You’ve decided to invest in a custom Showit website. Smart move. A well-designed Showit site can genuinely transform your business — higher-quality inquiries, stronger first impressions, better conversions.
But here’s the problem: not everyone who calls themselves a “Showit designer” actually knows the platform. Some have built one or two sites using a pre-made template. Others come from a WordPress or Squarespace background and are figuring out Showit on your dime. And a few are straight-up dishonest about their experience.
Hiring the wrong Showit designer doesn’t just waste money — it can set your business back six months. You end up with a site that looks generic, breaks on mobile, tanks in search results, or simply doesn’t reflect who you are.
Here are the red flags when hiring a Showit designer that you need to watch for before signing any contract.
1. They Can’t Show You a Live Showit Portfolio
This is the most obvious red flag — and still the most commonly missed.
Ask any designer you’re considering for three to five live Showit sites they’ve built. Not mockups. Not screenshots. Not Canva presentations of “concept designs.” Actual URLs you can visit, inspect, and click through on your phone.
If they send you a Behance portfolio, a PDF, or a Dribbble link — that’s a red flag. If they say their work is “under NDA” or “clients asked me not to share” for every single project — that’s a red flag. A real Showit designer with real experience has real sites you can see.
When you do visit the live sites, check the mobile version carefully. Showit’s mobile canvas is entirely separate from desktop, which means designers who rush or don’t know the platform often deliver desktop-only designs that look broken on phones. Pull the site up on your mobile browser. If the layout is a mess, the designer cut corners — or didn’t know better.
2. They’re Not a Showit Design Partner (and Don’t Know What That Means)
Showit maintains an official directory of vetted designers called the Showit Design Partner program. Partners are reviewed by Showit’s team and meet a minimum standard of quality and experience.
Not every good Showit designer is a formal partner — there are skilled independents outside the program. But if a designer doesn’t know what a Showit Design Partner is, that tells you something about how deeply embedded in the Showit ecosystem they actually are.
Designers who are serious about Showit follow the platform’s updates, participate in the community, and know the tools inside out. Those who treat it as “just another drag-and-drop website builder” tend to produce mediocre results.
3. There’s No Discovery Call or Project Intake Process
A professional Showit designer doesn’t just take your money and start building. They want to understand your business, your target audience, your existing brand, your goals, and the specific problem the website needs to solve.
If a designer is ready to start the moment you pay the deposit — no intake questionnaire, no strategy call, no questions about who you’re trying to reach — that’s a problem. It means they’re going to build something generic. A site that looks like their style, not your brand. A site designed for no one in particular.
The best designers ask uncomfortable questions: What’s not working about your current site? What does your ideal client look like? What action do you want visitors to take on every page? These conversations make the difference between a pretty website and a website that actually works.
4. Their Price Seems Too Good to Be True
A custom Showit website from an experienced designer costs money. Realistically, you’re looking at $1,500 on the absolute low end for a basic custom build, and $3,000–$6,000+ for a full multi-page site with strategy, copywriting support, and SEO setup.
If someone is quoting you $300 for a “custom Showit website,” they are almost certainly doing one of the following: dropping in a pre-made template with minimal edits, outsourcing to someone even cheaper overseas with no Showit training, or simply not delivering what they promised.
Cheap sites have a hidden cost. You’ll spend months trying to get revisions done, fighting for basic communication, and eventually paying someone else to fix the mess. Budget appropriately from the start.
5. They Promise “SEO Included” but Can’t Explain It
This one is rampant. “SEO included!” is plastered on half the Showit designer websites out there, and most of the time it means absolutely nothing beyond filling in a page title and meta description.
Real Showit SEO involves: proper heading hierarchy on every page, clean URL structure, schema markup, connecting and configuring Yoast SEO on the WordPress blog, canonical tag setup, image alt text strategy, internal linking, and making sure your Showit pages are actually indexed by Google.
Ask any designer who claims to include SEO: “Can you walk me through what Showit SEO setup looks like for a new site launch?” A qualified designer will give you a clear, specific answer. An unqualified one will get vague fast. Vague answers on SEO are a serious red flag.
