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Understanding and addressing stakeholder interests guides your business decisions and builds long-term partnerships. When you recognize stakeholders’ needs, you stay attuned to shifting market dynamics and emerging opportunities.

Align with stakeholder interests for success

A stakeholder is an individual or group with a vested interest in the success, activities, or outcomes of your business or project. These interests can be financial, operational, or even social.

Effective stakeholder management involves understanding the diverse parties involved and prioritizing their needs and expectations. By seeking these insights and proactively addressing concerns, you more effectively anticipate and navigate potential challenges like conflicting expectations and off-target goals. This simultaneously fosters a collaborative environment, which ensures alignment and helps deliver on project objectives.

How to identify and manage stakeholder interests

To synchronize your stakeholder and enterprise interests, you’ll need to identify your key players and maintain effective stakeholder management. Here’s what this process looks like.

1. Identify stakeholder interests, needs, and expectations

The first step of stakeholder management is to conduct comprehensive stakeholder mapping and analysis.

Start by identifying each business or project stakeholder group. For instance, if you’re building a web platform, your primary stakeholders may include:

• External stakeholders (such as customers, investors, and regulatory bodies)
• Internal stakeholders (such as cross-functional teams like Marketing, Operations, Engineering, Legal, and Sales)

Then assess each group’s interests, objectives, and concerns. For example, customers may prioritize user-friendliness and functionality, while investors might focus on financial performance and growth prospects.

Stakeholder mapping and analysis serve as the foundation of effective stakeholder management. This process clarifies diverse stakeholder groups and their objectives, empowering you to make decisions that address their concerns. And in web development, stakeholder analysis lets you tailor your site, ensuring it prioritizes features vital to shared success.

2. Keep stakeholders engaged

Once you’ve identified and assessed interests, you’ll need to develop effective stakeholder engagement strategies customized to each group.

Check out these common approaches.

Tailored communication

Adapt your communication to stakeholder needs to provide updates, share progress reports, and address concerns. For example, when communicating with investors, focus on return on investment (ROI) and business growth metrics. Also highlight user experience improvements and new feature rollouts. Consider methods such as personalized emails, targeted newsletters, or stakeholder-specific online forums to enhance engagement and participation.

Active feedback collection

Proactively gather feedback using tools like surveys and questionnaires. An internal feedback portal might be ideal for employees, while for customers, post-interaction and website feedback capture their immediate reactions and insights. This real-time input helps identify improvement areas, gauge satisfaction levels, and shape future strategies or product enhancements. It also demonstrates that you value stakeholder perspectives.

Regular interaction

Hold meetings and workshops with stakeholders to discuss project or business developments. These interactions offer opportunities for in-depth discussions and help resolve issues collaboratively.

Consistent advisory involvement

Form key stakeholder advisory boards or committees that can provide guidance and recommendations. This empowers stakeholders to impact decision-making processes directly.

Personalized engagement plans

Develop customized engagement plans for key stakeholders. Tailor your approach to meet the specific needs and interests of each group.

Conflict resolution mechanisms

Conflicts often arise when managing diverse stakeholder interests, as different parties and individuals bring unique opinions and priorities. In the case of a website or app development project, stakeholders may have differing ideas about design, functionality, or investment levels. A structured conflict resolution process should be in place, allowing for impartial mediation and fair compromise. This fosters a culture of addressing conflicts professionally and resolving problems in a way that respects the interests of all parties involved.

Encouraged participation

Involve stakeholders in decision-making processes, especially when the decisions directly affect their interests. This includes seeking their input on key strategic choices. For instance, when designing features for a website or application, you may want to conduct user surveys and usability testing to gather feedback on interface design. Involving customers in the development process lets you factor in their real-world insights and user interactions, directing how you create and modify the product.

Community engagement programs

If your organization has a local or global community impact, implement community engagement programs that demonstrate your commitment to corporate social responsibility. Showing your consumers you support the same causes they do drives customer connection and builds a positive company image. Some ideas include having your team volunteer for food or clothing drives and hosting fundraiser events for local charities.

5 key types of stakeholders 

Since different stakeholders have unique needs, prioritizing each group, entity, and individual based on how they impact your business helps direct your focus.

