.

As designers, we love desktop. But in real life, people are visiting websites on phones. In my own business, 35% of my users in the last 30 days were on their phone. That’s my site, but overall statistics show that 54.8% of all internet traffic came from mobile devices in 2021. Do not ignore the mobile version (it truly is one of the best reasons to use Showit). I want to encourage you to stretch yourself and grow as a designer by always asking: how can I make the mobile experience even better?

Are you a Showit Website Designer?

If so, you are in the right place. I hope you’ve enjoyed these three relatively quick Showit design hacks and I hope to see you at the Thrive Summit next week! I will be sharing these hacks (with visuals) toward the end of my presentation but before that I’m walking you through my exact client process for designing Showit websites (and I don’t hold back).

Remember, you’ll get a modified version of the Clickup template I use for client projects for FREE too (I share the full version exclusively inside Booked Out Designer). It’s totally free to attend (although to be honest, I would super recommend considering the Creator’s Pass upgrade too!). It’s a steal for all the value you are getting. Snag your spot here!

Links Mentioned:

Connect with Elizabeth on Instagram

Shop SEO-friendly Showit Website Templates

The post My Top 3 Showit Design Hacks That Every Web Designer Needs to Know appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

SEO for Showit Hacks: Optimize Your Site to Be Found in 2023 with Sara Dunn

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 05:00:01 +0000

Reading Time: 13 minutes

Whether you are somebody who already feels fairly advanced in their SEO knowledge or you are somebody who is still unsure exactly what it is, there is something in this interview for you. We talked about SEO for Showit specifically, and I believe it will serve you whether you already rank first on Google or you don’t even know what page you are on (or how to check).

I hired Sara Dunn from Sara Does SEO personally in my own business a few years ago (although it honestly doesn’t feel like that long ago) and I can attest, she is the real deal. Such a pleasure to work with and I learned so much about SEO in the process of working together. I can’t wait to share this interview with her today!

For those of you that don’t know - Sara is a wedding industry SEO specialist which means her (and her team) actively search for what engaged couples look for online every single day. She has been helping wedding pros everywhere get found on Google since 2017, and in today’s episode, she actually dropped that she will be launching something for website designers in 2023! Her background is in web development so I’m excited to stay tuned!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 201!

Let’s start at the basics - can you explain in basic terms what SEO is?

Yes! SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s essentially the art of influencing Google to show YOUR website higher in search results for free. We aren’t talking about ads here. We are talking about the exposure you can get for zero dollars, just by doing the right things on your website to help Google understand your website or your content is exactly what your audience is searching for.

You can bring in so much traffic over multiple years for $0 if this is something you do well.

I’ve personally always cared about SEO and it’s so true how you worded that. It’s funny but whenever I get a sale from someone who comes to my website from Google or signs up for Booked Out Designer it almost feels “free” because I did a lot of the SEO work a long time ago. I didn’t feel like I had to pitch them on a webinar or batch a bunch of Instagram reels.

Absolutely. It’s kind of magical how the work you did from four years ago can be bringing you new sales today without you doing more work now. I always love the more passive work than the “active work” required from other platforms.

Should we update old blog posts that are ranking well? I feel like I can be scared to touch it.

Absolutely. It’s a GREAT idea to update and refresh your old content regularly. It’s very unlikely that you’ll change something so dramatically that will cause your post to dip in the rankings.

Should we change the date on the blog post after we update it?

As long as you’ve updated the entire post and it’s current for 2023, go ahead and change the date! That way, it gives you visibility at the top of your blog page too!

With that said, if you’ve only tweaked a few things and the post still kind of feels like “2018 advice” I would personally leave the date as is. It’s still okay to make those tweaks though!

Is Showit good for SEO?

People always ask me - what website platform is the best for SEO? It truly is whatever platform you enjoy using and will keep updated though - because one of the biggest things that will affect your SEO is letting your website go stale. One of the reasons I love Showit is it allows more creative brains like photographers and designers actually enjoy keeping their website updated, which in turn helps with their SEO.

Let’s Talk about the SEO Settings on Showit!

On the right hand panel, you’ll see the “SEO Settings”. The most important settings are the Page Title and Meta Description.

How do we write our Page Title and Meta Description?

