Although there are a lot of website builders today, WordPress powers at least forty percent of all websites on the internet. It's no wonder why it is a popular web development tool and publishing platform, which can help build a WordPress blog or complex website without requiring any special technical knowledge.
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that offers thousands of themes that provide users with customizable options and millions of plugins or third-party tools that add basic features and functionality.
But WordPress is not for everyone. There are several reasons why you may want to look for an alternative maybe because WordPress is no longer your best solution, not helping you make conversions, your website doesn't look as unique to your brand, it can be challenging to set up and manage, and it's not scalable or secure enough to handle more advanced web projects without some additional planning. Other WordPress limitations you should be aware of include the following:
- WordPress is not very SEO-friendly
- WordPress can be slow and bogged down by too many plugins
- WordPress sites are often hacked because they are popular targets
- WordPress sites often look the same
- WordPress is not built for ecommerce specifically
The good news is that there are WordPress alternatives that address these limitations. Meet the modern and great WordPress alternative, Webflow is a website builder and hosting platform that lets you create websites without any coding knowledge.
It offers a wide variety of features, including SEO-optimized designs, speed optimization, security enhancements, ecommerce support, and brand customizability. Best of all, Webflow is designed to be easy to use so you can get your site up and running in no time.
If you're looking for a WordPress alternative that makes website creation and management simple, scalable, secure, and customizable—then Webflow is the best option. This article will explain why Webflow is a special platform and why it's one of the best WordPress alternatives today!
Overview of Webflow: The Best Website Builder
Webflow is for everyone but startup and SaaS companies are using this tool more than ever. Webflow allows you to build the type of website you're looking for ranging from basic websites to advanced websites, using a modern visual, drag-and-drop editor that lets you customize layouts, colors, typography, and more. Generally, it's marketed towards designers looking for a low-code/no-code tool to build websites. Still, anyone can use Webflow to create a site.
Webflow offers two plans: Free and Pro. The free plan has some limitations (e.g., you can only have one site, no custom domains, etc.), but it's great for getting started. If you want more features or want to use your own domain name, then you can upgrade to a paid plan.
Webflow is a low-code/no-code website builder that lets users create custom websites without having to write code or know any technical skills. Webflow also has advanced features like ecommerce support, speed optimization, SEO enhancements, and enhanced security options. It's one of the best WordPress alternatives available today.
Essential SEO Features
Webflow is an excellent platform for designing and developing SEO-friendly websites. It offers a range of features that make it easy to optimize your website for search engines, including:
- Dynamic sitemaps: Webflow automatically generates dynamic sitemaps, which ensure that your website's pages are quickly and easily indexed by search engines.
- Schema markup: You can add and edit schema markup so your content can be easily represented and understood in search engines.
- Optimized code: Webflow's code is clean and optimized for search engine visibility, helping you rank higher in search results.
- Automatic redirects: If you decide to move or rename a page on your website, Webflow will automatically redirect visitors to the new page, preventing broken links and 404 errors.
- Metadata: Webflow provides easy-to-use tools for adding metadata to your website, including title tags, description tags, and keywords.
- Image Alt tag editing: Ensures the metadata of your images are indexed by Google, and your pictures are screen reader accessible.
- Rich snippets: If you want to take your SEO strategy one step further, Webflow provides rich snippet tools that can help improve clickthrough rates and website traffic.
- Built-in SEO tools: Webflow's built-in SEO tools make it easy to track your website's search engine rankings and identify areas for improvement.
- Link building tools: Webflow also offers a range of link building tools to help you build high-quality links to your website.
- Industry knowledge: The Webflow team stays on top of the latest SEO trends and developments, so you can be sure that your website is always up-to-date.
- Better, faster, and more efficient hosting: Webflow's AWS-powered hosting stack will keep your website operating smoothly, making search engines and site visitors happy.
- Google Analytics: Webflow integrates with Google Analytics, giving you the ability to track your website's performance and visitor activity.
- Powerful content marketing tools: You can build whatever type of content your website needs with Webflow's flexible content management tools.
The SEO features of Webflow allow you to create a modern, responsive website that ranks high in search results without having to work with complex code or technical specifications. With Webflow, you can focus on what's important - creating a website that looks great and provides valuable information to your visitors.
Allows complete design customization
Webflow is a platform that allows you to completely customize the design of your website. This includes everything from the fonts and colors to the layout and structure. Webflow also allows you to create custom animations, which will help your website stand out from the competition. The fact that Webflow uses CSS-based design means you can design your website with ease without any coding.
In the Webflow Designer, you can see the Webflow canvas where you can engage with all the elements in your project and different panels, including:
- Style panel. This is where you can customize the style of the elements on your pages.
- Assets panel. This is an outline of assets added to your project.
- Navigator panel. This is the hierarchical structure of all the elements in your pages.
- Pages panel. This panel provides you access to your pages.
Generally, you can use the Webflow designer to design, customize, and develop your website. But there is also the Webflow Editor. You can use it to edit text, replace images, update links, modify SEO settings, and replace any content on your website as easily as a third-grader. Once you're done developing, you can publish your project to the native Webflow domain for free to share your website with your friends, family, and colleagues to get feedback. Or you can link your own domain name to your project and post it there instead.