While there’s no single correct way to rank stakeholder interest, a good rule of thumb is to prioritize influential and invested groups for maximum impact on your project or business. Those with low influence and interest might require less attention, but remember, all perspectives are valuable.

Below, we’ll explore five common types of stakeholders.

1. Customers

Customers are stakeholders with a high level of interest and influence since customer satisfaction directly impacts your company’s success. Primary customer interests usually include the quality of products or services, user experience, response time, and problem resolution. By understanding and addressing these interests, you significantly elevate the customer experience, driving higher engagement and fostering loyalty.

2. Employees

Internal stakeholders, like team members and managers, play a critical role in developing, maintaining, and operating a web platform. They also have a high interest in your business’s success since they directly contribute to and rely on its outcomes. Prioritizing employees’ needs, therefore, supports your organization’s overall achievements. Engage with key decision-making stakeholders, like project managers or department heads, who provide valuable insider insight into team concerns and objectives.

3. Investors

Investors, or shareholders, provide essential financial backing for the platform’s growth and development. They usually provide capital in exchange for shares in your company. As such, their interests primarily revolve around returns on investment (ROI), financial stability, and long-term prospects. These interest levels vary from one investor to the next based on their stake in the company and their number of controlling shares. When evaluating your shareholders and their significance, focus on the invested entities whose interests may significantly impact strategic decisions.

4. Suppliers and vendors

Suppliers and vendors are vital partners whose services keep your platform running. Their interest lies in receiving ongoing business and timely payments. Prioritize the interest of key suppliers, like a payment service provider, to ensure your web platform stays compatible with your provider’s software and hardware requirements. 

5. Regulatory bodies

A government agency or regulatory body can influence your operations due to their authority in enforcing laws and regulations. They’re interested in ensuring your platform complies with legal standards and operates ethically, so prioritize bodies that oversee your platform’s industry or geographic location, as noncompliance can lead to legal repercussions.

Get started with Webflow

Balancing stakeholder needs is crucial to delivering effective products and services on time and within budget. In web development, one of the most important stakeholders to listen to is your user. Learn more about creating prototypes and daring designs that transform key stakeholder visions into reality with Webflow. And check out our five-step plan for leading successful project outcomes that exceed both internal and external expectations. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing how businesses approach content creation. These advanced technologies analyze data, refine keyword strategies, and generate compelling content tailored to meet both search engine algorithms and user intent. By using AI tools for SEO in your optimization strategy, you not only boost your brand’s online visibility but also enhance the speed and quality of your content production.

How artificial intelligence supercharges SEO efforts

AI tools streamline your SEO and content creation processes, enhancing your brand’s visibility in a crowded digital space. Here’s an overview of how AI transforms your SEO approach.

Enhances data analysis and keyword optimization

AI-powered tools excel at processing vast datasets to drive informed decision-making. These tools analyze user behaviors, search patterns, and market trends, and identify keywords that resonate most with your target audience. This data-driven approach allows you to align your content and SEO strategies with actual user search intent, leading to more effective and targeted campaigns.

Moreover, SEO AI tools’ adaptability to constantly evolving search engine algorithms keeps your keyword optimization strategies up to date, and ensures your tactics respond to the latest algorithm updates. For example, when creating content for your landing pages, AI tools can help you find current trending keywords within your target audience. This insight shapes your word choice, which helps your content resonate with what potential customers are searching for and increases traffic to your website.

Optimizes content creation

Beyond keyword optimization, AI SEO software also revolutionizes content creation by suggesting topics, drafting outlines, and recommending formats that align with current search engine preferences. This assistance significantly speeds up the content creation process and frees your team to focus on more strategic endeavors, such as content strategy.

Natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) capabilities take AI content optimization tools even further; they grasp language nuances and produce content that’s not only SEO-friendly but also genuinely interesting to read. An e-commerce platform, for instance, might use AI to craft unique product descriptions which cater to specific customer segments. Using AI in content creation creates consistency in tone across various marketing channels, saving time and resources for marketing teams.

