It happens naturally, where you outgrow your site and are no-longer meeting clients where they are.
In my case, it was interactive design. No other sites really offer the level of interaction needed to showcase what I do. It’s alright saying that you can do X and Y, but without proving it on your site, you’re not making the right impact.
After helping a client rebrand and launch their new website, I knew that my own site felt a bit outdated and not reflecting the projects I was showing. It was about high time for a rebrand myself, and a platform that showcases my work and services. Something clean, professional and responsive. It was time to get to grips with Webflow for myself rather than a client.
I’ll go into what makes Webflow a great option first:
Working templates. They can be free, or around $80, if you’re not a seasoned Web Designer, these look smart and are mobile-optimised. Ready to customise to your brand. You’re also not locked into a template structure, all components can be rearranged and resized without effecting HTML.
Better SEO. Webflow has more in-built features such as LLMs and Robot Text that make SEO more intuitive, great if you’re new to this. You’ll get pointers on how to make your pages more SEO-friendly when publishing. Webflow also produces cleaner code, making your site easier to trawl and index.
Interactive elements. You can customise any element to move on page scroll, loading or clicking. Some of these interactions can be powered by GSAP, so if you’re implementing a Spline file, then you can edit it directly without having to switch between Spline and Webflow. You’ll also get more control over timing, movement and scaling on a working timeline. It’s worth noting that Webflow also does a better job of hosting Lottie and Rive files.
Claude Plugin. If you have no clue how Webflow works, Claude can connect and communicate directly into Webflow to make real-time design and CSS changes. It’s important that you look over and approve every action Claude takes, as it can make mistakes or simply not understand operations. Any mistake it can make can be reverted, which is good news.
Webflow is just more professional. No matter how hard you try to customise or design Squarespace or Wix site, they always have a certain look to them. Some of these site do look good and navigate well, but it can be difficult to scale your site as your business grows.
Better Design. Webflow offers more control over components and maintains styles for Typography, Grids and Sections across your pages. It also offers better CMS collections, which makes updating Lightboxes and Template pages more automated.
The downsides.
To use Webflow properly, you'll need a basic understanding of CMS code. Webflow isn’t a drag and drop job. You need to understand basic hierarchy and code when building pages. Otherwise you’ll find it unintuitive, and your designs not working out. The Claude plugin, whilst super-helpful, can only do so much.
There’s a steep learning curve. If you’re completely new to building sites, Webflow isn’t the best place to start. It’s code-like structure and lack of drag-and-drop isn’t beginner-friendly. I was pulling my hair out a few times when trying to get to grips with it, and nearly gave up a few times!
High costs. Webflow does offer a free or basic package which makes costs more in-line with competitors, but if you’re wanting to actually use Webflow for what it’s made for (CMS collections, SEO), then you do need to be paying for it’s more-expensive subscriptions.
Webflow isn’t a blogging platform. Sites like Wordpress or even Wix have in-built blogging apps. Making keyword and Meta descriptions to your posts a breeze. Webflow to my knowledge only offers this is a CMS collection. You are able to generate Schema Markups and of course add Alt Text to images, but Webflow does lose points on the Blogging front.
Analytics are a paid-extra. It’s important that you get an overview of page views, bounce rates and where your traffic is actually coming from. Webflow offers Optimize and Analyze as Add-ons, but these aren’t cheap. I’ve yet to explore what they actually have to offer, as they’re just a bit out of my price range at the moment. As an alternative, you can use Diib, Semrush etc for basic site overviews.
Limited options for Video. My portfolio is 80% video, so it’s really important to be able to host these on my site. You need to host your videos on a separate site (I use Bunny.net), but this does come at an extra cost for storage. Webflow hosts videos through URLs copied from sites like Vimeo or Youtube, which isn’t exactly convenient. This can make managing CMS collections more difficult for Template pages. I’ve had to use custom HTML for the route I’ve gone down to host my videos, which works ok for now, but I’ll need to remigrate all of my video content in future.
You can’t automatically migrate content from your old site into Webflow. Bit of an obvious one, but there’s no automation or magic button for this. You’ll have to rebuild your site on Webflow from scratch, which can take weeks if you’ve worked hard on adding entire portfolios or blog posts with Alt Text and Meta Descriptions.
Overall
It’s been a challenge, and the site still isn’t where I need it to be. But as a designer, you’re usually not completely-happy with your work and are itching to make changes.
The migration from Wix to Webflow has been frustrating, full of self-doubt, and a few mistakes along the way. Not to mention the breaks I’ve had to take from it to focus on client work.
But if you’re up for a challenge for the better, and want to get a seriously get into Interaction Design, then yourself and your clients will thank you later for taking the plunge into Webflow.
If you’re ever struggling with building a Webflow site, feel free to reach out. I’ve been there!
