Best Webflow Development Strategies

When it comes to setting up a website, you’re probably wondering where to start. The easiest guide to Webflow development involves coming up with a plan that works best for you. 

1. Decide what you want to accomplish. 

Set up goals for your website and decide who your target audience should be. Perhaps discuss with your digital team how to best convert interested customers into paid buyers. 

When deciding what you want to accomplish, it may also help to publicly declare your purpose. That will steer your target audience in the right direction if you have what they need. 

2. Make your site responsive for all screens.

The easiest guide to Webflow development is to make your site responsive to all screens. Fortunately for you, designing on the Webflow platform is easy enough. 

For instance, start creating your homepage in mobile view. Then, you can see what it looks like in portrait or landscape table and desktop computer mode. If you have some coding knowledge, you can even design each screen size with a unique display. 

3.  Don’t forget to engage with your audience. 

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website and your blogs are if you don’t continue to engage with your audience. This means you must keep in touch with them on your domains as well as on social media. 

Keeping them interested comes with offering more of what they need and want to see or hear. However, it also comes with personal contact. They don’t want to just see your regularly scheduled posts, which they know you probably sent out in advance. Your customers need to know you’ll respond to their questions and concerns. 

4. Post new content regularly. 

Communicating with your target audience on social media is essential. However, you may need to trigger a response from them by giving them something to talk about. 

Post regular content on your blogs and share it on your social media pages. The content you post should provoke thoughts in them or answer questions they previously submitted to you. However, it’s perfectly acceptable to have fun once in a while. You can also entertain them with short clips or memes that tie into your brand. 

Learn Webflow Development With These Easy Steps

The easiest guide to Webflow development involves using the tutorials found right on your Webflow dashboard. You may notice the prompts to try a new task when you first register, sign in and start exploring its website builder elements. 

Webflow development starts with incorporating your design plan into your chosen template. Follow the instructions you see in the built-in Webflow tutorial and keep these steps in mind. 

1. Decide on a template (theme). 

Browse through some of the premade templates. Some of them are available on the Webflow free plan. Otherwise, you will have to upgrade to a paid design and hosting plan to use. 

You’ll find ideas based on your industry, or you can start from scratch. If a theme doesn’t have all the features you need, you can always add new elements to it. 

2. Arrange the elements. 

Most Webflow templates usually start with a header, heading and description block, and a navigation bar. You can also resize each of these elements, change the margins and padding, edit the text and images, and more. 

If you add new elements to an existing template, you may need to arrange them to fit. By the way, you have the option of adding elements to a one-page or multi-page site. 

3. Add any missing elements you need. 

Some new elements you can add to your Webflow website include custom layouts, logos, form submission buttons or images and videos. If you need an extra navigation bar (navbar), you can add that too. It’s also possible to add a whole contact form to your web page and e-commerce products. 

4. Connect your domain if you have one. 

You can select the “Publish” tab on the upper right-hand corner of your Webflow design dashboard. On the drop-down menu that appears, select the publishing destination. You have two primary choices: a custom domain or a test “webflow.io” subdomain. 

If you want to connect to your domain, click on “Custom Domain” and follow the directions for adding it. You may have to sign up for a paid plan that allows this though, which would be the Basic plan or higher as of 2022. 

Adding a domain you already own involves making sure that domain’s IP points to Webflow nameservers instead of the one for your previous host. You don’t have to buy a Webflow domain to set up your website, but you can. 

5. Purchase a new domain if you need one. 

If you don’t already have a domain, you can purchase it from Webflow. It may take less work to purchase your domain directly from this provider instead of pointing your nameservers to it. Either way, the process of adding a custom domain usually only takes a few minutes. 

6. Publish your design on a test server. 

Before you transfer the website you built to a custom domain, you may want to test it. If you do this, you can opt not to have search engines discover it. After you test it, which you can do yourself or hire testers to perform these tasks for you, then move it to your “live” site. 

7. Decide when you’re ready to go “live.” 

Make sure your site has no or at least almost no errors before you promote it to the world – or to your immediate location. This will prevent frustrations on the front end, and it will stop some of the shopping cart abandonment that sometimes happens with poorly performing websites. 

Do you still need help setting up your Webflow website? If so, contact Pait Digital for help. 

‍