First, I like to take a step back and remind people where this is actually showing up. When your potential clients type their search into Google, they see a list of blue clickable links and short descriptions below. The “Page Title” will often end up as the blue clickable link for your website or piece of content. Then, the meta description is the couple of lines of text that show up underneath and entices the reader to click.

With that context, we can then think about what we need to enter into Showit. The Page Title is one of the most important things that Google looks at to know what a page is about, so it’s important to include the keyword you have in mind for that page. Oftentimes, the best Page Title is “your keyword - the name of your business/brand”. So, for example, my home page might be “Wedding Industry SEO Specialist - Sara does SEO”

Do you need to include the name of your business in every page’s Page Title?

We do personally always end every page with a separator and the business name! It’s a common best practice and helps make sure Google indexes all of your content.

How do you keep that under the 60 character limit?

I don’t spend much time thinking about the visible character limit! Numerous studies have shown that even if your Page Title is wider than the viewable limit, it can still help your website rank on search engines. Ultimately, Google will choose the part of your Page Title to show. Sometimes - I will even include TWO keywords in the Page Title for a certain page.

What are some best practices for the meta description?

First, let me just say this: the biggest mistake I see people making is copying the same meta description on every single page. That’s not what Google (or your ideal client) is looking for. We don’t want to just describe your business, we want to tell people what they are going to get from that particular page.

The other thing to consider is that you do want it to be kind of enticing. This is not the place to keyword stuff or write four words and call it a day. This is your chance to sell someone on why they should visit your page so make it count. You don’t “win” by getting on page one of Google you “win” by getting them onto your website.

What about the SEO Image Setting in Showit?

This is more of a branding question because whether or not you have an image doesn’t necessarily make you appear higher in search results. From a branding perspective, these images are starting to show up on Google though so you definitely want to include something eye-catching if you have one! Ideally, that image will also appear on the page so there is some consistency between their Google search and landing on your page.

Personally, I prefer to choose a horizontal image, but it has to be something that looks good when cropped to a square. This is often the image that gets shared when someone posts your link on Facebook anyway, so that’s another reason to choose a horizontal image. I will rarely use a vertical image as they are less likely to look good once cropped.

Talking about SEO for Showit, what should we be doing with our images?

Whether it’s an image block or a gallery, you’ll get an option to add an image description. What is the SEO title vs. the description box? The description is your alt text! That is the MOST important piece to fill out when it comes to your website's SEO (over what Showit calls the “SEO Title”.

One mistake I see people make is wanting to use the same keyword in every image. Ideally, you want to describe what is IN the image and include your keyword when it is natural. The more context the better! For example, in a photo with a group of bridesmaids, you could write “bridesmaids at a Nashville wedding.”

Then for the SEO title, I just copy what is in the description.

Do you need to rename your images before you upload them?

Yes, I spend a lot of time downloading, renaming, and re-uploading clients' images because they have file names like “IMG0846.jpg”. It’s not something you can do later, and the name of the image actually becomes part of the code on your website. In fact, the Showit webmaster guidelines, recommends you use image names that are short but descriptive of the actual image.

You can definitely batch rename and name all of the images “Nashville-wedding-photographer.jpg” but if you want to take it up a notch, you can rename each individual image to be even more descriptive.

Did you catch the dashes in that example? You do need to make sure to include dashes in between the individual words in the image name.

What do we need to know about SEO for Showit or SEO in general in 2023?

Google is making a strong push to prioritize content that is unique, helpful, and based on personal experience. What Google wants to do more than anything is help its users find unique information they are looking for, that they can’t find anywhere else.

Those days of writing basic blogs are over. You really need to find an interesting perspective or showcase your personal experience in order for Google to trust YOU as the source of that information.

Sharing an example of a bridal shop featuring Vera Wang

I worked with a bridal shop recently that noticed their rankings were decreasing. They wanted to be found for certain designers, and for the sake of example, we will use Vera Wang. When I went to their website page featuring Vera Wang dresses, I saw the same copy, images, and descriptions as every single other bridal store carrying Vera Wang. Nothing was of unique value. That is a perfect example of what is NOT working on Google anymore.

