Wordpress vs. Webflow: From a Recovering Wordpressaholic

e’ve heard it 1000 times- Wordpress sites are the standard for small businesses. They rank well for SEO, are easy to publish blogs, open sourced, widgets for days and generally aren’t too terrible to look at. I mean, 25% of the internet is on Wordpress, so it has to be great right?

That’s true, Wordpress is great. We actually used to be a Wordpress shop ourselves. That was of course, until we discovered Webflow. Now we’re 100% on board the Webflow express drinking the Kool-Aid and never looking back.

We’ll TRY as former Wordpressers to contain our Webflow excitement and give you our unbiased comparison of all the major pros and cons of Wordpress versus Webflow and highlighting some popular myths. Emphasis on the word "try"...

Is Webflow or Wordpress Better for SEO?

Almost everyone agrees that Wordpress sites do rank well for SEO, and they’re not wrong. But, while they do rank well, there’s a strong argument that Webflow sites rank even better. First off, it is insanely easy in Webflow to implement all your technical on-site optimizations such as titles & meta descriptions, image alt tags, heading tags and links. Webflow makes it simple to add your Google Tag Manager Tags, Analytics tracking codes, and create XML sitemaps so you can easily keep track of your site’s performance.

Not only that, with Webflow your backend code for your site is typically much less clunky than a Wordpress site, meaning you’ll see quicker load times and thus better rankings. Lastly, a good rule of thumb is- good user experience equals good SEO. No platform we’ve used allows us to have better control over user experience than Webflow.

Wordpress SEO How To:

Here's a great article that breaks down how to accomplish all of the above in Wordpress. As simple and great as it is, it's very technical and not very intuitive.

Webflow SEO How To:

Here's a great article that breaks down the best principles for Webflow SEO. Note how most of it goes over tips on keyword research and strategy. That's because like everything in Webflow, implementation is a breeze. Giving us as designers more time to focus on the design and strategy of your website.

But Mah’ Plugins!

One of the advantages of using Wordpress is the almost boundless library of plugins that you can incorporate into your website to accomplish almost any task. The problem is, a good percentage of those plugins haven’t been updated, are incompatible with more recent versions of Wordpress, or are completely unsupported altogether.

Webflow gives developers the option to add custom lines of code sitewide or on the page level, and it has its own native custom code embed elements. This means, if you have a 3rd party app that you want to connect to your site (done through a plugin on Wordpress), you totally have that option on Webflow as well.

Something to note as well, the most popular plugins on Wordpress are geared towards SEO, analytics, and site performance. All of these features are native to Webflow already, so no need to chase down a random developer living under a false identity somewhere off the coast of Madagascar because your SEO plugin just crashed and your site is now ranking on page a billion of Google.

Building sites in Wordpress vs Webflow

When it comes to actually building websites, Webflow is the better option on all fronts. Webflow allows designers to build fully custom websites at lightning speed, and with much more control and room from creativity/fine tuning than you get with a platform like Squarespace or Wix. What does this mean for clients? Here’s the top three:

1. Quicker build cycles so you can get a new website faster
2. Websites on Webflow stand out from their Wordpress counterparts (and Wix, and Squarespace)
3. Webflow is a fully baked CMS, so you’ll have the ability to add your own content and update the existing content with ease.

Webflow also has its own rapidly growing community of experts, so if there’s ever an issue on your site, there are plenty of folks out there who can help.

In Closing: Webflow > Wordpress

For beautiful, high performing websites that can be built at blazing speed, Webflow is the only option. That’s why we over at Pretty Nice Websites strictly build our websites on Webflow. Plus, our clients love how easy it is to add their own blogs and update content using their own editor account. Ready to make the jump from Wordpress to Webflow? Drop us a line.