Website Development Guide: Basics to Brand Transformation

Just when we thought Webflow couldn't be any better, they went and, well, made things even better. At the beginning of this month, they unrolled new features and a brand refresh that has everyone talking. As brand refresh specialists, we may be biased, but we think the move to update their logo was bold and brilliant.
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Especially when they expressed why they underwent a brand refresh in the first place, this is what they had to say about it:
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"Our refreshed brand speaks to the heart of what Webflow has always stood for, giving everyone the superpowers to build professional, visually stunning websites — all without having to write code to achieve developer-grade results. We're so excited to introduce a brand that not only helps bring this mission to life but also pays tribute to the people who use Webflow every day to accomplish incredible things."

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We've worked with so many businesses that need what Webflow offers. A website that not only looks professional and amazing but is easy enough for anyone to update without always having to call a designer or web developer.
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As if Webflow's current capabilities weren't powerful enough, they've taken things one step further and rolled out new advancements that have us pretty excited. Here are some of the new products that will enable us to create visually stunning, more interactive, and user-friendly websites for our clients.
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1. Create immersive 3D experiences with Spline.

• This is pretty cool. With Spline, we can create 360º visual experiences for anything - animations, visual models, and interactive experiences. We love the flexibility this offers our design process, especially when offering a more detailed spatial view of products.
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2. New localization capabilities.

• We can now serve our global customers better by tailoring their websites to their target markets.
• With Localization, we'll be able to:
• ~Customize anything on your site for a specific location, from design to content—no code required.
• ~Leverage native machine-powered translation using one of our partner apps like Lokalise, or connect to your translation management system (TMS) of choice.
• ~Maximize global traffic with best-in-class SEO, from customizable subdirectories and metadata to localized sitemaps.
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3. Style with unprecedented control for faster designs.

• At KHULA^™, we pride ourselves on moving quickly. We never want our clients to wait longer than they should for their website to be up and running. We can design websites even faster with Webflow's new "variables" and scalable design systems. We can hardly believe that's possible, but it will be.

4. Improving the way teams work.

• Bringing a website to life is an all-hands-on-deck collaborative process. At KHULA^™, we work hard to keep each team member moving swiftly to avoid project bottlenecks. While we have good systems in place and several tools that help us organize our workflows, Webflow now offers more options for completing projects that rely on collaboration through comments for editing.

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As Webflow continues to grow, we can only imagine what will come next. But for now, we’re pretty excited about these new changes and creating better websites for our clients.

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Watch the below to see a full recap of all the features announced at the 2023 Webflow Conf:

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Migrating Your Website To Webflow?

Our Step-By-Step Plan To Make Sure It's Successful.

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Every website will face a migration at some point. It's inevitable. The thought of moving your website, daunting as it may be, isn't the issue. The bigger question is why you have to migrate it in the first place. That's where the headache begins. Because each situation is different and requires a unique approach and specific planning strategy to ensure the transition is successful without disrupting your online presence. Or worse, losing data and encountering SEO problems.

Yikes! It's a lot to think about.

Luckily, there are a few ways you can approach it without losing everything along the way, including your mind. It's all about having a good plan in place. You want a smooth transition. Most businesses can't afford to have their website offline for any reason. But before you jump into putting a migration plan in place, the first step is to identify why a move is necessary.

Here are the top reasons you may need to migrate your website.

Improved Performance: Slow loading times, frequent downtime, or limited resources on your current hosting provider can negatively impact user experience and SEO rankings. Migrating to a faster, more reliable hosting environment can significantly improve website performance.

Enhanced Security: Security breaches, vulnerabilities, or outdated software on your current hosting or CMS can jeopardize your website's data and users' information. Migrating to a more secure platform or infrastructure can bolster your website's defenses against threats.

Platform Upgrade: Upgrading to a newer version of your CMS or switching to a different CMS can provide access to advanced features, better security, and improved ease of use. This can help you stay competitive and maintain a modern website.

Rebranding and Redesign: When undergoing a rebranding effort or updating your website's design, migration is often necessary to align your online presence with your new brand identity or design standards.

Scalability: As your website grows in popularity and user traffic, your current hosting or infrastructure may need to be improved. Migrating to a more scalable platform ensures your website can handle increased demands and continue to perform well as it expands.

At KHULA^™, we do many rebranding projects, and Webflow often fits their needs, which is why we recommend it every time. It's easy to use and provides flexibility that many platforms don't. But before we make the transition for them, we always ensure there's a solid plan in place to keep things running smoothly.

Webflow vs WordPress

If you’re a developer — and even if you’re not — you’ll probably have heard a million different reasons for and against building your website in various programs.

While Squarespace, Wix, GoDaddy etc are easy enough to use for the novice entrepreneur, if you’re a semi-pro at site building, chances are you’ll be all over WordPress.

We were too — for a long time. But then we discovered Webflow. We haven’t looked back since.

Why? Funny you should ask…

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It’s not that we hate WordPress, But...

Now, before we get into the benefits of Webflow and what makes this platform SO amazing, we just want to say that we don’t hate WordPress or think everyone with a WordPress site should ditch it and start over. 

It has a place in the here and now. It all depends on what you or your clients are looking for and what your goals are for your website and online presence. 

Yes, Wordpress is a free hosting platform BUT after creating dozens of sites in WordPress, we are no longer fans bois and girlz here at KHULA.

The countless plugins required to get something done (which slows down your site), combined with complicated backends with messy code, alongside an ever-increasing array of templates and themes that feel old, square, and just plain blocky-looking just ain’t cutting it for us anymore. 

WTF is Webflow? 

In a nutshell, Webflow empowers users to build professional websites in a completely visual canvas — without any coding knowledge. 

