In this video, I dive into my experience using Webflow as a no-code tool and discuss the pros and cons that led me to ultimately quit. From accessibility and SEO concerns to price and customer service, I share my honest thoughts and feelings about this popular platform. We also get into what I get asked a lot and that is – am i back to Webflow and why
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Transcript
Today, I’m going to be answering a question I get asked a lot.
Am I back to Webflow?
Not entirely, and we’ll get into that.
Last year, I made 2 videos on why I quit Webflow, which today is my most watched video. I think the reason for this is that people are doing their due diligence when it comes to assessing Webflow and whether it’s the right tool for them.
In those videos, my highlighted cons were ;
- accessibility
- SEO
- price
- poor customer service and feature development
- slight security concerns
- unnecessary integrations
If you haven’t watched those, then I’ll leave links them in the description below. But you have to understand that came from someone who builds websites for large clients who has very specific needs, and who we build interactive and immersive websites. And while I love No Code, it helps me out quite a lot. Webflow inevitably just ended up slowing us down, trying to make workarounds for a tool that just wasn’t fit for purpose.
So, as you rightly pointed out, and you know who you are, I’ve begun making Webflow content again. And I’ve been so overjoyed with the messages that I’ve received from you guys thanking me for returning to the platform and educating and my way, which some of you seem to enjoy quite a lot.
When a client comes to me, we run a mandatory discovery and scoping workshop. And we get into all the technical details, and the requirements, and the landscape, and also the business requirements. We also look into their long terms goal, which subsequently help us decide which technology to go with.
The buzzwords I listen for when it comes to deciding if Webflow is the right tool, is being able to
- change design
- unknown or kind of future branding design, or upcoming branding redesigns
- visual content editor
Now that last one’s a bit of a stretch because There are new tools coming to the table, which help us bake in content editable websites. Such as Vercel’s recent announcement with sanity.
So, whilst being able to edit the website itself, It’s a nice to have, I’m also then cognizant of pricing limitations. Because, as I mentioned in my last video, webflow is expensive. You’re paying a lot for what is mostly a designer.
So unless designers is the forefront of the requirements. Then really, it’s it’s already not really the tool for me to use. And personally, I’m I’m torn between design changes. Now, I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur, but before the likes of webflow, oxygen, elemental, content editing was actually done on the back end through just simple form fields. And, while it isn’t exactly sexy or interesting, it meant it leaned into this idea of the model view controller.
Now, the model view controller separates the data which is the model from the view which is how that data is being displayed.
Besides you work really hard crafting, a beautiful UX journey, or designing something that looks great, once you give that into the hands of client who has no idea about design and UX fundamentals, they end up bastardizing the design anyway.
So I’ve really got to consider whether we want to allow them to do any design after we’ve already spent all that time designing for them anyway.
So with design updates, the company needs to be in the startup phases of their journey. They’re still working out their offering. They’re pivoting. They’re trying to just play around with whatever works, and we’re giving them a head start on a very simple website that just gets them out there and starts earning the money, which is one of my mottos.
Actually be interested in hearing what you have to say about what determines when you decide that someone should use a webflow website.
And with that, I’m actually offering that scoping workshop that I spoke about at the beginning. I’m actually offering that as a kind of paid for product for you guys to to purchase, use, edit, do whatever you kind of want with this serving as a foundation.
So what it really entails is basically the framework itself, the template itself, but you’re also going to get email templates also going to get video tutorials on how to run the workshop,
I’m still finessing exactly what will go into this product. But like I say, you are interested, let me know at the full stack agency XYZ, and the more people that sign up to it, or the more people that are interested, the more incentivize, I’m gonna be to complete this thing. So do let me know if you’re interested, and I look forward to seeing you in that.
So let’s finally get into why I decided to come back. To webflow. And well, as I’ve already said, webflow always remains just one tool in my tool belt, which, to be honest, has only seen the light of day with 1 large client that I’ve had. But ultimately, it comes down to you guys. The engagement and dedication to learning webflow specifically encourages me, and I still believe there’s so much to be taught when it comes to kind of under the hood magic of webflow.
Now, I’m not gonna change your mind on moving away from webflow. All I can do is present the options. But I may as well help you build the best webflow web sites possible, that adhere to technical accessibility and SEO standards.
So there it is. It’s quite simple, really. I just wanna help you guys and a lot of engagement on those types of videos. So whilst this turned into a bit of a explanatory session on what I listen out for when offering Webflow, which you can use, obviously.
It also just answers that age old question. Am I back to Webflow? And the short answer is no, but I