Webflow Conf 2022: What the New Features Mean for Technology Companies Using Webflow

Please note that this article focuses on relevant features for marketing teams in tech companies. If you want to get an overview of all announcements, please visit Webflow’s blog.

1. Components

Previously, so-called Symbols were used to synch elements between multiple locations on a Webflow website.

For example: Imagine you run 10 landing pages, all with the same CTA-Section. Once you change elements in a (Symbol)-CTA-Section on one page, the section gets updated on other pages as well.

When used correctly, this can save hours of manually making the same changes to multiple pages.

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Components work similarly, but take things even a step further, giving marketing teams even more flexibility:

1. They allow loading data from your CMS Collection Lists.
2. Individual Elements inside a component can be hidden or shown in a specific component instance.

Once you understand how the feature works, it makes building marketing websites in Webflow even more powerful, especially for large projects with many pages.

2. Devlink

Devlink allows us to build the front end of a custom (react) web app in Webflow.

Two possible use cases:

#1: Building a new product (web app) but creating its front-end visually in Webflow for more efficiency.

#2: Running a react-based forum or help centre for your software company (not part of your Webflow Marketing Site), and wanting to show parts of the website, for example, the navigation bar on that site.

3. Native Multi-Language Support

This is a huge deal for many startups wanting to start reaching client segments from different countries and reducing language barriers.

Setting up multi-language websites in Webflow is possible with tools such as Weglot. While Weglot is a powerful tool, the process of translating content can get complicated once you reach a certain level of complexity for your site.

Having the option to translate text elements, alt tags, and updating styles based on language directly in Webflow is a big opportunity for growth and moving faster. This feature is probably my favourite announcement and is coming to Webflow in 2023.

4. Memberships

An interesting use case I see would be offering certain types of content only to customers: For example, online courses or educational materials (limit at 20.000 members).

5. Logic

Logic is already available since September in beta. However, the feature is still continuously improving.
Popular use cases can be candidate tracking, lead tracking and similar critical marketing processes.

6. Improved Collaboration Workflow

Add Guest Roles: Invite your favourite freelancer or agency to work on your project (without having to pay extra for their seat anymore).

Permissions: Control who can access which project (more interesting for design agencies working with a large team).

Page Branching: This is another big one. Soon (for now, only for enterprise clients) it will be possible for several Webflow Developers to work inside the page designer in parallel. This will make exploring different ideas and launching new pages much more efficient.

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Summary

The announcements exceed my expectations. I can't wait to get my hands on the new features and build websites that are even easier to maintain, scale and help to reach businesses reach their marketing goals. As a designer who has committed to exclusively building with Webflow, I am very happy about the direction Webflow evolves and how it empowers more people to build for the web.