Streamlines competitor analysis

AI-driven SEO tools scrutinize your competitors’ online strategies by analyzing their keyword optimization, content approach, backlink strategies, and overall online performance. 

By monitoring and evaluating the SEO strategies of your competition, AI tools identify what keywords they’re ranking for, the type of content that’s driving their traffic, and how they’re structuring their SEO efforts.

This analysis goes beyond surface-level observations, revealing competitors’ tactics and highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. For example, if analysis reveals that a competitor’s specific set of keywords drives a significant amount of traffic, you could explore similar or related queries to capture some of this audience. 

By understanding areas where your competitors might be underperforming or tactics that work well for them, you can adapt and improve upon these strategies for your business.

7 AI SEO tools to automate and improve performance

To fully leverage the benefits of AI in SEO, explore a range of sophisticated tools. Here’s a curated list of some of the best AI SEO software that automate and enhance a business’s SEO strategy.

1. Semrush

Semrush is a versatile, all-in-one marketing suite offering an extensive range of functionalities, including detailed keyword research, AI-powered content optimization, backlink analysis, and SEO performance tracking. It also provides insights into organic search rankings, identifies content strategy gaps, and suggests optimizations based on user search intent, making it invaluable for fine-tuning SEO efforts.

Pricing: Pro plan starts at $99.95/month, with more advanced plans available for larger enterprises

Pros: User-friendly interface, robust analytics capabilities, and a wide range of SEO tools in one package

Cons: Comprehensive features come at a higher cost, which may be steep for smaller businesses and enterprises

2. Ahrefs

Known for its powerful backlink analysis features, Ahrefs offers a variety of tools for SEO, including site audits, keyword research, and competitor analysis. Its content explorer feature is particularly beneficial for identifying popular ideas and topics within a specific niche to craft an effective content strategy. 

Pricing: Lite plan starts at $99/month, with more advanced options available

Pros: Offers extensive data for improving SEO strategies, especially in recovering lost link opportunities and analyzing competitor tactics

Cons: Pricing is higher compared to similar tools

3. BrightEdge

BrightEdge provides an array of SEO tools, including backlink management, local search management, and competitive analysis. It stands out for its share of voice feature, which highlights key pages, keywords, and platforms competitors use to establish their digital presence, offering strategic insights for SEO campaigns.

Pricing: Custom pricing based on business needs

Pros: Customizable and user-friendly interface, enterprise-level reporting features, and advanced competitive analysis

Cons: Tailored for larger businesses, with no free plan available

4. Letterdrop

Letterdrop is a sophisticated content marketing and SEO suite ideal for Webflow users. It streamlines SEO with AI-driven optimization, offering automated checks against over 60 technical SEO best practices, efficient internal linking, and proactive content refresh monitoring. The platform also supports bulk keyword linking and seamlessly integrates with Webflow, enabling effective content creation and management within the content management system (CMS).

Pricing: Available with a free basic plan, a growth plan at $995/month, and an enterprise plan with custom pricing billed annually

Pros: Seamless integration with Webflow for direct content publishing and automation features for internal linking and content refreshing

Cons: Free plan offers limited functionality, and the more comprehensive features are only available for higher-priced plans, which may be cost-prohibitive for smaller businesses and startups

5. MarketMuse

An AI-powered content optimization platform, MarketMuse enhances content quality and relevance. It meticulously examines your existing content, spots gaps and areas needing improvement, and delivers practical suggestions for optimization. It specifically crafts SEO-friendly content with high potential to rank well in search results.

Pricing: Custom quotes based on the scale of use 

Pros: Offers comprehensive content analysis and optimization, integrates with various CMS platforms, and delivers personalized content recommendations

Cons: The pricing structure makes it ideal for large enterprises, but might be restrictive toward smaller businesses and individual users

6. Frase

Frase is an AI-powered tool that optimizes your content and improves your search engine rankings by analyzing your competitor’s content and identifying patterns in their content marketing strategies. Frase outlines your content’s key points, recommends relevant topics to cover, and generates a brief, providing actionable insights for content creation and optimization.

