Coaches and course creators have a specific problem with their websites: the site needs to do a lot of things at once. It has to communicate your authority, build trust with cold traffic, sell your offers without you being in the room, capture email leads, and get someone booked on a discovery call, often in one visit.
Most Showit designers can build a beautiful site. Far fewer understand the conversion logic behind a coaching business website well enough to structure it correctly.
After building more than 90 Showit websites, a significant portion of them for coaches, online educators, and course creators, I have learned what separates a coaching website that books clients from one that just looks impressive in a portfolio screenshot. This guide covers what to look for in a Showit designer if you are a coach, what your site needs to include, why Showit is the right platform for this kind of business, and how to get the most out of the process.
Why Coaches and Course Creators Choose Showit
The coaching and course creator market has no shortage of website platform options. The question is which one actually serves a coaching business best in 2026.
Showit versus Kajabi
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that combines website hosting, course delivery, email marketing, and checkout. It is genuinely powerful for managing everything in one place. The cost reflects that: according to Kajabi’s published pricing, plans run from $71/month on annual billing (Starter) to $399/month (Pro). The design flexibility is limited compared to a dedicated website builder.
Showit costs $22 to $39 per month for the platform, gives you pixel-perfect design freedom, and powers your blog through WordPress, which is the strongest blogging and SEO engine available. Coaches who use a separate tool for course delivery (Teachable, Podia, or ThriveCart Learn) and want a website that ranks on Google consistently choose Showit because it costs less, looks exactly as intended, and builds long-term organic traffic through WordPress-powered content.
Showit versus Squarespace
Squarespace offers clean templates and a simpler setup, but the design constraints are real. You work within a grid. Showit works on a canvas, which means your designer has no layout limitations. For a coaching business where your homepage needs to feel premium and personal, and your sales page needs a very specific flow, Showit’s design freedom translates directly into better conversion.
What Showit gives coaches specifically:
- Full control over desktop and mobile layouts (built separately, not auto-generated)
- WordPress blogging for SEO content that compounds over time
- Integrations with every major coaching tool (scheduling, email, course delivery, checkout)
- No transaction fees, no product limits, no contacts limits baked into the website plan
- 14-day free trial so your designer can build the full site before you pay for a subscription
The 10 Pages a Showit Designer Should Build for a Coaching Business
A Showit designer who understands coaching knows the site architecture before they open the canvas. Here are the pages a complete coaching website needs, and what each one has to accomplish.
1. Home
The homepage does one job: tell a visitor immediately who you help, what you help them achieve, and what to do next. This means social proof and a clear call to action above the fold. No lengthy paragraphs about your journey. Your designer should structure this as a conversion page, not a brochure.
2. About
For coaches, the About page is the second most visited page on the site and one of the highest-converting. It needs to balance personal story with professional credibility. Your designer should build in a clear credentials section, a photo that communicates warmth and authority, and a link to your primary offer or discovery call booking.
3. Work With Me or Services
An overview of your offers, positioned and priced for your ideal client. Each offer should have enough information for a visitor to qualify themselves and decide whether to click through to the full sales page.
4. Sales Page (one per core offer)
A properly built sales page for a group programme, mastermind, or signature course is not the same as a services page. It needs a specific structure: outcome-led headline, problem articulation, offer reveal, what is included, who it is for, testimonials, objection handling, FAQs, and a clear purchase or apply CTA. A Showit designer who has built coaching sales pages knows this flow. One who has not will treat it like any other page.
5. Opt-In or Lead Magnet
An email list is the most valuable asset a coach can build outside of their audience. Your opt-in page should have a single focus: one offer, one form, one action. Your designer will connect it to your email platform (Flodesk, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign) and build the thank-you page that follows.
6. Blog
Showit’s WordPress blog is what separates it from most competing platforms for coaches who want organic search traffic. A properly built blog setup means correct category structure, schema markup, Yoast SEO configuration, and a design that matches the rest of the site rather than feeling like a separate tool.