Instead, we worked on making those pages unique with tactics like:

Unique photos of Vera Wang dresses in their store
Quotes from bridal consultants who work at their store
Reviews from brides who have purchased Vera Wang from them
Embedding Custom Video

Let’s take a second to stop thinking about the Google robot for a second - how much more interesting is this new page to potential customers who may be looking for a Vera Wang wedding dress? When we think about the humans behind the screen, which is what Google wants to do as well, SEO makes a lot more sense.

How do we find the natural balance between including keywords in our copy and also writing naturally for potential customers?

First things first, Google really does understand synonyms now. You do not need to repeat the exact same phrase over and over again anymore. In fact, more synonyms might actually be a good thing! It helps the page read better and Google will still understand the page. I tell my clients that they do not need to think about keyword density (the number of times your keyword shows up on the same page) and they do not need to write like a robot.

Instead, make the topic really clear in the first paragraph and then write naturally for the rest.

AI talk is everywhere now. How does this affect your job now and how is it affecting search engines right now?

People love to make scary statements like “AI is the end of Google”. Ultimately, any time anything new comes out, it has the potential to change the way we operate online. But what I recommend is for anyone who hasn’t experimented with something like chat GPT (it’s free!), to go ahead and check it out. It’s absolutely fascinating. You can put together truly anything and use any prompt. My husband had it write me a poem the other day!

At the end of the day, we control the prompts and we also control the output. We just talked about how Google is prioritizing unique content based on personal experience. Why do you think they are doing that? Because then AI will have less of an impact. AI can only scrape what’s on the internet so I think we need to ask ourselves from a human perspective: what can we bring that’s truly unique?

Also, let’s think about how we can use AI to support what we do.

Here’s what not to do: Go to an AI tool, ask it to write a blog post, and then copy and paste it on your website. Everyone working in the SEO space believes that Google will try to suppress content that was obviously and completely written by AI.

But can we use the tool to write a blog introduction if we are struggling with that? Or, can we ask something like chat GPT to write an outline for us and bring points we hadn’t thought of to us? Absolutely.

We can use AI to jumpstart the content you will write as a person. Ask it to write a blog post for you and then go in and edit it. Add your personal experience. Add a human touch. Add internal links that are relevant.

As an SEO specialist, I am not against AI writing tools. But I don’t think we should turn our websites into content factories and put out a ton of garbage content.

I always love experimenting in my business. Now, let’s talk about plagiarism and intellectual property for a second. Is AI literally just going to be taking sentences from the top blog posts from a searched topic and rewriting them? It seems a bit problematic.

From a content creator standpoint, I’m pretty ticked off about it. It’s funny actually, my friend asked chat GPT to write a blog post on ranking for the top wedding venues on Google and the output had so much of what I had in my blog post that ranks number one for that search term.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for this. AI tools are going to scrape public content that already exists and rewrite it as new. As a content creator, I don’t think there is anything we can do anything about it (but I’m not a lawyer!). I think we just have to keep reaching toward providing helpful first-hand content.

Adding Video to your Content

I also want to make the point here that this makes more of a case for adding video into your content because video is harder to scrape/steal. If you can add a video component to your original content, you add a ton of value that can’t be as easily replicated.

How can we use video to help with SEO for Showit? What can we do to help video rank on Google?

Google is making a push to rank more video because it’s the type of content that everyone is consuming. Video can be a helpful result for a lot of searches. Personally, I don’t see it a lot in the wedding industry but if you are searching “how to do something”, video will often show up on the first page. That’s because we as searchers WANT a video.

One thing we don’t do enough as content creators is type into Google the keyword we want to be known for and see what kind of content people are searching. Analyze the current search results. If we want to be number one for a certain phrase, what’s there right now? Is Google including video in the results? Then you should make a better video than what’s available right now.

If there is no video, it’s a maybe. It might be that nobody has made a video on it (yet) or it might be that Google is not sure people actually want a video for that keyphrase. Ask yourself: would a video add value to the end user?

I also want to add - in terms of having video show up on Google, it does still usually need to include written words. I always recommend having a written blog post about something and then embedding video within the blog post. It’s not an either/or.

Such a good tip about analyzing current search results! Sometimes I will think about a keyword I want to rank and then when I search it on Google I realize that it’s not really a match.