Pricing: Pricing starts at $44.99/month, with a free version offering limited features 

Pros: User-friendly interface, comprehensive content optimization features, including a free version for basic SEO needs 

Cons: Limited integration options; the free version has restricted features compared to the paid plans

7. WriterZen

WriterZen uses AI to enhance content quality by analyzing it against top-ranking pages using relevant keywords. It helps plan content and ensures that produced content is SEO-friendly and likely to rank higher on search engines. 

Pricing: Starts at $19/month, with pricier plans offering additional features

Pros: Affordable pricing, offers thorough content analysis and an intuitive interface

Cons: Limited integration with other digital marketing tools, and features may be less extensive compared to more established competitors 

What to look for in SEO tools powered by AI

AI-powered SEO tools are game changers, but selecting the right one requires careful consideration. Here’s what you should keep in mind when integrating AI into your SEO strategies: 

Data comprehension and sources 

A crucial aspect for any AI tool is its ability to understand and analyze data. Ensure your selected tool has access to diverse and reliable data sources and, more importantly, can accurately interpret this data. To gauge this ability, check how it analyzes user behavior or search trends and whether its insights align with known data or industry benchmarks. Testing the AI outputs for accuracy and relevance gives you a clear picture of the tool’s effectiveness in understanding the data it utilizes.

Task automation 

Look for tools that generate AI workflows and take over repetitive tasks such as keyword research, content analysis, and backlink monitoring. This automation frees up your team’s time for more creative and strategic SEO tasks, enhancing productivity and efficiency.

Collaborative features 

SEO is a collaborative effort, often involving various teams, so make sure to select tools that foster teamwork and collaboration. Features such as shared dashboards for analytics, collaborative editing of content, and efficient task assignment can significantly streamline your SEO processes and improve team synergy.

Scalability 

The digital landscape is dynamic, and your tools need to keep pace. Choose an SEO tool that is scalable — one that can grow and evolve as your business expands and your SEO needs become more complex. A tool that scales with your business prevents the need for frequent changes in your tech stack, saving time and resources over time.

Integration capabilities 

Ensure your chosen AI tool integrates seamlessly with other software and platforms your team uses. Smooth integration with your existing digital ecosystem — from content management to analytics and reporting tools — ensures that data flows freely between systems, enabling more coherent and cohesive SEO strategies.

Implementing SEO tools into your team’s workflow

Integrating AI in marketing, particularly for SEO strategies, is crucial for digital marketing success. AI-powered SEO tools are transforming the landscape, making content optimization and keyword analysis more precise and effective. These advancements lead to improved targeting, enhanced content relevance, and a better grasp of search engine algorithms, streamlining your SEO practices. 

Through Webflow Enterprise, you can empower your team to leverage AI-driven SEO strategies effectively. Offering native indexing, integrated analytic tools, and scalable content management features, Webflow simplifies complex SEO management. 

To learn more about SEO and how to implement effective strategies on Webflow, visit our blog. Explore the ins and outs of website SEO, learn optimization best practices, and read our essential SEO guide to maximize your site’s potential.

Regular tech stack upgrades are a regular part of growing a company. Unfortunately, even critical shifts and migrations can be disruptive. With each change, your team has to spend time integrating a new tool into your existing stack and workflows, migrating data from the old tool, and learning how to use the new one. 

New tools can also have broader costs for your organization. Change that feels chaotic and unnecessary causes friction with employees, eroding their trust in leadership and the team’s overall productivity. So it’s not surprising that less than a third of change initiatives succeed.

With all of these risks, it’s understandable if you’re reluctant to invest in a new tool, even if your existing tech stack isn’t perfect. But the good news is, you can avoid many of these dangers if you’re smart about how you manage the transition. Thinking about how change will affect your teams — rather than just your technology — can help you emerge from technical transitions with a stronger organization. 

The human side of change management

In response to the chaos that often accompanies bringing on or transitioning new tech solutions, companies have begun prioritizing change management. Change management involves developing a system to handle a technological or organizational change smoothly, typically by focusing on how the new tool will impact the technology, users, and sales.

But traditional change management often fails to address a major pain point: how transitioning to a new technology affects everyone using or impacted by it. For example, your HR team’s day-to-day work will change if you upgrade your payroll management software. But often these changes have surprisingly wide-ranging ripple effects. That new payroll software might make it easier to standardize how annual bonuses are calculated or change how managers build a job matrix.

