The difference between
a website that looks good and one that converts
you have almost certainly been told three different things by three different people. Use Squarespace — it is easy. Use WordPress — it is powerful. Use Showit — it is beautiful.
All three are right. All three are also incomplete. Here is the honest breakdown.
1. Squarespace
Squarespace is genuinely beautiful out of the box and genuinely easy to use. If you need a website live within a week and you have no interest in learning anything technical, it will get you there.
The limitations become real as your business grows. You pay a monthly fee forever — you never own the platform. Customisation beyond the template’s original design is limited and often requires workarounds. If you want to add a shop, a booking system, or specific functionality, you will frequently hit a wall.
Best for: A creative who needs something simple and fast, does not plan to scale significantly, and is comfortable with a recurring platform cost.
2. Showit
Showit is the favourite of photographers and creatives who want pixel-perfect design control. It is genuinely the most design-flexible of the three for people who want to build from scratch. It also integrates with WordPress for blogging, which is a smart combination.
The drawback is the same as Squarespace — monthly fees, platform dependency, and a steeper learning curve than its reputation suggests. And the templates, while beautiful, tend toward a specific aesthetic that not every creative brand fits.
Best for: Photographers and visual creatives who want complete design freedom and are willing to invest time learning the platform.
3. WordPress
WordPress powers 43% of all websites on the internet. It is open source, which means you own it completely — no monthly platform fees beyond your hosting, no risk of the company changing its pricing or shutting down.
With Elementor Pro as the page builder, you get the same visual design freedom as Showit with the full power of WordPress underneath. You can build anything. You can sell anything. You can scale without limitation.
The honest caveat: there is a learning curve. WordPress requires more initial setup than Squarespace. But once it is set up — and especially if you start from a well-built template — the day-to-day management is straightforward.
Best for: Creative women who want full ownership, long-term flexibility, and a professional website that grows with their business.
My recommendation ?
For models, actors, photographers, and creative entrepreneurs who are building a serious business — not just a placeholder — WordPress with Elementor is the professional choice. The initial investment in learning is real. The freedom you gain in return is total.
This is why every Jokodsign template is built on WordPress with Elementor Pro. One-click import means you are not starting from scratch — you are starting from a finished, professional design that you then make yours.
Thee role of the designer is that of a good, thoughtful host anticipating the needs of his guests.”
Charles Eames
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Jokodsign is a Madrid-based studio, but a large part of how I think about design and business was shaped somewhere colder and quieter: Bergen, Norway, where I lived for seven years before this chapter began. I don’t bring this up as trivia. It changed how I work.
The instinct, when a website isn’t performing, is to rebuild it. That instinct is usually wrong — and expensive. Most underperforming sites don’t need to be torn down. They need a precise diagnosis of the two or three things actually costing them visitors, enquiries, or sales. That’s what a Website Audit is for.
Most failed websites don’t fail on design — they fail because the strategic decisions were never made before the design started. YOUR FIRST WEBSITE fixes the order of operations: who the site is for, what action a visitor should take, and what needs to be said in the first ten seconds. A working document, not a design guide.
Most creative websites default to white backgrounds and safe grids because that’s what “clean” is supposed to look like. Chéri does the opposite — using black as a design tool to give a single photograph the weight of a gallery wall. Built for photographers, models, and artists whose work already carries visual tension, not for anyone who needs convincing that less is more.
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