Yes, and to add to that - I always recommend using Ubersuggest to confirm what people are actually searching for. It has a pretty generous free version, and you can type in the amount of times people search for a specific keyword. You’ll often be surprised to see how many times the answer is zero!!

I love using Ubersuggest too. Back to video, is there a platform that is “better” than the others for ranking on Google? Outside of SEO for Showit.

Youtube will always be first because Google owns Youtube. As much as possible, that’s where Google will push video traffic. That said, I do see Facebook videos on Google too so include a CTA in those Facebook descriptions too.

What is the most common outdated SEO strategy?

The idea of overusing the same keyword over and over again. People still believe SEO success comes from using their main keyword more than anyone else. That’s an outdated strategy. It doesn’t best serve the visitor on your website which is ultimately what Google wants.

It’s really easy to feel like your entire world would be solved if you could just rank for this one key phrase, but there are actually so many things people search for that could be relevant to your services, your business, and the advice you have to offer. Do not just focus on one keyword phrase.

Is there any new SEO strategy we should try in 2023?

Actually creating things that are unique and interesting and feature our personal experience. I think so many of us try to sound like a formal publication. We need to start adding our own opinions and perspectives in. It’s more work to create high-quality things, but it will absolutely pay off.

What’s an unpopular opinion you have about SEO strategy?

Consistency in blogging is overrated. I actually feel like this would be popular if people knew it. I hear all the time from clients that “I don’t have a blog because I don’t know if I could be consistent with”. NO! Just put one up, write two posts if that’s what you have time for right now. You can let it go stale, but whatever content you do have will at least start working for you in the meantime and you can come back to it when you have more time (even if that’s six months from now).

That’s exactly what I tell people about starting an email list. It’s like people don’t even want to make an opt-in or a nurture sequence because they won’t be emailing their list. I’m the first one to say: just put it out there so you can grow your email list and then use it when you do have the time.

Rapid Fire Questions for Sara Does SEO

What’s an SEO plugin or website you love for SEO in 2023? I love Ubersuggest. Honestly, for the price and the value it brings, it’s easily one of my favorite SEO tools.

What’s the best business book you’ve ever read? Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Daniel Meyer. He’s the founder of Shake Shack. It’s all about hospitality in business and going above and beyond in your business.

Where can people find and connect with you next? SaradoesSEO.com is where you’ll find all of the information on our services, obviously there are a lot of informational blog posts on there as well! You can also find me on Instagram and TikTok @saradoesseo

Ready to get to work and get your website on page one of Google?

My Showit website templates can help. One thing a lot of people don’t realize about Showit website templates is that if the designer set things up sloppy on the back end (even if they did not mean to), it can hurt your SEO.

I’m talking about things like your heading settings (called advanced tagging in Showit), the way your canvases are set up, the stacking order of your objects, how much opportunity there is for text on a page, and a lot more of that technical stuff that you probably don’t want to be thinking about when you’re building your website. That’s one of the reasons you chose Showit, right? I get it.

If you are in the market for a new website template, you can rest assured I’ve thought about it all (and have double checked everything multiple times) so that you don’t have to. You can find all of my SEO-friendly templates here. There are sales pages, landing pages, podcast pages, full website templates, and so much more waiting for you there.

Plus, as a podcast listener (or reader!), you can use the code BBPODCAST for 10% off ANY template. So go get your template, apply what Sara and I talked about here, and get set to sail to page one on Google. Also, if you’re new to Showit and want a FREE month of your subscription, check that out here!

Links Mentioned:

Check out UberSuggest

Check out Booked Out Designer

New to Showit? Get a FREE month-long trial here.

Connect with Sara Dunn on Instagram

Find Out More About Sara Does SEO

The post SEO for Showit Hacks: Optimize Your Site to Be Found in 2023 with Sara Dunn appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

My 3 Most Unpopular Opinions About Branding/Website Design Businesses

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I’ve been thinking about unpopular opinions lately, as I asked a question about this to guests on my podcast, and now I’ve been like, “hmmm… what are my unpopular opinions about different aspects of business?” So, here I’m sharing 3 of my unpopular opinions about branding and website design businesses. So whether you’re a Showit designer, Squarespace designer, Wix designer, brand designer, or maybe you focus on other types of design collateral… this is for you. And aspiring designers, this is for you as well! It is OKAY if we disagree on any of these things, we can still be friends! Let me know on Instagram what you think by sending me a DM.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 185!

