If you’re considering making the switch to Showit, you may be a bit confused about how blogging works on the platform, since you’ll have a WordPress Blog connected to your website. In this post, I go over how they both integrate together!
Blogging is something I recommend for every client I work with – no matter how small the business. It’s an inexpensive way to drive traffic to your website! The best thing about blogging is the long-term results for website traffic. You can receive traffic and leads even years after it’s been posted, and blog posts typically get more popular as time goes on. Write about topics that will attract your target audience, and you’re set! The little effort you put in writing that post can turn into hundreds of thousands of leads. When you compare the growth of content on other platforms like Instagram – blogging is more worth your time.
Showit is a design tool & website builder where you can design your blog layout exactly how you want it. But to write your actual blog posts and switch any back-end blog settings, this is done within WordPress.
Once you’ve signed up for Showit, simply send a request to the Showit team for a blog connection – and they handle the rest for you! In a few days, you’ll receive access to your WordPress Admin (yourdomain.com/wp-admin) to begin publishing posts. As the Showit team connects everything for you in the back-end, all blog posts you publish in WordPress will automatically send to your Showit Website.
On the left-hand side of Showit, you will see an area called Blog Templates under the Site tab. This is where your blog designs will be created using placeholders. If using an existing Showit website template, you should see these pages already formatted:
You will design your blog layout however you’d like! Keep in mind that no blog content will be posted directly on Showit. As you see in the image below, the title design is linked to “Post Title”. This means that the placeholder will pull information from your connected WordPress account, and place your blog post title here when it’s published. You will see other placeholders for your blog. This includes featured image, post title, post date, category name, excerpt, post button, or other features depending on the design you’d like, or what’s included in your template. These can be changed in the Text Properties, on the right-hand side of Showit.
There are various layouts you can design! For example, you can create 1 post per row, side-by-side or alternating! This depends on the template you chose or the layout you’d like. Side by Side blog posts can be a little trickier, here’s a tutorial from Showit if you’re wanting to achieve this look.
Single Post page will grab your actual blog post content to display your individual posts. Same as the post list page, there are placeholders that will take information directly from WordPress. Therefore, you won’t need to write any actual content in Showit. If you’re wanting to add a sidebar, add a date area or comment section – this is all done on Showit.
Once your blog design is all ready, all that’s left to do is write & publish your blog posts! You’d log into your WordPress Admin, head to “Posts”, and start writing. You’ll notice a + (plus) icon, which allows you to add headings, paragraphs, images, and more! Also, you’ll see some settings on the right-hand side when writing posts. This is where you can set your featured image, categories, and tags.
I recommend looking at all of the different settings and plugins that WordPress offers in your admin. Depending on the Showit plan you’ve chosen, you may have access to fewer/more plugins. The one plugin I highly suggest turning on is Yoast SEO, to increase your ranking on search engines for your posts. Yoast SEO is the main reason why my website skyrocketed on Google, it’s a powerful and amazing tool.
Once turned on, Yoast SEO settings will be shown on every blog post you write. These sections have to be filled in for every post, to get the best results possible!
Once you’re ready to publish, I recommend previewing your post first to see how it looks like in your Showit blog layout. Click Preview on the top right & Open in a New Tab. Once you’ve hit publish, it will automatically show up on your new blog! You’ll see the placeholders have been replaced with your blog post content, and will automatically duplicate the layout as you post more.
Showit has an amazing library of 50+ tutorials and help documents for anything you have questions on right here. For example, if you want to know how to add a comment section, pin it button, optimize your blog images or anything else – they’ve got you covered.
Hopefully, this blog helps clarify how both platforms work together & I’m here to help if you prefer to hand it off to an expert! All of my custom website packages & Showit website templates in my template shop offer blog templates. If you’re not blogging in 2022 as a small business, it’s the perfect time to get started.