If you're not happy with some of the changes, you can always revert back to a previous version of your project because Webflow has auto backup. If you want to take a break from working on your project, you can always come back because it's automatically saved.
Simple user interface
When it comes to user interfaces, Webflow takes a simple and straightforward approach. The interface is designed to be as user-friendly and intuitive as possible, so you can focus on the design itself.
The main menu is located on the left-hand side of the screen, and all of the settings and options are easy to find. You can also customize the interface to match your own preferences. The controls are easy to use, and you don't need any coding experience to create a beautiful website.
Flexible and powerful content management system
Webflow's CMS is both flexible and powerful. It allows you to easily manage your content while giving you the ability to customize it to your needs. It also provides a wide range of features that make it easy to use. For example, you can easily create new pages, add and manage content, and even set up a blog. Plus, the CMS is fully responsive, so that it will look great on any device.
What's more, it works for everyone, from savvy business owners, marketing teams, professional designers, developers, to content managers. You can build the content right on the page to see how it will appear as you construct it and publish it with a click. Also, you can display or hide content as needed by adding filters and design or build your custom search experience from scratch to control what content your website visitors can see.
Clients and team members can be given access to the site so they may submit content and make modifications if necessary, as well as collaborate in real-time without issue. Moreover, if you need to change the format, font, or headline of an article, you can edit it once, and it will update throughout the entire website.
Plus, you can easily migrate content to Webflow from a spreadsheet or another CMS. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced user, you'll find the CMS easy to use and customizable. Plus, it's always up-to-date, so you can feel secure knowing that your website is using the latest features and technology.
Fewer dependencies on plugins
Plugins, on the surface, promise to make your life easier. There is probably a plugin for almost everything. The truth, however, is that more plugins could lead to more problems. Currently, Webflow doesn't have any plugins or apps store/marketplace, and to be honest, there's no need for plugins. Everything is out of the box but if you choose to use third-party (JavaScript) scripts, you can use them via custom code.
Plugins can expose your website’s security vulnerabilities
Plugins must be regularly updated. Otherwise, your website might have a spammer attack. That's why for WordPress websites, you have to be on top of maintenance. The more WordPress plugins you have, the more time you spend maintaining them.
Hackers may use one of your plugins as a doorway into your website if it is outdated or has a data breach. Unlike WordPress, Webflow takes a plugin-less approach. Instead of installing plugins, there are settings in Webflow you can use for different purposes.
For example, do you need a subscription form? Well, you can build one through Webflow forms. Yes, it's a thing. Additionally, do you want to design a fully custom landing page? The good news is that you can build it in Webflow from scratch.
Plugins slow down your website
Some plugins are optimized to run quickly and smoothly on a WordPress site. However, other plugins are built with a ton of bloated JavaScript that results in pages with slow-loading time. What's more, having more plugins like these will make your site even slower.
Thankfully, Webflow’s engineering team always thinks about website speed. For this reason, everything you design in Webflow is composed of clean JavaScript, CSS, and HTML codes — ensuring every feature is lightweight.
Plugins can make your site look like a mess
Oftentimes, when a plugin requires an update, it can meddle with or interrupt other elements of your website. A single plugin update could cause you tons of energy and time in troubleshooting another aspect of your site, which is particularly true for fully customized WordPress websites.
Take note that each plugin is created by some random individual, meaning if it crashes, there are not many support options available to help you get your site functioning correctly again. What's more, since plugins are made by different people, there's no assurance that they'll work together.
One plugin may work on your website, but adding another plugin might lead to chaos. So, if you're not comfortable with tinkering around in the back-end of your website or you don't want to risk ruining your site, you might want to consider using a different platform.
When a plugin adversely intervenes with your website, it could lead to unhappy website visitors. With Webflow’s plugin-less approach, you never have to worry about add-ons or plugin updates that can cause problems with other aspects of your website.
While Webflow does not offer official plugins as WordPress does, that does not mean you can't advance your website with new features. You can extend it by incorporating code snippets from other services.
For instance, you can integrate the JavaScript snippet from any live chat service if you want to add live chat to your site.
Webflow makes responsive designs much easier
The popularity of tablets and mobile devices has revolutionized website design and navigation. Desktop designs tend to have large areas, which frequently resulted in a lot of needless graphics and information that took away from the site's main message. Responsive design allows us to eliminate what we don't need so that everyone can get their tasks done more quickly.
Webflow makes responsive designs much easier because it gives you a live preview of how your website will look on different devices. This way, you can see how your website will look on a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smartphone. You can also test different breakpoints to see how your website will look at different screen sizes.
This makes the responsive design much easier because you don't have to guess what your website will look like on different devices. You can just preview it in Webflow. Webflow also makes it easy to create responsive menus. You can just drag and drop different menu items into the right place, and Webflow will automatically make them responsive. This saves you a lot of time and hassle.
A responsive design should have the following:
- Reflowing content. This means that the text will adjust to fit the width of the screen, so people don't have to scroll from side to side.