1. Unpopular Opinion: Selling templates isn’t the answer to a struggling design business.

On the surface, this might make perfect sense to you. However, this is done far more often than you might think. A designer may struggle to book one-on-one clients, and instead of looking at their marketing, design, and current systems; they decide to sell templates. Because it is viewed as an “easy, passive income”, it may seem like a more attractive option. Maybe in your case, it's creating a course, designing premade logos, or offering another product you can sell to the masses.

The hard truth though? If you are struggling to book clients for a done-for-you service, you likely won't be able that same offer as a passive, do-it-yourself product. This is mainly because there's not an audience or demand yet for your work/working with you. You first need to show your skills as a designer by doing custom work.

Spending hours creating a $300 template that might not sell doesn't make sense when you could put your energy toward booking a one-on-one client project for $3,000. You won't be selling templates (in most cases) if you can’t book clients for 1:1 done for you work.

Early in my business, I tried to offer products sooner than it made sense. Unsurprisingly, it flopped because nobody wanted that offer from me yet, and it competed with my main product. You can hear more of this story here.

Worth noting: I am NOT anti-template. In fact, I sell website templates, which are a large part of my business. Creating a template shop was my solution to a thriving business. It was a growth opportunity, allowing me to switch to a more scalable product model. If you’re starting a template shop though as a hail Mary on a struggling business, you’ll likely miss out on income opportunities through 1:1 work and might waste a lot of time. Of course, every business and situation IS DIFFERENT, but this is generally what I see happen.

2. Unpopular Opinion: Just because the project pays well doesn’t mean it’ll be worth it.

We all know there is much more to business than money. However, we can get distracted by how well a project pays, but there is much more to client relationships than how well they pay you. Accepting a job from a red-flag client can cost your business more money over time through burnout.

I know this is an unpopular opinion because what we most often see from designer educators is a highlight reel of the MASSIVE paychecks they get. We have to ask, ‘Is it really worth the money? Is it worth the headache?’ In the experience of myself and my Booked Out Designer students, a big paycheck does not necessarily equal a good client or project.

For example, would you prefer having a $10,000 client who critiques your work, draws the project out dramatically, and sucks the life out of your soul? Or, would you prefer a $5,000 client who loves you, respects your time, and refers you to other people? The better, more sustainable choice here is the client who reminds you how much you love what you do.

In my course, Booked Out Designer, I teach about red flags to watch out for with potential clients to help you avoid booking a client that makes you want to quit your business altogether. In the Booked Out Designer Facebook group, many designers share their stories of clients they said no to, clients they fired, and what happened after that.

(Want more on this? Check out this 2 part blog/podcast on difficult clients: How to Deal wiht Difficult Clients and How to Avoid Difficult Clients.)

3. Unpopular Opinion: You don’t need to niche down immediately.

“The riches are in the niches” is a common phrase we hear in the design world and business in general. Similarly, we hear “jack of all trades, master of none” as a PUSH to niche down quicker!

I teach an entire process inside of Booked Out Designer for niching down. I approach this both in the sense of WHO you work with (aka ideal client) and WHAT services you do. I believe the process I teach is a great way to do it and a great way to look at these two things. When I say you don't need to niche down immediately, I mean this in the sense of not needing to work with only one type of client or offering only one design service.

When I started my business, I did social media marketing, logos, brands, websites, brochures, billboards, email marketing copy and design, other print collateral, etc. I did a lot of things. For a while, all of those things were listed on my website as a service option. It may have looked like, “this girl offers a lot of things.” However, If I had niched down IMMEDIATELY, as the typical advice goes, I’d end up not making enough money to get by.

I matched my corporate salary quickly because I did more things, slowly removing them as I decided what I liked/didn’t like and what I was good at. For example, I kept a few social media clients for about two years into my business after I had stopped marketing those services because it was a nice $1k+ consistent monthly income that helped me always know that money was coming in. Plus, I loved those clients!

So I advise you to offer more services to start if it makes sense for your business, and you don’t have to say, “I’m a designer for photographers,” or “I only design on Showit for coaches.” Instead, you can slowly niche as you grow your business and decide what you like and don’t like.