7. Discovery Call or Booking
This page embeds your scheduling tool (Calendly, Acuity, or HoneyBook) and frames the call correctly so the right people book and the wrong ones self-select out. It is one of the highest-ROI pages on a coaching site and frequently done as an afterthought.
8. Podcast or YouTube Page (if applicable)
Coaches with an audio or video content library benefit from a dedicated page that houses that content, builds authority, and keeps visitors on the site longer. From the template data reviewed for this guide, some coaching templates include dedicated podcast and YouTube pages as standard.
9. Resources or Free Stuff
A central page linking to your freebies, lead magnets, and free content. Useful for SEO and for giving cold traffic a low-barrier way to engage before committing to a discovery call.
10. Contact and Legal Pages
A clean contact page with a simple form and your availability information, plus a Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. These are not optional. Any coach collecting email addresses or selling services online is legally required to have them.
Essential Integrations Your Showit Designer Needs to Build In
A Showit website for a coach is not a standalone brochure. It connects to multiple external tools, and those connections need to be built correctly at launch. Here is what your designer should handle as part of the build.
| Category | Tools to integrate | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Email marketing | Flodesk, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp | Connects opt-in forms to your list; triggers welcome sequences |
| Scheduling | Calendly, Acuity, HoneyBook | Embeds booking flow on your discovery call page |
| Course delivery | Teachable, Podia, Kajabi (as course host only) | Links out to or embeds your course portal |
| Checkout | ThriveCart, Stripe, PayPal | Handles payment for programmes; buttons embed on sales pages |
| Analytics | Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console | Tracks traffic sources, conversions, and search performance |
| Chat or pop-up | ManyChat, Tidio, ConvertBox | Captures visitors before they leave; triggers based on behaviour |
If integration work is not explicitly listed in the designer’s scope, ask about it. Some designers include it; others bill $75 to $99 per hour for anything beyond basic embedding. Clarify before you sign.
What a Showit Designer Specifically Does for Coaches
The difference between a generalist web designer and one who has built coaching websites comes down to how they think about structure before they think about aesthetics.
A designer who understands coaching businesses will:
- Plan your site architecture before the first canvas opens. Which offers need sales pages? Which ones are featured on the homepage? What is the path from a Google search to a booked discovery call? These decisions shape the build.
- Design for conversion at every level. Button placement, the hierarchy of information on a sales page, how testimonials are positioned, where the opt-in appears, what the CTA says. A generalist designer treats these as layout decisions. A specialist treats them as conversion decisions.
- Configure your blog for SEO from day one. Keyword-based category structure, Yoast setup, schema markup, internal linking between blog posts and your offers. Most coaches leave significant organic traffic on the table because their blog was set up without this groundwork.
- Build a mobile experience that converts, not just one that renders. Showit builds mobile separately. A coach’s homepage on mobile needs the same conversion intent as on desktop. This takes deliberate design, not a responsive shrink.
How to Brief a Showit Designer as a Coach
The quality of your design outcome depends significantly on how clearly you hand over information. A good designer will guide you through this, but knowing what to prepare saves time and revision rounds.
Before your kickoff call or intake questionnaire, have ready:
- Your core offer and who it is for. One sentence for each offer: who it helps, what outcome it delivers, what it costs, and how someone buys it.
- Your existing testimonials and results. Client outcomes, quotes with permission, before-and-after scenarios. Your designer cannot build social proof without raw material.
- Your brand assets. Logo (vector format if possible), brand colours (hex codes), preferred fonts, and any existing brand guidelines.
- Three to five website examples you like. Not necessarily coaching sites. Any sites whose visual language appeals to you. This shortens the discovery process significantly.
- Your content for the About page. Your story, credentials, training, and what led you to this work. This page is critical for coaches and your designer cannot write it for you.
- Your platform logins. Calendly, ConvertKit, or whatever tools need connecting. Not passwords, just confirm you have admin access and can share embed codes.
