Webflow Website Development: Three Essential Phases for Product Owners

Building a custom website with Webflow can be a daunting task. However, by following established best practices, you can create a stunning and effective website that delivers results. In this article, we'll go through three essential phases that every product owner should consider when developing a Webflow website: Specification, Development, and Publishing.

Specification

The website specification process involves creating a plan for building and deploying your website and drafting the assets necessary for a successful development.

The perfect place to start is with your target audience and your business goals. What do you want to be true for your users and your business if this project is successful? If possible, try to translate these aspirations into some key performance metrics that you can use later to evaluate your progress.

Next, attempt to understand the needs and interests of your users. It's helpful to identify who your ideal customer is, what their pain points are, and what motivates them to make a purchase. Establishing a clearly defined audience will give you an essential mental model for making design decisions.

User actions

In the user's journey, where do you fit in? At what point in the process do you want to introduce yourself and your solutions? What actions do you need your visitors to take for you to deliver those solutions?

If you're selling products, your users may need to follow e-commerce rituals, such as adding an item to a cart, providing payment and delivery information, and finally confirming the purchase. If it's a service, you may need your users to fill out a qualification form or participate in a consultation.

It will be very difficult to build an effective website if you don't have clearly defined steps for your visitors to take. Be sure to write these down in a Google or Notion document, or you can even visualize the steps with a whiteboard tool such as Figjam or Miro.

Content

Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience and the actions you need them to take, identify the marketing channels where you can engage them. Examples of common marketing channels include search results, social media, podcasts, local events, and sponsorship.

Once you've identified the channels, think about the type of content you'll need to grab their attention and facilitate that first action. It's helpful to identify content that aligns with your target audience's interests and provides them with value, such as blog posts, videos, ebooks, white papers, and more.

You'll also likely need content that builds trust with your audience. Social proof, such as case studies, reviews, and media mentions, reduces the perception of risk. Other content, like FAQs, product details, and pricing tables, identify common concerns, provide helpful information, and overcome objections.

Finally, building a website with an effective sales funnel often requires engaging users multiple times. To convert them into customers, consider remarketing methods like newsletters and digital ads.

Brand

Your logo and other brand assets can help establish your business as trustworthy, helpful, and unique. In addition to your logo and other visual assets, written content such as a mission and vision statement, or a unique origin story, help to differentiate you in a competitive industry.

If you don't have a clear brand identity with assets and an original narrative, consider reaching out to a freelancer or agency to help you pull these essential specification ingredients together. Alternatively, take advantage of DIY tools like Canva's free logo maker to create assets, and Ai tools like ChatGPT to help you come up with brand language.

Additionally, if you sell products or services that benefit from original visual or video assets, consider hiring a professional, or search YouTube for helpful tutorials.

Development

Creating a website that effectively engages your target audience and achieves your business goals most likely will require a Webflow website developer. If you don't have experience with Webflow development, it's important to find a skilled freelancer or agency that can bring your website vision to life.

To make the development process smoother, provide your developer with the specification details discussed in this article. By clearly defining user actions, content strategy, and brand assets, your developer will have a solid foundation to build upon and can create a prototype that brings everything together seamlessly.

Prototype

Creating a website can be a complex process, but it all starts with the prototype. The prototype is essentially the blueprint for your website, and it's where you'll begin to establish the aesthetic and layout that you'll carry through the rest of the site. To get started, focus on your home page and site navigation.

Your home page should effectively communicate your company's value proposition and provide an overview of your solutions, content, and brand. During the design review process, keep in mind the principles of good web design, including style, responsive layout, content, and SEO. Educating yourself on these key aspects will help you give valuable feedback to your developer.

Build

Now that your home page is established, it's time to build the rest of your website's content. This includes products, services, policies, social proof, category pages, and anything else on your roadmap.

During the build process, you will provide feedback on each page design, and your developer will carefully review your comments and make revisions as needed, ensuring that your goals and expectations are met.

In addition to building beautiful, responsive pages, your developer will also optimize each page for search and social media reach, adding meta tags and structured data that make your site eligible for Google's rich results.

Finally, a very good developer will be mindful of the long-term maintenance and modification of your website. They will write reusable and clear CSS and create components that make it easier for non-technical users and future developers to add common patterns to your page designs.

Audit

The final step in the development process is Quality Assurance (QA), which is crucial for ensuring that the final product is free from bugs, errors, and other issues that can negatively impact its performance and user experience.

During the QA process, your developer will perform a series of activities, including testing, debugging, and reviewing the code, to identify any flaws or shortcomings that could affect the website's core web vitals.

In addition to fixing technical issues, QA is an opportunity to correct any inconsistencies in style and copy that may have arisen during the development process. By carefully reviewing each page, your developer can ensure that everything is consistent and aligned with your brand and messaging.

Publishing

The final phase of the Webflow website development process is Publishing, which means activating your new, approved website on a custom domain.

If you don't have one already, you will need to create a Webflow workspace. Your developer will then transfer the staging copy of your new website to your workspace and once accepted, you will need to add a Site Plan.

Finally, invite your developer as a guest to your workspace so they can begin the publishing process. If this seems complicated, your developer will guide you through each step.

Hosting

Hosting a website involves publishing it on a server and making it accessible to users on the internet. With Webflow, publishing a site on a custom domain involves a few key steps. Firstly, your developer will need to have access to your purchased domain from a domain registrar such as GoDaddy or Namecheap.

Once your developer has access to your domain, they will need to connect it to Webflow. This is done by updating the DNS records. Once your DNS records have been updated, your developer can then publish your site on the custom domain using Webflow's hosting service.

It's important to note that not all domain registrars allow for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) on the root domain. If your domain registrar doesn't support SSL on the root domain, it means you won't be able to use the root domain (e.g. yoursite.com) as the default for your website. Instead, you'll need to use a subdomain (e.g. www.yoursite.com) or consider switching to a registrar that supports SSL on the root domain.

SEO

Webflow developers play a crucial role in helping clients get verified with Google and other search engines. Verification is an essential step because it allows search engines to access vital data about a website's performance, ultimately improving its online visibility.

To verify a website with Google and Bing, Webflow developers typically start by accessing your Google Search Console account. From there, they add the website and generate a verification code or file that needs to be added to the site's HTML. Once the verification code or file has been added, your developer can go back to your Search Console account and initiate the verification process.

Webflow developers can also help you with other verification methods, such as DNS verification, depending on your preferences and needs. By ensuring your website is verified with Google and Bing, Webflow developers can help improve your SEO and online visibility, driving more traffic and leads.

Analytics

Google Analytics provides valuable insights into website traffic and user behavior, making it a critical tool for any website owner, as it can help identify areas for improvement and inform marketing and business strategies.

To get set up with Google Analytics, Webflow developers typically start by asking you to create a Google Analytics account and generate a tracking code. The developer can then add the tracking code to your site's HTML.

Once the tracking code has been added, the developer can then go back to your Google Analytics account and verify that the tracking code is working correctly. Webflow developers can also help you set up conversion tracking and other advanced analytics features, such as e-commerce tracking and custom dimensions.

Final Thoughts

Building a custom website with Webflow can be challenging, but by following these three essential phases, you can create a website that delivers results. With the right developer and a focus on great design and performance, your Webflow website can be a valuable asset for your business.