(Want more details on my business story? Check out this blog about what life *actually* looked like for me in the early days of business.)

Tell me on Instagram which of these opinions you agreed or disagreed with. And, if you want another helpful resource, check out this guide: How to Find Your 1st or Next Paying Client ASAP. It’s free and will give you plenty of client-booking ideas!

Links Mentioned:

Find Your 1st Paying Design Client ASAP FREEBIE

Get on the waitlist for Breakthrough Brand All Access

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5 Cool Features You Should Try On Your Showit Website

Elizabeth McCravy — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 7 minutes

Calling all Showit users and business owners thinking about using Showit as your website builder. Showit rocks, and if you've been around here for a second, you probably know that I love Showit. My website is built on Showit, I sell Showit templates, and I'm a Showit Design Partner. I love Showit — plain and simple.

In my membership, Breakthrough Brand All Access, one of the members asked what cool Showit features I don't see people using enough or are underutilized, and we talked about it in our Facebook community and in a member Q&A. Still, her question inspired me to talk to you guys about this. So, I'm sharing 5 cool Showit features you may not know about that you should try on your website. These are features that I'm loving lately, and I think you will as well!

These cool Showit features and tips are for non-designers and designers alike. So if you're reading and thinking, "Well, that's cool, Elizabeth, but I'm not a designer." Fear not — you can edit your website for your non-designer business to do these things too. No need to hire a designer to set these cool features up!

Want a Showit template that’s implementing these features? I just released a collection of Showit Sales Page templates that match our top-selling templates. No more piecing together a sales page based on another page of your site or struggling with what goes where on the sale page. I’ve got it all set up for you. These sales page templates have over 30 sections (called canvases in Showit) designed to guide you through creating an epically amazing, high-converting sales page for your online course, membership, coaching program, digital product, or whatever it is you’re launching.

The sales page templates also have copy prompts throughout to help you not just have designs that sell but WORDS that sell. I’ve brought the same strategy I use on my own sales pages to you in these templates. The new templates and all my other templates are 20% off right now to celebrate. Use code LABORDAY to shop + save!

What we're covering in this article:

Use videos and animated GIFs as backgrounds on your website!
Integrate canvases with the new gradient feature to fade the colors between canvases.
Use the slide transition to set text to scroll over an area slowly.
Embed stuff for a super integrated web experience for your clients/customers.
Use Beaver Builder to write/build out your blog posts.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 174!

1. Use videos and animated GIFs as backgrounds on your website!

Showit has a built-in feature that allows you to put a video as a background on a canvas on your website. The video has to be under 30 seconds, have no volume, and be under 8MB. All of that being met, this looks incredible. You can have text over it, do parallax or have it scroll with the page; so many options — all on the desktop side.

You can't do videos on mobile. However, you can use animated GIFs to resemble videos on your mobile site in order to get that effect. You'll want it to be a shorter video with a smaller file, but to the user, it looks the same! I have a video on how to do this in my Showit Blueprint course that comes with all template purchases.

Using video on your website is a sure-fire way to engage viewers. Video is so hot in website design because of things like Instagram Reels and TikTok. Regarding your website, I'm referring to any form of 'movement' in place of an image as a video, which is why a short clip on a GIF is included.

Having even one video on your site can help your website strategy by improving SEO [source here]. It can also increase time spent on your site and improve your Google ranking because they prioritize sites that use video. Research conducted by Mist Media found that "The average internet user spends 88% more time on a website that includes video content." Another study by Brafton reported that "Viewers stay on a website six times longer if the site includes video." [source here]

Besides all of that, video looks cool, and it's modern; it's engaging, and it makes things feel fresh. You might be thinking, "How am I supposed to use video? I don't have the money/time to hire a videographer. I don't have any professional branded videos."

There are two things I want to tell you to help you create videos for your website. The first is to use your iPhone to create videos. You don't need professional videography work, especially for these types of videos. They are short and will be put on a loop on your site. The second is to use stock videos! I tend to use stock videos more than anything!

One site I love for free stock videos is Pexels. They have so many free stock videos and images. This is the site I use for the videos in my templates. In addition, you can search Pexel for a variety of topics and find fabulous videos that integrate well into your brand. For example, check out the Kate, Elle, Taylor, and Gabby templates from my shop to see background videos in action! You can find all the templates here!