What to Look for in a Showit Designer for Your Coaching Business
Not every Showit designer is the right fit for a coaching business. Here is how to evaluate them before committing.
Ask to see live coaching or course creator websites they have built. Not screenshots. Live URLs. Navigate them on mobile. Check whether the homepage has a clear CTA above the fold. Check whether the sales pages have a logical flow. If every site in their portfolio is a photography portfolio, they may not have built the conversion architecture a coaching business requires.
Ask how they handle sales page structure. A designer who has built coaching sales pages will have an opinion about this. They will talk about headline hierarchy, social proof placement, and objection handling sections. A designer who has not will give you a vague answer about “making it look great.”
Ask about SEO setup. Do they set up Yoast? Do they write meta descriptions for every page? Do they use schema markup? Do they connect Google Search Console at launch? These are not advanced requests. They are baseline requirements for a website that generates organic traffic.
Ask about post-launch support. Coaching businesses evolve. You will add an offer, update a sales page, or change your pricing within the first three months. Know whether your designer includes updates in their package or charges separately, and for how long they remain available after launch.
For a complete list of what to ask, see: 12 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Showit Designer.
For pricing at every budget tier, including what a custom coaching website actually costs in 2026, see: How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Showit Designer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do coaches use Showit instead of Kajabi for their website?
Kajabi combines course delivery and website hosting but costs $71 to $399 per month depending on plan, according to kajabi.com. Showit costs $22 to $39 per month for the platform and gives you far more design freedom. Coaches who use a separate course platform (Teachable, Podia, ThriveCart) and want a custom, SEO-optimised website choose Showit because it costs significantly less per month, offers pixel-perfect design control, and ranks more effectively on Google through its WordPress blog integration.
Can a Showit website sell courses and digital products?
Yes, through integrations. Showit does not have native checkout or course delivery built in, but your designer can wire in third-party tools: ThriveCart or ThriveCart Learn for checkout and course delivery, Teachable or Podia for course hosting, and embed buy buttons or full sales pages directly into your Showit site. Visitors can complete a purchase without the experience feeling disjointed.
What pages does a coaching website need?
A complete coaching website needs: Home, About, Services or Work With Me, at least one dedicated Sales Page per core offer, Opt-in or Lead Magnet page, Blog, Booking or Discovery Call page, and Contact. Course creators often add a Course Hub, Resources page, and Podcast page if they have audio content. A qualified Showit designer will plan this architecture with you before designing a single page.
How long does it take to build a Showit website for a coach?
A full custom Showit coaching website with 8 to 10 pages typically takes 6 to 10 weeks from kickoff to launch, depending on page count and how quickly content is provided. A focused 6-page site can be completed in 4 to 6 weeks. Providing content promptly (copy, photos, brand assets) is the single biggest factor in keeping a project on schedule.
Does a Showit designer set up my booking system and email opt-in?
A skilled Showit designer should embed your scheduling tool (Calendly, Acuity, or HoneyBook) and connect your email platform (Flodesk, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign) as part of the build. Confirm this is included in the written scope before signing. Integration work outside the agreed scope is typically billed at $75 to $99 per hour.
Should I hire a Showit designer who specialises in coaches, or will any Showit designer do?
A designer who understands coaching businesses will structure your site for conversion, not just aesthetics. They know that a coaching homepage needs social proof above the fold, that a group programme sales page has different requirements from a portfolio page, and that your booking flow needs to be frictionless. Any Showit designer can build a site. A specialist builds one that books clients.
Finding the right Showit website designer for coaches and course creators is not just about design taste. It is about finding someone who understands funnels, lead magnets, and how people decide to buy online. A good Showit website designer for coaches and course creators will ask about your offer, your audience, and your conversion goals before touching a single template. If you are ready to grow your coaching business online, a purpose-built Showit site is one of the best investments you can make.
Related reading: Showit designer pricing, Showit SEO strategy, and the Showit website design process.
