Webflow is ruining websites

Everybody keeps saying AI is ruining the web, but I think there's something that's doing even more damage than that, and it's something called Webflow. Here's me in a saucy costume to explain further. If you're currently building a website for your business, I can tell you right now, Web Flow will not be the correct solution for you. Despite what all the YouTube influencers are saying, they're only saying that because they're being paid by Web Flow. Web Flow itself is not exactly the problem.

Web Flow at the end of the day is just a tool to design a website. Web Flow is starting a revolution though that I don't think is positive for the entire web industry, for the entire web, nay for the entire world. Yes, that sounds dramatic, but I think I'm probably right on this one. Web Flow is making an industry split. On the one hand, we have designer first websites that are all about aesthetics, animation, wow factor, so to speak.

And then on the other hand, we have business first websites that are all about clarity, usability, loading quickly, and making sales. I think Webflow websites are pushing businesses towards a type of website that I don't think works for them. Yes, they look amazing, but is it going to make you any money? Probably not. And are your users going to get sick of the website when they have to come back to it and look for your contact details?

Absolutely, yes. It's forcing businesses to think about websites that look amazing, but making them forget about the entire purpose of the website in the first place, which is to be your cornerstone of your marketing, which is to get leads or make sales and ultimately make money. I don't particularly like Web Flow, and that'll become clear towards the end of this video. But stay with me for 30 seconds or so whilst I tell you why maybe you should consider Web Flow. Maybe it's in the interest of balance or something.

So, Web Flow does make cinematic, highly interactive websites. It almost brings back the days of Flash websites if you're old enough to remember that. It promotes things like scrolljacking where you scroll down the page and it doesn't do the thing that you expect it to do, so you get annoyed. Sorry, this is meant to be a sales pitch for Web Flow. I know.

It encourages things like non-standard navigation patterns, which can be fun to use for the first time, but when all you're doing is coming to the website just to find some information about where they are or the contact details, it can get very boring very quickly. Yes, I know this is meant to be a sales pitch for Web Flow. I'm sorry. It works for design websites or portfolios or photographers or things like that. It doesn't work for the vast majority of the websites on the internet that are trying to sell something, be it a service or a product.

It doesn't work for informationrich websites where information is important before somebody makes a sale. It doesn't work Sorry. Sorry. I know this is a sales pitch. I'm sorry.

We'll move on. What I'm seeing more than ever is people getting wooed by Web Flow because it looks cool. Having a Web Flow website is a bit like, I don't know, getting P. Diddy to come into your business for a day. It'll sure generate attention and it'll generate interest and people will come and see what the crack is.

But when they get there and see PD in the corner hawking sales or answering the phone, they'll realize that it's the same business. It's just got PD in there today. I don't know if PDD was the best example of that to be honest. Bearing in mind the recent Netflix documentary, I get why people would want a Webflow website. They do look cool.

That can't be denied. But the issue is everything else around it. You have to make a choice really as a business making a business website. Do I want a cool website or do I want a website that actually works, that actually brings in sales, that actually loads quickly? All of those lovely things.

A real hardworking website provides easy access to information that you need as quickly as possible. And a Webflow website at the expense of looking pretty, beautiful, animation, scrolljacking gets rid of all that because all it cares about a Webflow website is looking good. And this is really an issue when designers take over projects. All a designer wants to do is make a website look as pretty as possible, look as cool as possible, and that's what Web Flow does at the expense of everything else. A business now believes, rightly or wrongly, that good means visually extravagant.

They believe that good means cool looking, or they believe that good means having a fancy animation at the top of the page that they spent £3,000 on. They believe that good means that when you scroll down the page, unusual things happen. and what the rise of Web Flow is doing and Web Flow agencies specifically, it means that clients are now hunting for agencies based on portfolio aesthetics rather than results. If you go to any of these Web Flow agency websites, no matter how big they are, it's rare that they talk about results. What they're talking about is how quickly they can do something or how many pages they can make in how few weeks or how we've made this animation effect work with this new Webflow effect.

They're not talking about results. They're not talking about how many leads that they got that week because that's not what Web Flow is about. Web Flow is about aesthetics, pure and simple, and nothing else. What we're seeing again is a rise of the Flash website. There's a reason Steve Jobs killed the Flash website by making that update to iPhones.

Flash websites weren't serving the internet in any way. They looked cool. God, god damn, they looked cool. And I love looking at them as a designer, from a designer perspective as me, but as a thing that served clients. They never served clients.

They were purely designed to get awards. They were purely designed for design agencies to win awards so then they could get an award-winning website, an award-winning designer logo on their website at the expense of the client spending multiples and multiples and multiples of thousands of pounds. They weren't responsive. They weren't accessible. They didn't work in any way.