2. Integrate canvases with the new gradient feature to fade the colors between canvases.

Showit has been rolling out all sorts of updates lately. A cool Showit feature you'll see now in your account is grid snapping to help align everything on your site! I got the chance to see this at the Showit designer retreat.

One of my favorite new additions is the gradient feature for canvases. Within Showit, you can make a section of your site fade from one color to another. There are many ways to use this feature beyond two colors fading horizontally. I've loved using it to fade between canvases for a more integrated site that flows.

For example, instead of going from a light blue to a white canvas background, it will slightly fade to the new color in a seamless way. You can also use this feature over videos or photos with text. You can do this on mobile and desktop sites. If you want to see this in action beautifully, check out the Kate template here, it uses this new feature a ton!

3. Use the slide transition to set text to scroll over an area slowly.

Showit has all sorts of transitions built in for any objects you can make, from fading something in to sliding it out or bouncing it in and out. I love using transitions. However, you don't want to overdo it and overwhelm users.

You'll see me use these features on my templates, but very strategically, in a way that makes sense. One thing I love lately for my templates and my website is having text sliding slowly for high impact. Instead of just saying something, you can have it repeated across the page.

All you need to do is set your transition speed slower, and on a slide, type in the text you want to do this with on repeat. For example, it could be "coming soon" on repeat sliding slowly. Look at the coming soon pages on the Elle and Kate templates to see this in action. It is so fun and high-impact.

4. Embed stuff for a super integrated web experience for your clients/customers.

You could have your call scheduler, intake form, and payment page open in a new window. Or, you can EMBED stuff from outside sites directly into Showit; no coding required. This will create an integrated user experience, so they don't have to leave your website.

This link is also much easier for you to remember. So instead of linking to your call scheduler, you can embed Calendly for easy access without remembering any complicated links. I've been doing this since I started using Showit.

Some other pages I'd consider doing this on:

Waitlist application - embed a form from Dubsado or Honeybook
Call schedule for your group program - embed the schedule
Opt-in form from FloDesk — embed it instead of opening it in a new FloDesk site window.

Most of my templates have a call scheduling page already designed and ready for you. If you're trying to get your website up quickly and feel stressed about getting a bunch of things done, this is something that can wait. It's worth doing, but it doesn't have to be done before launch. Again, it's easier on you because you will always know the link, and it's easier on your clients and creates a more integrated experience.

5. Use Beaver Builder to write/build out your blog posts.

I think I'm one of the only Showit designers talking about Beaver Builder. It's like my best-kept secret, honestly. I love it. It's a page builder for WordPress that I specifically use for my BLOG.

I do not use it for my website pages because those are in Showit, but for blog posts. Beaver Builder allows you to design the layout of your blog in Showit. Then when it comes to putting in all the content, you're using Beaver Builder to lay it out.

It's a drag-and-drop builder that is far more intuitive than WordPress's native blog builder. The caveat here is that you need the advanced subscription of Showit to use the Beaver Builder plugin. The plugin itself is free. There are paid options, but they are not necessary here. I have videos on blogging with Beaver Builder in my Showit blueprint course. If you're a customer of mine, you have access to these videos, and it's worth checking out!

[For even more cool WordPress plugins to try with Showit, check out this blog post for my 7 favorites.]

Are you thinking about trying Showit for the first time? Click here to get one month of your Showit subscription absolutely free!

To recap:

Use videos and animated GIFs as backgrounds on your website!
Integrate canvases with the new gradient feature to fade the colors between canvases.
Use the slide transition to set text to scroll over an area slowly.
Embed stuff for a super integrated web experience for your clients/customers.
Use Beaver Builder to write/build out your blog posts.

So, that's 5 cool Showit features you should try on your site! I hope this was super helpful for you! Share this with other Showit users who would love to learn about these cool features. Let me know over on Instagram which one of these you're going to try and which one was new to you!

If this article was helpful for you, check out my EM Shop templates here. They are integrating all the things I mentioned in this article FOR YOU. You can do it all naturally because it's built into the templates. I hope to see you with an EM Shop template soon!

