Wondering how any other designers are communicating to clients with trying to push them down the Webflow CMS path.
I’ve got a customer right now who just said this
Admittedly, I’m hesitant to use anything other than wordpress since 40% of the world’s websites are done in WP, I may need a demo to better understand why you think this is a better fit for my site.
My next steps, is to sign up for a $10 CMS and get his Blog setup for the CMS and show him what is possible.
I’m pretty much saying that Webflow CMS is like a visual Wordpress on Steriods and that you don’t have to worry about navigating around the wordpress dashboard, you just browse to your website and click on what pages you want to edit, am i somewhat right here?
starting from a template is great, but if you ever need to do something customized beyond the template, it adds more hours and cost to the customer AND the designer/developer
Plugins GALORE - this is more of a bad thing than good. The more plugins you rely on, the more people that unknowingly have their hands in your customer’s site. If a plugin breaks, you, the designer, has to go and find a fix or another plugin.
CRAZY CODE - go look at any wordpress site’s HEAD tag. It’s huuuuuge. More code = more load time for the browser. Look at any Webflow site’s code. Clean. Simple. BEAUTIFUL.
Also, create an example site with the CMS hosting turned on. Then have a potential client login and edit the site. Let them experience the CMS first hand.
If that doesn’t convince them, then hopefully the lower cost of building the site with Webflow will.
Here’s some further feedback from my client. I share this so we can all have a healthy discussion on how best to succeed in winning with Webflow and ultimately providing the customer with the best solution.
His feedback is…
Choosing an easier option isn’t necessarily the better business decision. (think Beta vs. VHS).
Let’s say <webflow.designer.me> moves on to bigger and better things down the road and I no longer have anyone to help me with Webflow and I don’t have the time to do it myself. WP developers abound, vs it’s probably a lot harder to find people with Webflow experience.
That’s my main concern, but if it’s super easy to use/learn and has all the functionality we need, then… ok.
What about deploying Webflow to web servers? Rightly or wrongly, I tend to use GoDaddy for my domains and they have an easy WP deployment. If they don’t make it easy to deploy Webflow I’d have to look at using another host. Ok, I suppose, but it’s just different and causes me friction and having to use multiple web hosts.
As for the webflow web servers, the hosting is $5 if I’m correct p/month and the CMS is $10 per month… So that’s a $15 p/month cost.
We have a passionate group of Designers, Community Experts and Webflow staff thats always growing. If there is any need for help, your clients will get it via our forums, help center, or support@webflow.com .
you know how to answer that one
Just two clicks and the site is published. Easier than deploying a WordPress site then setting up a theme for it. (Which is about… over 10 clicks? )
Convincing people to use something new is always hard. But as long as you stay the course and have good in your heart, people will follow.
I mean, look what people said about the iPod during it’s first keynote 11 years ago:
All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.
and another cause it just shows how humans react to new things.
I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so wrong! It’s so stupid!
If people are trying to tell you how you should build their site then you aren’t doing your job. It’s your job to make them confident in YOUR choices. Don’t let someone without any real web development knowledge tell you want platform, framework, etc to use. Be confident and explain that Wordpress isn’t what they think it is and you’re a better developer in the Webflow environment. You can also do a cost comparison. Your Webflow work compared to you setting up a site in Wordpress.
Wordpress has become a buzzword more than anything else these days - same goes for ‘blog’ and ‘member login’. Everyone thinks they want them but almost no one even uses them properly - or understands a thing about it.
I’m going to attempt to stay off my soapbox about this topic but do want to say a few things. Before I really get going, one this @LvnLife is CMS hosting including the custom domain is $10 not $15 I think.
Wordpress and businesses (especially small to mid/large sized business) have in my experience often have love-hate relationship with Wordpress. It’s what they have been sold, what the web says 40% of sites built are made with and what clients are often used to using so they feel like they should continue to use it. Often however, in the same breath they will complain of slowness issues, functionality, poor SEO (usually due to repeat content or poor SEO strategy), and ultimately the complexity of keeps them from utilizing the site well…especially if they have broken something along the way and don’t want to again.
With Webflow you are getting a completely customizable solution for the design and function that doesn’t need a bunch of plugins but that you can add scripts to in order to increase functionality. If hosted with Webflow, it’s fast and secure.
Currently, Webflow does have a couple items that probably need some shoring up so that we can just keep telling clients “yes we can do that” – true pagination, native ecommerce with inventory control, sorting of dynamic list so it excludes the current item from a listing on the same page, SEO/OG data for dynamic content per entry, and although not necessary it would be great if in addition to the account password to access the dashboard there was another (optional) password layer per site to access the designer or settings for that specific site. Several of these things the Webflow team has already said they are working on.
Webflow has only been around a few years and the product has grown/improved significantly. And WOW the responsiveness of the team is fantastic…they listened to their customers and users about pricing and adjusted!
@Darian - Sadly, we cannot all be Steve Jobs and tell the customer what they should do. In this edge case, the customer has other sites that use Wordpress & has runs a tech integration company, so he is familiar with the wordpress platform. I’m clearly trying to show him the new chosen path to enlightenment, thats all
@jesign - Yes, you are correct, I’ve only just learned that the $10 covers both the CMS and Amazon hosting of the site. You make some good points, thanks
I believe Webflow is on the right track, this is something that 5-10 years ago, I could see Adobe acquiring, who knows will be trying to marry this company in the near future! Lets hope they keep it founding team and non VC money, and keep building out what they are passionate about.
Yes, I could certainly see a company like Adobe trying to court Webflow and then buying, screwing up and discontinuing the product…hopefully the Webflow team loves the product enough not to let that happen.
However, that’s really no different than using a theme or framework as core to build from…or having a Wordpress site/theme built from the ground up by a single developer…