6. They Don’t Ask About Your Audience or Business Goals
A website’s job is to convert visitors into clients. To do that, it needs to speak directly to your specific audience — their fears, their goals, the language they use, the objections they have before they book.
If a designer never asks who you’re trying to reach, what your conversion goal is, or what makes your offer different from competitors — they’re designing in a vacuum. The result will look nice but do nothing for your business. It becomes digital decoration rather than a sales tool.
Strategy and design are inseparable on a high-converting website. Be suspicious of any designer who treats them as separate concerns or skips the strategy part entirely.
7. Their Contract Is Vague or Non-Existent
No contract is a dealbreaker. Full stop.
But even designers who do use contracts often use vague ones. Watch for agreements that don’t specify: the exact number of pages being built, what’s included in revisions (and how many rounds), the timeline for each project phase, what happens if you miss a feedback deadline, and who owns the final site files.
Ambiguity in a contract almost always benefits the designer, not the client. If something isn’t written down, it probably won’t happen the way you imagined it. A professional designer’s contract should be clear enough that there’s no room for misinterpretation.
8. They Confuse Showit with WordPress or Elementor
Showit is not WordPress. It’s not Elementor. It’s not Wix with better branding. It’s a distinct visual design platform with its own canvas, its own layer system, its own responsive setup, and its own quirks that take time to genuinely master.
During a discovery call, ask the designer to describe something specific about the Showit build process — how they handle the mobile canvas, how they connect the Showit site to WordPress for blogging, how they set up animations without breaking mobile layout. If they fumble on platform-specific questions or start describing WordPress workflows, they’re not the Showit specialist they claimed to be.
This mistake costs you time and money. Platform confusion shows up in the final product as broken mobile views, clunky blog integration, and a site that fights against Showit rather than leveraging it.
9. Their Revision Policy Is Unclear or Stingy
Custom website design involves iteration. You’ll see the initial design, have feedback, need adjustments. That’s normal and healthy. A professional Showit designer builds revision rounds into their process and is clear upfront about how many rounds are included and what “a revision” means.
Red flags here include: no mention of revisions in the contract at all, “unlimited revisions” (which usually means something else entirely), or unclear definitions of what counts as a revision versus a scope change.
Also watch for designers who disappear between milestones. Good communication throughout the project — updates, check-ins, quick responses — is a sign of professionalism. Silence is a sign of problems ahead.
10. Their Testimonials Are Vague or Can’t Be Verified
Testimonials are easy to fake. Screenshots of complimentary messages can be manufactured in minutes. When vetting a Showit designer, look for reviews you can actually verify:
- Google Business reviews (check the reviewer’s profile — does it look real?)
- LinkedIn recommendations from people with real profiles and mutual connections
- Tagged mentions on social media from real client accounts
- Testimonials that include the client’s name, business, and what problem was solved
Vague praise like “Amazing designer! 10/10 recommend!” with no context is nearly useless for vetting. Look for testimonials that describe the before and after: what the client’s situation was, what the designer delivered, and what changed as a result of the website. Specific, detailed testimonials from identifiable people are the ones worth trusting.
What to Do Instead
None of these red flags mean you can’t find an excellent Showit designer — they absolutely exist. The vetting process just takes a bit of effort upfront, and it’s worth it.
Here’s a practical checklist before you sign anything:
- Visit at least three live Showit sites they built
- Check those sites on mobile, not just desktop
- Ask for a discovery call and notice how prepared they are
- Ask them to explain their SEO process specifically
- Read the contract carefully — every line
- Look for verified testimonials from real, identifiable clients
- Get clear on timeline, revisions, and what “done” means before you pay
If you’ve already been through the list in 12 questions to ask before hiring a Showit designer, you know what a qualified designer looks like. Now you also know what the warning signs look like on the other side.
Ready to Work With a Showit Designer Who Has None of These Problems?
I’m Adil — a Showit designer and SEO specialist based in Pakistan, working with service providers, photographers, and coaches worldwide. I’ve built Showit sites that rank on Google, load fast, look sharp on every device, and actually convert visitors into inquiries.
I offer a free discovery call so you can ask me anything before committing to a thing. No pressure, no sales tactics — just a straight conversation about your site and what it needs.