Episodes Mentioned:

Episode 121

Links Mentioned:

The post 5 Cool Features You Should Try On Your Showit Website appeared first on Elizabeth McCravy.

3 Simple Ways To Drive MORE Organic Traffic To Your Website

Elizabeth McCravy — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Reading Time: 4 minutes

You asked, I’m delivering! I keep hearing that you all want podcast content around SEO and how to get more organic website traffic! That’s what this episode is all about. I am sharing some ways I specifically drive organic traffic in my business. These 3 things work for me, and they can work for you as well. I think through exploring these “SEO hacks”, it’ll give you a better understanding of SEO — especially if you’re someone who feels like SEO is “too over your head”. It might be a lot simpler than you’re thinking!

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW:

Subscribe & download the episode to your device: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | iHeartRadio

Search for episode 146!

1. Link to your own website in lots of other places and get others to as well!

Make your own backlinks happen! This is very simple, but often missed by people as a means for increasing their SEO power! By linking to your website and people actually clicking on it, you are telling Google “this is important”! It is a vote of confidence for your content, which helps Google show you to more people and results in more organic website traffic.

We get spammy requests for paid backlinks daily in our inbox, and this is not the way I would recommend getting more references to your site. It is worth noting that not all backlinks are created equal. A spammy site backlink could hurt you, while a backlink from a site with a high SEO score can help you a ton.

Instead of pitching people for paid backlinks, you have some other options!

If you have a podcast or YouTube channel, link back to your site in the show notes.
Link to your site on stories on Facebook and Instagram often.
Write posts with links to your blogs and service pages on Facebook.
[For website designers] always link back to your own website as in the site credit.
When you go on podcasts or write guest blogs, ask them to link back to your site. This could even be a specific page on your site.
Be featured as a success story for programs you are in or things you buy.

2. Optimize the heading tags on your website.

This might not completely change your SEO game and bring you to the first page of searches, but it matters. This is a little tweak that makes a huge difference and is easy to overlook.

If you were to work with someone to optimize the SEO on your website, this might be the first step they would do to try and drive organic website traffic to your site. And the great news is that you can also do it for yourself.

Every piece of text on your website has a tag associated with it. These are H1, H2, H3, (H is for heading) paragraph, and navigation. You can easily see these setting options if you are using Showit.

Using heading tags properly tells Google what your content is about, which will help it be shown to the right people who are searching for that thing. Heading tags used to matter more than they do now, but they do still matter.

Here are some specific things to make sure you’re doing on your site:

No more than 1 H1 tag per page. H1 is the “highest heading” on the page, so it should only happen one time. This tag tells Google what the page is about.
Make sure you are using H2, H3, and paragraph headings with hierarchy. So, a paragraph lives within those headings. H2 comes before H3, etc.

If you want to quickly look at your heading tags on your website, you can download the free Google Chrome plugin Header Checker which will show you the tags for any text you select on any website.

3. Blog and update your website frequently.

This might seem obvious, but if you want organic website traffic, blogging is the simplest way to help your website rank. By being a content creator, you are doing a few things:

Giving yourself many opportunities to rank with all the different content pieces you’re creating.
Telling Google that your website isn’t STATIC. It’s updated and has a lot of different content happening. Blogging helps with this the most because there is only so much you are going to change frequently to a page like your contact page or home page anyway. But with blogging, you are creating change on your site every time you blog.
Blog posts are going to rank better than other pages on your site because people search for solutions to problems.

Blogging doesn’t need to be the biggest decision of your life. You don’t have to commit to every week or month. Just start. When you have a content idea that you think you could blog about or a problem you know an answer to, jot it in your phone as an idea for later then do something with it.

If you already are creating content on another platform like Youtube or a podcast, this content IS your blog content. Just turn that information into a post!

That’s it for this one! Cheers to improving our SEO and getting more organic website traffic with these simple, strategic, and amazing tweaks. SEO can feel really complicated but it doesn’t have to be! I hope these help you have some clarity on what can help you strategically improve your website.

If you want more ways to boost your SEO and have a really good-looking website, look no further than EM Shop templates. These will help you boost your SEO because of the way they’re strategically structured. Plus, they’re beautiful and easy to use too!

Links Mentioned:

Get Chrome Extension Header Checker