The Alternative To Wordpress You Probably Haven't Heard Of

On today's episode we talk about: 

• Design Freedom - Webflow allows you to start with blank canvas or one of over 100 templates and customize everything visually.
• Code Quality - Webflow outputs code that's as clean and semantic as you can make it.
• User-friendliness of CMS - Simple on-page editing, minimal dashboard UI.
• Support - Regularly cited as one of the best features of Webflow.

Christian: [00:00:16] Hey,how's it going? So today we're going to talk about the alternative to WordPressyou probably haven't heard of, and obviously, we're talking about Webflowbecause we here at BitBranding love Webflow. We're going to talk about the designfreedom that you have, the code quality that comes out, user-friendliness, andthe awesome, awesome support that they give you.

Aaron: [00:00:38] Allright. And I'm excited because this is something that Christian doespredominantly, like 99 percent. I don't do a lot of it. So I'm going tochallenge him to break it down for all of us regular listeners too on why thisis such a great alternative to WordPress. So why the design freedom? That's ourfirst one here. Why is that important?

Christian: [00:00:59] Sothe main thing here with the design freedom is that compared- Basically, whatwe're doing here today is comparing Webflow to WordPress, and we're going toshow you why Webflow is so much better. So the first thing is the designfreedom because obviously you have the freedom to do whatever you want, andit's easy. It has an easy drag and drop visual builder that allows you to dobasically everything, unlike WordPress where you have to be a coder. You haveto work with code. You have to work with PHP, and it relies heavily onplug-ins.

Aaron: [00:01:37] Right.That's the big thing. I know that the clients that we've had in the past who'vehad WordPress websites and we switched over, their biggest thing was like oneof the plug-ins they got with some guy, you know, wherever in the world, and hecreated a plug-in. And then he just stopped updating it, and then their siteupdates and then the site crashes. You just run around in circles trying to fixall the problems that have occurred because of one plug-in.

Christian: [00:02:02] Yeah,and with Webflow you can start with a completely blank canvas and just startdragging and dropping and build your own template, or they also have over 100templates. And even if you pick one of these templates, that's just likesomething to get you started. You don't have to, you know, keep all thoseelements in that template. You can just easily delete or add more things tothat template. Whereas WordPress, they do have templates, but it's a lot morerestrictive on what you can do and not do with these templates.

Aaron: [00:02:33] Soa question from that is do you need to have- So like would somebody with thesame skill set who's going to build their own WordPress website also be able tobuild their own Webflow website? Like do they kind of mash-up or do you needmore like skill or insight or anything like that to build the Webflow website?

Christian: [00:02:51] No,not necessarily. I mean, obviously there's a learning curve because, you know,with anything new you have to learn a little bit, but the cool thing aboutWebflow is that they have hundreds of videos on YouTube on how to do anythingand everything Webflow-related unlike WordPress where, you know, if you installa template, you have to actually look for tutorials on that particulartemplate. With Webflow, you just need to learn Webflow, and then you can doeverything and anything on all the templates that they offer or if you want tostart with your own blank canvas.

Aaron: [00:03:27] Okay.Very cool. I guess I didn't really look at it like that because I figured thepeople who did the templates like they were, you know, they were specific tothat template, but if you learn Webflow, you can pretty much do anything onthere.

Christian: [00:03:38] Yep.

Aaron: [00:03:40] Onething that was I was curious about is if somebody is building a Webflow websiteand- Or as say they started a WordPress website, and they got all their stuffand their content on there - and we may talk about this a little bit later -but like they have all their WordPress stuff on there, and they want to switchto Webflow. I think that you've talked about this in the past. It's reallysimple to switch from WordPress to Webflow, right?

Christian: [00:04:03] Tosome extent, yeah. So I mean, the big thing is - and I think Webflow added thisrecently - was you can do a CSV import for all your CMS items. So CMS will be,you know, any content inside of Wordpress. So that means any blog post. If youhave galleries, that would count as CMS items. So any of that stuff you canactually export from WordPress as a CSV, and then import it into Webflow as isa CSV. And as long as you match it up with, you know, with what Webflow has astheir CSV import, then I mean, you're good to go. But you know, as far as thedesign and stuff, you would have to kind of do that from scratch.

Aaron: [00:04:46] Okay.One thing I know about Wordpress is that they power like 20 or 30 percent ofthe Internet, and everybody really harps on the fact that, you know, thequality of their code, the quality of everything that's like built with thetemplates is really good. How does that really compare with Webflow and thedesigns that they put out there? Like you know, obviously, Webflow hasn't beenaround as long. They may not be as big, but how does that compare overall to aWordPress site?

Christian: [00:05:17] Well,I mean, I guess the biggest difference is the code quality, and when you'relooking at, you know, a WordPress website - and we talk about how it relies heavilyon plug-ins - and then you go back to Webflow which, you know, it just produceslike a really clean, semantic code. You can definitely see the difference inquality between Webflow and WordPress. I mean, that's the biggest drawback toWordPress is the reliance on plug-ins.

Aaron: [00:05:49] Ithink something happened to us. It was like last January or February. Webflowcleaned up a lot of their code and got rid of a bunch of like useless stuff,and we were able to go in there with a click of a button and optimize thewebsite. And it made it like load faster.

Christian: [00:06:06] Yeah,it was the images.

