How to stand out as a Webflow developer?
How to stand out as a Webflow developer?
Things I'm exploring to differentiate my Webflow freelance business.
👋 Hey, I’m Ondrej and welcome to this issue of Flowletter. Each week, I answer questions about being a Webflow freelancer to help you grow your business and your skills.
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This question popped up on r/Webflow a few weeks ago, and it made me think about how I’m positioning myself as a Webflow developer.
While I’m still very early in my journey, I’m starting to see patterns in the clients I can attract and, more importantly, in the projects I enjoy working on.
What do I mean by standing out?
As Webflow grows in popularity, so does the number of developers offering their services. It’s a trend that (hopefully) won’t stop anytime soon.
For a while now, I’ve asked myself how I will stand out in this crowd, differentiate my offer, and find a niche that I enjoy and that brings me a steady inflow of clients.
This post explores what I and other Webflowers are doing to stand out.
Learn to overcome common Webflow limitations
Even though Webflow is an advanced builder, it has limitations. Early in my journey, I built a resource website as a personal project. I wanted to let users filter resources by category. You need a third-party integration, like Finsweet’s Filter attribute or Jetboost.
The other day, I had to manipulate the slideshow element so that my slideshow would start in the middle rather than with the first slide. Again, this required custom code.
The good news is that Webflow has a fantastic community. Its official forum is packed with step-by-step guides and troubleshooting for almost anything.
So the lesson here is to learn how to do things that are not possible with Webflow out of the box. It’s your first step in setting yourself apart from the competition.
Productivity
Another thing I focus on is shipping high-quality projects relatively quickly. I’ve adopted Relume’s component library, and all my projects now use Webflow variables. I also use the Client-First class system.
I’ve previously written about Webflow productivity, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here. My point is that I’m adopting systems to match the best in the industry in delivery time and quality.
Industry specialization
I’m still a generalist, but I’ve been considering the benefits of targeting a specific industry (like SaaS startups, real estate agents, restaurant businesses, etc.).
Look at Amply, a Webflow agency specializing in high-growth B2B clients.
Here’s why I think this approach makes sense. When you address clients in your niche, you:
know what their most common challenges are (i.e., for B2B clients, it could be generating and closing leads, retention, etc.),
know how to address them, plus you’ll have a track record to back this up,
speak the language of your clients, and you can use it to customize your marketing copy (i.e., operating with words like retention, LTV, CAC, etc., shows you know the B2B world and its challenges).
I’ve been a product manager in SaaS and B2B tech startups. I know what these clients want from a website, and I can run user research to validate messaging with their end customers.
I also know a few selling points that might convince them. For example, in the case of tech companies, an important selling point is that their engineering team doesn’t have to spend time building landing pages and can focus on the product.
I already have a few clients in this space, so I can see a future where my agency focuses only on this niche.
The Finsweet podcast has a great episode on this, and I want to highlight a few learnings here:
Joe Krug from Finsweet says they’ve gone in and out of niches. They started as generalists, niched down, and then returned to no niche. So, this can be a fluid process, and you don’t have to feel like you’re committing yourself to life.
Not everyone has to pick a niche to start. It’s an important point. You could argue that Webflow is a niche in its own right. It’s not the industry standard web builder and a fraction of the overall web development market. So, being a Webflow agency might be niche enough, especially in places where Webflow is not so popular.
Make sure you can reach out to enough clients within a niche to sustain yourself. It takes energy to specialize all your messaging to a niche. If that niche is too small, you’ll have to redo it again when you saturate it. So, pick an area where you can grow.
You need to have at least some experience in the niche.
Flavors of Webflow development
Another way to stand out is to focus on specific flavors of Webflow development, such as web apps, animation-heavy websites, content-heavy websites, etc.
Finsweet only does Webflow development; they don’t do any design. Or take Black Peak, a Webflow agency that only builds web apps using Wized and Xano.
Or Psychoactive Studios, which focuses on building interactive experiences using WebGL.
I’ve built web apps using Webflow, Memberstack, Make, and Airtable. It was a lot of fun to create something where you could input data and then store it in a database. I learned how to manipulate JSON files and save them into a user’s Memberstack profile, how to write a custom API call to Twitter, and more.
At the very least, this has enabled me to offer advanced integrations to my clients using Make or Zapier (like a marketing automation connecting their Webflow site to MailChimp).
While I don’t know if I’ll ever be exclusively focused on building web apps, exploring this avenue has given me many skills that set me apart when developing ‘standard‘ webpages with Webflow.
Complementary Skills
Another way to approach differentiation is to add complementary skills. For example, expertise in SEO, content strategy, digital marketing, 3D design, etc., can set you apart and save your client form having to hire another agency.
Over the years, I’ve acquired basic SEO knowledge. While I’m no expert, I’ve done keyword research, optimized Webflow websites for SEO, and written content that ranked.
I consult my clients on SEO and give them pointers on their content. They appreciate it and give me good references. To be clear, once we get to a more advanced level, I always direct them to an SEO expert.
Another thing you can do is add complementary platforms to your portfolio of services.
I’ve recently started offering Shopify store setups to some of my clients who want a basic design and a lot of e-commerce functionality. I don’t know yet where this will lead me, but I see the demand in our local market, and I’m exploring it.
Business model
I’ve got a subscription-based model, where I offer my services for a flat monthly fee. While I also offer more traditional hourly packages, subscriptions account for most of my clients. This model is different, and my clients appreciate a few things about it:
I can get started right away; there’s no lengthy project scoping taking place.
Some of my clients are marketing freelancers themselves, and this model allows them to add a new competency (web development) to their portfolio by forwarding the work to me. They are in charge of communicating with the end client, and I’m in charge of the build. I’ve got one long-term relationship here that’s now running for over a year.
Clients have flexibility and can pause or cancel at any time. For instance, projects with an open scope can be paused if business priorities shift.
I’ve seen a lot of debate online on the pros and cons of this model. I’ll be the first to say that this model is not for everyone. I do have potential clients who don’t hire me because of it. But for now, I’ve got enough clients who see the benefits.
I’ll also say that I may be leaving money on the table by not scoping projects. For now, the ability to get going with projects and the safety of being paid upfront for my work outweigh the downsides.
Content Creation
It might be evident from the newsletter you’re subscribed to, or you’ll be subscribed to right after finishing this read, wink-wink 😉, but I’m investing time into building a community through content.
I hope this content will show my competency in Webflow to my future clients and again set me apart from the competition.
A portfolio that stands out
I don’t remember where I heard this, but a design portfolio is not about being loud but about being specific.
Show your own strengths instead of building an interaction-heavy portfolio just like everyone else. Unless your specialty is interactions, in which case, go for it.
The point is that your portfolio should be a reflection of your specialization.
I’ll be the first to admit that my portfolio is not that. In fact, I don’t even have a proper portfolio; I have a few screenshots. So, this is something I’ll be working on in the future.
I haven’t moved on with this because I don’t know the answer to my specialization. I’m still exploring, and I think that’s okay. I’ve only been doing this professionally for the past year.
That’s it from me for this week. I hope you’ve learned something new. If you agree or disagree or are doing something else to specialize yourself, share it in the comments, and help us all grow together.
–Ondrej
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