- Fixed sizing. If a menu is fixed to the top of the page, for example, it will remain in that spot when people resize their browser window.
- Relative sizing. This is when the widths of page elements are dependent on each other. For example, a sidebar will be half as wide as its container because it is 50% of the width.
- Breakpoints. These are points at which the layout of the website changes in order to better suit a particular device, allowing you to test reflowing content and modify the layout and design based on different device width ranges.
Build animations and interactions effortlessly
When you use Webflow, you have the power to create animations and interactions without any code. All you need is an idea of what you want your animation or interaction to look like.
To create an animation or interaction in Webflow, you can set the initial appearance first, basically, how your element will show up before the page loads. After that, choose a trigger. It is an action or event that has to happen to launch the animation.
Next, combine transitions and CSS styles for animation when the trigger is activated. Then, apply globally.
Webflow's available triggers include:
- Page load
- Scroll
- Click
- Hover
- Slide Load
On the other hand, the available effects include:
- Transform
- Opacity
- Width and height
- Display property
- Duration
- Transitions
- Loop
You can check out the Webflow blog for more advanced tips and video tutorials.
Use modern layout tools
One of the difficulties that web designers face when building a website is having to use different tools to edit their website's content or layout, for that matter. Using different tools means that the designer also has different layouts for items.
The layout can even change after exporting things because there are inconsistencies between browsers' rendering capabilities. Learning how to use new tools every time an issue crops up is a pain and can lead to inconsistency in your work.
This is where Webflow really shines. This all-in-one platform offers modern layout tools that help web designers by creating a platform that can be used to design, develop and publish websites. Webflow takes advantage of modern web technologies that can be used to create responsive layouts without having any inconsistencies between browsers or devices.
Webflow also takes care of the exporting process, so designers don't have to worry about browser compatibility or even design for different devices. This means that web designers can focus on the design itself and not have to worry about layout issues. They can also spend more time on developing their website's functionality and target more users without worrying about browser compatibility or device width.
Better E-commerce Features
When it comes to ecommerce platforms, Webflow and WordPress differ in a few key features. First, WordPress is better suited for small businesses that are just starting out. It's free and relatively easy to use, which makes it a good option for business owners who are new to online sales. However, as a business grows, it may need more ecommerce features and functionality than WordPress can offer. That's where Webflow comes in.
Starting at $29 per month, Webflow lets you create an online store or an ecommerce store. You may add new goods and categories at any moment, as well as customize product fields, product variants, sales prices, coupons, and promotions. But remember that each country throughout the world can have its own tax and shipping rules set.
Webflow is a powerful platform that offers everything you need to create and manage an ecommerce site. It's not free, but it does come with a wealth of features and options that can help your business grow. Plus, its SEO-friendly design ensures that your website will rank high in search engine results.
Webflow was designed with e-commerce in mind, so it's simple to sell products and services on your website using its intuitive interface. Plus, you get access to more than 100 customizable templates that can be used as the foundation for an outstanding online store.
This ecommerce platform allows you to design your store, your way — without needing any coding skills. Webflow also comes with built-in tools for accepting payments online – including PayPal or Stripe. Webflow includes an SSL certificate if you want to accept credit card payments directly through your website.
E-commerce is a booming industry, and an increasing number of companies are selling their products online. So if you're ready to start selling your wares on the web – or even if you just want more control over how your e-commerce website looks and operates — Webflow can help you get started today.
Here are the significant features of Webflow ecommerce:
- A completely visual site editor
- Customizable checkout pages
- Customizable product pages
- Custom product fields
- Email customization
- Custom CMS platform for a basic blog and/or blogging tools
- Create custom marketing pages
- Discounts and coupons
- Social media tools integration
- Mailchimp integration
- Google inventory
- SSL
- Issue refunds
- Checkout with Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Paypal
- POS integration
- Automatic tax calculation
Publish and push your website live with a click away
Once you've created your Webflow website, you can push it live with just a few clicks. Your site will be posted to the staging subdomain of Webflow: yoursite.webflow.io by default. Or, if you choose to add web hosting, you can publish your site directly to your custom domain.
If you want to learn more about how to use Webflow, we recommend using Webflow University.
Why you should look for the best WordPress Alternatives?
WordPress is a great platform for developing websites, but there are some shortcomings that can make it difficult to use for certain purposes. While there are numerous difficulties a WordPress website may face, such as security and compatibility concerns, one of the most significant is search engine optimization and many others that we mentioned above.
So, as you can see, WordPress isn't perfect. If you're looking for a platform that is more reliable and doesn't have some of the common WordPress problems, you might want to consider using a different platform such as Webflow.
Webflow gives you complete design freedom, enhanced security, clean codes, SEO-friendly, and no need for extensive plugins.
Conclusion
Webflow is the best WordPress alternative because it's fast, simple to use, and provides a lot of features that you can't find in other website builders. Webflow’s drag and drop interface makes creating your custom websites or web pages easy and intuitive. Webflow also has an added SEO value because it uses the latest HTML and CSS coding that Google loves so much. If you're looking for a website builder that is both SEO-friendly and easy to use, then look no further than Webflow. Contact a Webflow web design Company to get started!