Aaron: [00:06:08] Okay.So yeah, they did something. I don't know. Maybe Christian can talk to that,but they did something where we went in there. and we went to all the websiteswe created and just optimized it. And it got rid of a bunch of junk basically,and it helped load the website. Some of them a couple of seconds faster just bydoing that kind of update. So that was pretty cool.

Christian: [00:06:27] Yeah,yeah. And that's another really cool thing and we can talk about that which isthe support and the community behind Webflow which, I mean, is growing everyday, and a lot of designers are, you know, jumping ship and starting to useWebflow because of all these great features. But the main thing is the support.The support in the community is just awesome. Any time I have any problems or Iwant to do something that has never been done before, you know, I go to theforums or, you know, I message Nelson which he's the guy who does the tutorialson YouTube. And they're always like super happy to help you, and they're alwaysjust, you know, looking for new things to do and pushing the boundaries ofWebflow. I feel like almost every week I see something new and crazy thatsomeone created on Webflow that I didn't think was even possible.

Aaron: [00:07:17] Right.I guess that's the big thing for- I mean, really anything outside of websitesis like if you're starting something new, you need- You're going to needsomebody help with that. So I mean, if you're building a website yourself andyou try to figure out all this stuff, it's a lot overwhelming to try to figureout like, you know, your blog and figure out your content. But then on top ofthat, try to figure out how to build the actual site. So support would beabsolutely huge there, and I think that there's- We'll link this URL up herefor you guys. It's like a Webflow comparison to WordPress, but they really harpon the Facebook reviews about how well their customer service part is.

Christian: [00:07:57] Yeah.And the other great thing about Webflow is how easy it is used the CMS. So howeasy is to add a blog post, to add a gallery, to even, you know, change textand images within your website. You know, as a client, you know, once you getyour website - and let's say it's like a WordPress website - you have to get inthe backend of Wordpress and, you know, add a blog post there, or if you wantto change images, it's really hard. If you want to change text, it's reallyhard. So the cool thing about Webflow is that as a client you make your changesright there on your website. Like you don't go to a backend navigation ordashboard. You're right there on your website visually looking at it andchanging things and publishing. It's really easy to do all that, and then theCMS, when you're adding blog posts or when you're adding gallery images, it'salso, you know, sort of right there on your website. You just open thedashboard UI, and I mean, it's really easy compared to WordPress.

Aaron: [00:09:01] Whatdoes UI mean?

Christian: [00:09:02] Userinterface.

Aaron: [00:09:04] Okay,for the users who don't know. Yeah, but I was going to say it's somebody- Likewhen I was working on Wordpress or helping clients with their WordPress site,there are so many options of things and like so many- Like if- There's a lot ofpeople who have like 20 plug-ins. So you have all the plug-ins on lefthandside, and you have all these options. And really most business owners who wantto update the content, they need like a home page, they need a blog, and theywant to update their pictures. Those are the big things. Update a blog, updatepictures, and then on the lefthand side, you have all these options aboutwhat's going to happen. Like you can only update your blog by clicking likefour different sections to get into somewhere. So it's just kind of convoluted,and I feel like Webflow makes it a lot simpler. We've had clients who are, youknow - nothing to say against all people - but, you know, 60s or so, andthey're able to pick up Webflow and say like okay, wow. You know, I know how touse a computer. I can use Webflow.

Christian: [00:10:00] Yeah.I feel like kind of dumb sometimes whenever, you know, I've finished a website,and then I'm showing them how to use it. They're always like wow, that didn'teven need a meeting. Like that's just like right there. So yes. It's very easyto edit your own website. So I mean, Webflow it's- I mean, it's great fordesigners especially like frontend designers who are used to, you know,creating something visually, making it look good, and, you know, you can do itwithout the need of a developer. And then Webflow is also great for smallbusiness owners. If you're a small business owner and, you know, you want tokind of dip your toes in this, it's definitely very easy to pick up. Butobviously, if you want something done really well and professionally, then youknow you can hire some professionals like over here at BitBranding.

Aaron: [00:10:47] Iwas getting ready to do a selfish plug, but I mean, honestly, we just want youto do well on there. And if you have questions, reach out to us, but you know,we do that at our agency. And for those of you who are subscribed which I havetalked to a few of them personally. They didn't ever know about our company.They just have found our podcast and then found out about us afterward. Soyeah, let's explain a little bit. We do design the websites. That's howChristian knows a lot about Webflow. So that's the whole point of this is toreally just kind of educate people on it on a better alternative for WordPresstoo.

Christian: [00:11:20] Yeah,exactly.

Aaron: [00:11:22] Allright. So I think you guys are tuning into this quick episode. We will probablyknock out some more episodes about Webflow depending on how well this episodedoes, and if you have any questions, go ahead and leave a comment. You can findus on any social network @BitBranding. Tweet us. We'd love to answer thosequestions for you, help you with Webflow. If I could talk correctly. Anyway. Sogo ahead and click that subscribe button. Share this with a friend, and what wereally need right now are some reviews. We have one review, and if you've beenlistening for at least three to four episodes and you like this podcast, pleasego give us an honest review so we can, you know, share this with more people.And make sure you share this episode with your friend or maybe a new businessowner who wants to start their first website.

Christian: [00:12:08] Allright. We'll see you next week.

Aaron:[00:12:10] Bye.