And that's why they died. Now what we're seeing is a new rise of that flash website again but it's masquerading as a real website which is a Webflow website. If we go right back to the beginning of the internet the internet was full of just text and hyperlinks. That was the purpose of the internet to share information as a research tool. And that's still to this day, despite the fact that everyone's using TikTok, despite the fact that people are watching videos like this, the primary reason for the internet is to share information.

And any barriers that we put in place of that, be it a fancy flashing website or a scroll that doesn't allow you to find the information you want to find, puts a blocker in the way, and stops the internet from being useful. And that's ultimately what the internet is about, being useful. And that's ultimately what your business website should be about, being useful. Because when it isn't useful anymore, there's no reason for it. And if there's no reason for it, people don't visit it.

And if people won't visit it, there's no purpose for it. And you might as well delete the website and not have a website. Just have a Facebook page. That was a bit of a rant, wasn't it? Because of Webflow, I'm seeing the entire industry switch towards trend chasing rather than problem solving.

And that's an issue for clients all over the globe because when agencies don't care about getting results anymore and when clients aren't holding them to task to get those results, we inevitably get less results and we get less useful websites and the entire web breaks down. I don't know, we have a nuclear crisis and a war happens and the entire internet dies and all we've got left is TikTok videos and that'd be terrible, wouldn't it? Because they're just terrible in every way. I feel like I should probably move on because I've made myself a little bit melancholy. Obviously, I'm not saying Web Flow is the villain, even though I've made it out to be many times in this video.

What I'm saying is that Web Flow is an incredible tool. It does make beautiful websites, but when it's used for the right reasons, and it often isn't used for the right reasons. The issue with Web Flow is its misuse, not its use. And more and more I'm seeing people and clients specifically request Web Flow when it isn't the right tool for the job. I've had conversations recently with a client who has a very large website and it's currently run on Web Flow and Web Flow is the complete wrong tool for it and that's why they're talking to me because they know it's the wrong tool.

They got sold the wrong thing for multiples of tens of thousands of pounds and it only took them months to realize that Webflow wasn't the right platform for a very busy, very information-rich website. And now they have to go out and buy another website. Who was that served? It didn't serve the client. It didn't serve the agency and it doesn't serve the web industry as a whole because now we all look like charlatans.

Designers and agencies should be guided by goals and business goals and reasons, not dribble aesthetics, not Webflow aesthetics, and not the latest trend to come out. And unfortunately, that's where Web Flow is taking us when it's used incorrectly. The whole point of this rant in this entire video is what businesses and you should be focusing on. We should be focusing on good informationrich websites. This is not a new thing.

This is a thing that Google and search engines and users and humans have prioritized since time immemorial. We want to find out information. The web is a research tool. It isn't anything else. And based on that, we should be prioritizing clarity over flare.

I'm not saying websites shouldn't be pretty. I'm not saying websites shouldn't look good. They should, of course. In fact, nicely designed websites are more usable. But what I am saying is we should be prioritizing clarity rather than just pure beauty because that never gets us anywhere.

We should be prioritizing fast loading times over fancy transitions. I've never seen a Webflow website that loads faster than 10 seconds. That isn't acceptable. Websites should load sub 1 second. That's it.

And of course, we should be prioritizing standard navigation practices over novelty. you're purchasing a serious business tool that is the marketing cornerstone of your business that you're going to drive all of your marketing to that doesn't want to be a novelty. It wants to be an easily scrollable and easily navigable website that people can find the information out really quickly and then go off somewhere else. So why are we putting all this fancy crap around it that makes it hard to get to those words that's actually going to make you sales that's actually going to bring you business. And of course, we should be prioritizing clean, readable, accessible design over anything else.

I haven't got anything else to say about that to be honest. That's just a fact. So, this was a rant. Yes. And yes, I do believe it's ruining the internet.

It's ruining client expectations. It's ruining agencies. It's ruining everything. There is a way forward. Use Web Flow less.

That's the way forward. But also, the way forward is to use Web Flow when it's appropriate. Use it for campaigns. Use it for flashy marketing campaigns. If you have a thing that you need to sell, just a one-off product, use it for that.

Don't use it for the main customer website where thousands of customers need to go on there and find information every day. Use it for specific purposes when you need something flashy when it needs to look that good and interesting. It's great we have these technologies. The internet should be being pushed forward every single day and it is. The issue is when Web Flow is being misused rather than used.

And I'm hoping with a rant like this, maybe someone will listen and we can start to change it a little bit. And if you enjoyed this rant about Web Flow and why it's the devil, it is the devil, by the way. I suggest you go check out one of my other videos, which is popping up right here, right now. Go on, go watch it. I dare you.

Just give it 30 seconds. Just click on that link. See what happens next. You won't regret it.