Initially Webflow was created for designers, but now it boasts an array of features and easy building content elements which allows almost anyone with a bit of tech savvy to build out a custom website. 

Similar to Squarespace and Wix, Webflow’s ‘backend mode’ (as they refer to it) works in a drag and drop fashion. However, it offers a lot more flexibility and functionality. 

What's nice is that each Webflow site is still built on a clean, semantic HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript code — so if you are a full stack developer you have the option to add more advanced features and elements — making this building platform's abilities almost limitless. 

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Here are just some of Webflow's features and benefits

• A powerful CMS that lets you build completely custom databases for dynamic content types – including online stores
• Easily create immersive interactions and animations
• Webflow hosting is fast! It’s powered by Amazon Web Services, built to scale — on the same network as Netflix, Pinterest, Airbnb, Slack, and Adobe.
• 99.9% uptime, so you don’t have to worry about your site going down
• Zero maintenance: no updates to run, packages/plugins to install, or headaches to deal with
• Built-in SEO tools make it easy to improve your SEO score and ranking – such as metadata controls, automatic XML sitemaps, easy 301 redirects, and canonical tags
• Flexible integrations allow you to connect your marketing tools with built-in integrations and custom code
• Easy content updates. Change content, update images, and upload content to the CMS directly on the site through Webflow’s “Editor” mode.
• Complete freedom of design and layout customization
• Secure website browsing (Free SSL Certificate & end-to-end encryption) – no plugin required.
• Design and develop at the same time
• Easily add background images and videos
• Responsive design for any screen size or device – for laptop, desktop, tablet, and mobile 
• Easily add Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel, or Google Verification script 
• Automatic backups of your site and restore it with one click of a button
• Easily upgrade your hosting package – making your website scalable and future-proof

And lastly, Webflow is completely FREE until you’re ready to launch. Build your site, take as long as you need, and pay when you’re done (no trial needed here).

Want more pages? Just add a site plan and connect a custom domain when you’re ready to unleash your new site to the world. Oh, and GoDaddy seamlessly integrates with Webflow which makes connecting your domain so very easy — no messing around with DNS settings! 

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Not only small businesses use Webflow

Webflow is not only for Startups, here are a few larger companies who use this platform:

Rakuten

zendesk

Dell

Pacific Life

Upwork

Mural

Hellosign

Vocantas

This is nom (NOM)

Nutramaxlabs

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At KHULA^™, we only build in Webflow 

Why? Well, after building a bunch of sites for our clients – ranging from individual startups to small enterprises – we noticed that Webflow  had the edge in a number of areas: 

• It offer super fast development turnaround time (normally 2 to 4 weeks depending on scope) 
  

• It allows our clients to fully manage and maintain their own website once built – meaning they have complete access, and can change/add new content whenever they want
  

• It enables clients to create effective custom marketing landing pages faster too — without them needing to contact us.
  

• Clients can bring us in to support their efforts on an ad-hoc basis – to make larger changes or updates that require more advanced dev knowledge. 

In short, once their site is built, Webflow puts our clients in the driving seat on the frontend stuff – which they love – and means our involvement remains on the bigger infrastructural aspects of their site.  

In this way, clients get 100% peace of mind and 100% own everything – including the domain and website hosting. 

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Why Migrate to Webflow

Webflow outperforms other CMS systems in a number of ways and it’s rapidly being adopted by companies that want to define their online image, build it out quickly, and reap the benefits of a site built to support their future.

One of the key principles behind Webflow is that it gives users more control. It strips away the need for high-level technical ability and replaces it with an intuitive visual platform that anyone can work with. Think about it — not only can you maintain your own site, quickly and easily, you don’t have to pay someone else to do it. That means no more time spent liaising with contractors or waiting for changes and signoff. You have all the power.

That increased control is paired with top-level speed. Webflow websites are hosted and backed by AWS so you’re pretty much guaranteed to have the best loading speeds in any region. In case you didn’t know, Webflow includes CDN, Cloud Distribution Network, as standard and Webflow’s uptime is also 99.99% and because it’s serverless there’s never any downtime for server updates — that’s a bonus.

Unlike other platforms such as WordPress, Webflow comes with everything you need to design and build your site just the way you want. No premium plugins that add to your overheads and slow your site down — everything is there for you from day one.

Finally, security is taken care of with enterprise-level controls such as Two-factor authentication and role-based permissions. As the cherry on top, every site hosted on Webflow comes with a free SSL certificate which also helps with your search rankings.

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Here are 10 reasons why you should migrate to Webflow.

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Here is what our clients have to say about working with us:

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"We just completed a brand transformation and website development project with Jamie and his team at KHULA^™. What a great experience! Our new brand won a design award (which is amazing) and the entire process with Jamie and team was a delight. We worked as a collaborative team, being kept on task by Jamie who was pushing the quality and timeliness of all the deliverables. I would highly recommend KHULA^™, Jamie and his team." — Mark Rowan, CEO at Data Sentinel

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Ready To Switch? Start By Asking Yourself...

• Am I tired of calling my developer every time I want to make small updates to copy or images?
• Do I want to be in control of my website and 100% own it? 
• Does my website look old and outdated and in need of a refresh?
• Does my website take forever to load (WordPress users, we feel your pain)?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions and you feel now is the right time for a website refresh or you are starting a business and you want to make sure you create a website that you can 100% own and manage yourself going forward — then contact us today for a no-obligation free estimate. 

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Feel The Flow

Webflow gives our designers the creative freedom they need to produce beautiful and stunning websites without complex HTML coding. At the same time, it enables our clients to walkaway with a sleek and modern website that’s quick and easy to update and simple for them to build out in the long term, without expensive maintenance costs.