If you want to believe Webflow's own advertising, Webflow breaks the barrier between design and coding. What sounds inconspicuous is a pretty big thing. Because:
Only 0.5% of the world's population can really code.
(Source: EDC)
The result: People who wanted to create digital products, or simply their own website, were dependent on competent web developers before Webflow. These developers then had to laboriously translate created designs into production-ready HTML, CSS, and JS code to bring the website to life. Fortunately, Webflow does just that job for us. What is visually designed is automatically translated into semantic code — and with a precision that only a few people can. In the following 5 points, we'll tell you how Webflow has revolutionized our work processes and why you too can create your website completely without coding.
1. The Webflow Designer has no limits
Let's be honest: Today's digital world is dominated by products that are really well designed. And that is also understandable. Through grandiose apps like Airbnb or fantastic websites like Diagram Are users used to sophisticated design. An 0815 website with the classic “picture left, text right layout” is no longer convincing of the company's innovative capacity.
This is where Webflow Designer comes in. The designer makes it possible to transfer layouts designed in Figma, Adobe Xd or similar software to the web in a pixel-perfect way. Spacing can be taken over perfectly, color codes and fonts can be used precisely and even the most complicated layouts can be implemented with Flexbox, Grid 2.0 and Absolute Positioning. New features are added regularly and promptly after release by the Webflow team. This means that website designs are always up to date and can rely on effects such as backdrop filters and iX2 animations.
Even though Webflow can be used without coding knowledge, a basic understanding of HTML, CSS and JS can't hurt. If this is not the case, you can also simply fall back on ready-made layouts or entire templates, which then only have to be adapted to your own ideas.
2. Webflow speeds up your design → Dev speed
Young companies in particular usually have 2 things too few:
Time & budget
For this reason, long development cycles and mistakes in the transfer from design to development are often poison for corporate success. But larger companies also suffer from immense costs for implementing website projects.
Webflow also provides a remedy here. By visually “programming” the website and relying the Webflow Designer functions on common design tools, layouts can be developed quickly and 1:1. This results in fewer questions to the design team, which saves time and thus costs.
3. Webflow works without plug-ins
If you've ever built or had a website built in Wordpress, you know how tedious it is to install and configure the right plug-ins. Of course, plugins offer extensive functionality that WordPress does not natively provide, which no one tells you: Plugins must be maintained and updated and, sometimes, even cost monthly fees.
And at the latest when an outdated plugin has shot up the website, it is clear that plugins can be a curse and a blessing.
With Webflow, you develop visually pure HTML, CSS, and JS code. The end result is semantic websites that do not require any plugins. Your code also stays clean and fast and you no longer have to worry about updates or security vulnerabilities. And if you do need additional functionalities:
You can make iFrames or Custom Code Embeds at any time.
4. Webflow is built for SEO and page speed
Most websites want good SEO results but very few really care. The reason: Lack of functions or difficult access to essential features with other CMS makes the integration of SEO Essentials complicated and time-consuming.
Webflow is built around SEO and therefore comes natively with the following features:
- Semantic and fast code
- Meta title and description can be set individually for each page
- Structured data can be linked to the CMS
- Images can be compressed to webp directly in Webflow
- You can easily add alt tags to images
- URLs and subdirectories are easy to customize
- an XML sitemap is generated automatically
- the Global Canonical URL ensures no duplicate content
- Webflow offers an internal audit tool, which, for example, alerts you to incorrect use of the headings H1-H6
If you want to learn more about Webflow and SEO, here is a Guide for beginners And here is one advanced Webflow SEO guide.
If you look at the topic of Webflow and Page Speed, the loading speed of your Webflow site goes hand in hand with a few points from the SEO list above. For example, compressing images and semantic code make for blazingly fast websites.
Webflow also offers the following options directly in the designer:
- Clean up the CSS and delete unused classes
- to eliminate unused animations and thus reduce the size of the JS code
- Compress HTML, CSS, and JS
- Easy management of third party scripts
- Distinction between lazy and eager loading
- Precise settings for preloading other pages
If the topic of Webflow and Pagespeed is relevant to you, we have it here Pagespeed Basics summarized and here is a Webflow Page Speed Guide for Advanced Users published.
5. Webflow lets you edit your website yourself
If you have professionals build your website, there is often a problem in the end: The website is finished and shiny, but you have to open a ticket with your agency for every small change.
To prevent this from happening again, the Webflow Editor allows you to edit your website yourself. The editor is virtually a stripped-down version of Webflow Designer and allows you to edit:
- texts
- links
- and pictures
directly on the live website. Without an extra tool, without complicated access.
No need to fiddle around in the backend anymore.
If your website uses the powerful Webflow CMS, the editor becomes even stronger. Upload new blog posts directly in the editor, edit existing job advertisements or get an overview of all the leads that your contact form has brought in so far. If you know a bit, you can even revise your website's SEO data directly in the editor. You can read how it all works in detail in this post: The Webflow Editor: This is how you can edit content in Webflow yourself.