With digital innovation the common factor in every successful project, it’s becoming increasingly important to separate good from genuinely transformative technologies. Imagine a product that combines sophistication with simplicity, power with pliability, and developer ease with design excellence. No need to look to the future; it’s here right now. And it’s called Webflow. At Atomic Digital Labs, we’ve always had an insatiable lust for finding and embracing the same tools that the best of the best use because we understand that it not only makes us better at what we do but actually revolutionises what we can do. It’s why we refer to Webflow as the Ferrari of website builders. Over the next few paragraphs, we’ll talk you through what makes Webflow so compelling for modern business and creative minds, while backing it up by explaining how and why we’re using it at Atomic Digital Labs – and what it portends for the future of the digital world.
Highlights
What is Webflow?
But, what more is Webflow than that? Well, now imagine this canvas as your computer screen, a digital canvas that’s boundless and limitless. On this canvas – as a Webflow development agency, this is what we have witnessed first hand – you paint. Paint every stroke with creative, visual control. And, as you paint, Webflow automatically creates immaculate HTML, CSS and JavaScript beneath it. For the designers out there, struggle no more creating intricate, responsive websites from the bottom up.
Webflow’s design-first paradigm also triggers the transition from concept to reality more swiftly, effecting a democratisation of the process by enabling businesses, creatives and lay people alike to produce expert-grade websites. In 2021, Webflow powers more than 3.5 per cent of all the visible, CMS-based websites in the world. (Data supplied by the W3Techs research site in June 2021.)
Unlike Wufoo’s, Webflow’s integrated content management system (CMS) and e-commerce functionality and its hosting solutions all come together to form a coherent ecosystem – not just to reduce developmental friction, but to provide an uplift in expression, efficiency and scale.
The Advantages of Webflow
Going deeper, we see how Webflow’s strengths are further magnified in a design-first model engineered for robustness and that serves a spectrum of requirements, from blog writers to large-scale e-commerce sites. Webflow is as much as four times faster than other mainstream website builder tools. Webflow generates lean, fat-free code and serves that data via a blazing fast content delivery network (CDN). Speed counts in the modern internet era, with every one-second delay in load time associated with a possible 7 per cent reduction in conversions (Neil Patel).
Where Webflow excels is its ability to animate elements and make the experience interactive. Its native animation abilities can be used to generate nearly any dynamic desired, from subtle transitions to complex interactions, making the experience feel more immersive than anything you could do with pure HTML. This is not just about producing a more engaging visual experience; it's also about storytelling and, as a result, brand and user retention.
Cost-efficiency is another Webflow strength: because there are no modules or add-ons used, you don’t need to worry about installing and maintaining them; there are no seams or lugs in a Webflow website, no need for updates and patches for security vulnerabilities. With Webflow, you get the flexibility of a custom‑coded site but with the editability and ease of use of a visual editor.
Webflow vs WordPress
A comparison of Webflow and WordPress is rather like comparing a sleek, modern sports car with a sturdy family saloon. They both get the job done. And it’s possible to bring speed, elegance and efficiency to your WordPress website. But in doing so you will generally be making compromises in a planet of add-ons that, to do websites well, need to be, or become, large. It begs the question, is that such a bad thing? After all, you’re probably after speed, elegance and efficiency, and if you want those the way that Webflow does it, then that’s the way that Webflow does it. But WordPress remains the giant in the world of website building, thanks largely to its vast ecosystem of plugins, themes and a huge user community. Unlike with Webflow where the components are all baked in, with WordPress you start with a basic framework and then use plugins to connect the pieces. This is how WordPress improves its functionality and remains popular – by expanding its capabilities through a content management system that brings power, scalability and, for some web developers, greater ease of use. But there’s a downside to this kind of open and inclusive approach. By using plugins, sites can get bigger and slower, exposing them to a higher level of risk for security breaches.
Rather, Webflow is a more efficient, safer and quicker approach to web design and development. Since Webflow is an all-in-one platform, this means it needs less plug-ins and third-party tools to work – leading to faster loading, more secure websites. Webflow also offers responsive design out-of-the-box, which means the websites you design with it will self-adjust when viewed on different screen sizes (something else, that typically requires plug-ins).
Its ability to create bespoke animations has no limits and the slick UI and UX offerings guarantee a digital experience that can really make your business stand out among the crowd. In short, it can make a website look and feel like your brand, through animation and interaction, and this is why Atomic Digital Labs as a leading Webflow Agency gives it 10/10 for business visibility and beauty online.
Why Atomic Digital Labs Loves Webflow!
Here at Atomic Digital Labs, our passionate, dedicated and rebellious spirit has put us on a path of unrivalled technological progress forward, and since discovering Webflow we are more excited than ever to drive innovation and be the best at what we do. Our design-first approach paired with Webflow’s level of freedom and structural integrity enables us to create incredibly powerful and impactful digital experiences for our clients, always relying on the talent and experience of our designers and developers to coexist and work together in attaining the impossible.
Thanks to the platform’s animation functionalities and multiple slick UI/UX design possibilities, we can create outstanding, highly interactive, visually stunning websites while thoroughly engaging with our target audience. Low maintenance costs and flexibility guarantee that any client can have an excellent digital presence without having to bear any overlooks from their end.
If Webflow is a tool we use, it’s because it is the future. This is why we embrace it for clients that want complex sites but with the ability to make basic or even advanced design edits themselves, without the need to recruit an expensive developer for each and every change. Why we are, from the agencies with Webflow skills out there, an advocate for it. It’s why we exist – to realise its potential for our clients.
What type of websites can you build on Webflow?
Portfolio sites for creatives, e-commerce websites that sell, even complex enterprise applications – Webflow is capable of delivering the right experience for just about any industry (hospitality, education, tech, retail and more) – essentially, everything a business needs for prevailing online.
With Webflow, beginners can see that it’s possible to make exceptional, professional websites without spending hundreds of thousands of pounds and a year of your life learning to code professionally. Any small business can try to punch above their weight. But startups can explode with confidence when they use a platform such as Webflow to create digital experiences for their users that make them want to be a part of their world.
How to get Started
If you’re taking your first steps into the digital world using Webflow, then your journey starts with a template and hitting ‘publish’. Next, it’s time to get to grips with Webflow to add your digital baby steps, then your leaps of digital trust and social media brand-building. But what about a custom approach that goes way beyond anything templates can create? In that case, a webflow agency, such as our own Atomic Digital Labs, will take your brief and create the very best slick experience for your audience, both from a design and a UX/UI standpoint.
The templates Webflow has to offer are outstanding. Here is a prime example of an out-of-the-box website template you could use.
In Conclusion:
This final choice isn’t just Webflow, it’s choosing to design a part of the future of the web and digital experience. It’s choosing a tool that allows you to be more flexible, more powerful, in a simple way. It’s choosing to design better digital experiences. Choosing Webflow has been a big part of our story here at Atomic Digital Labs. Our belief that good technology changes the world has guided us to a moment where our choice of technology actually helps us shape the future of the web, and our creative output, instead of just adapting to it.
References:
- W3Techs: https://www.w3techs.com/
- Neil Patel: https://neilpatel.com/blog/loading-time/