People-first change management tries to fill this gap, by focusing on how technical changes affect the wider organization. Managing these ripple effects increases the chances that the new tool will be a success.

This may seem reasonable in principle — but how does people-first change management work in practice? 

How to plan for change

Once you’ve decided to update a piece of your tech stack, the next step is to come up with a plan to manage the change — and how it will impact your team, too. Here are questions to ask yourself as you develop your plan.

Who will use the new tool? 

Which of your teams will use the new tool in their day-to-day work? Find out what challenges they anticipate from the transition, and address them in your plan.

A new tool may also affect other team members’ work, as processes change or onboarding causes a temporary slow-down. Find out who depends on the teams who will use the new tool, and learn how their work might shift as a result. 

How will the new tool change employees’ roles? 

A key element of people-first change management is understanding that a new tool can change more than just the technology that employees use for their work. It can also change the work that they do, affecting performance reviews, processes, and how the work is distributed within a team. Case in point: maybe adopting a new web development platform expands a marketer’s responsibilities to include editing the company’s website. Do you need to provide additional training or mentorship to prepare your team for their new roles? Document and plan for all possible changes that can come about, and communicate early and often with your team members.

Who do you need to hire? 

Your new tool might open up new kinds of work. For example, once you have the means to support a larger database, you might need a dedicated database manager, which would be important to consider from both an organizational and budget perspective.

What’s your training plan? 

What training resources do you need to onboard your team to their new tool? These might include knowledge base articles, video tutorials, live training sessions, or support from the new platform’s customer success team. Find out what materials the new platform will provide, such as documentation, courses, or workshops. 

In addition, think about how training needs differ across roles: should the training be different for engineers and marketers? How can you make the training inclusive, so that there’s a low barrier to entry for employees to participate?

Who’s on your change management team? 

Who will help you implement this plan? Think about who leads the affected teams, and whether your org has a dedicated DevOps or training team available to provide support during the transition and onboarding period.

How to effectively communicate change within your organization

Even the best plan will fall short if your teams don’t thoroughly understand it. Here are some tips to consider as you bring on new technology and you tackle change management within your organization. 

Write a roadmap

This will force you to think about and share the expected timeline for onboarding onto the new tool, and how that will affect the company’s broader roadmap.

Expect pushback 

Change is rarely popular. Expect that some employees won’t want to disrupt their systems to learn how to work with a new solution, even if it will end up making their jobs easier.   

Over-communicate 

Inform teams that a change is coming far in advance, and be clear about why the change is necessary. Then share your change management plan to let everyone know how the transition will unfold, and how they can expect their day-to-day to look afterward. Follow up often, and listen to everyone’s reactions. Communicating early and often will help you develop a better change management plan, catch holes in your plans, and develop a roadmap that teams will be on board with. 

Set up a feedback channel

How will you know whether your change management plan is working well? Set up a way to hear how the change is going for employees, like a Slack channel, office hours, a monthly survey, or town halls.

How to know whether your plan is working

Finally, it’s time to put your plan into action — but how can you tell if it’s achieving the desired results? Follow these three steps to measure and track implementation effectiveness

1. Define success ahead of time

Before you transition to a new piece of tech, decide how you’ll assess whether the transition was successful. This might mean asking employees to fill out a survey about the transition, tracking how many people adopt the new tool, comparing the onboarding time to the tool’s time savings in the first few months of use. There is no one-size-fits-all to success indication, so be sure to reflect on what success looks like to your organization and what business needs and goals you’re trying to solve for.

‍2. Assess the management plan separately from the new tool

It’s important to measure two things: whether the tool itself was a good choice, and whether your change management plan was effective. Be careful not to confuse these. Surveying employees about how much they enjoy using the tool won’t tell you how chaotic the onboarding and implementation process was.

3. Check in often and be prepared to pivot

Ideally, you’ll measure success continuously throughout the transition. This way, if you see signs that the transition isn’t going well, you can pivot accordingly.

Invest in your organization

It’s tempting to focus on integrating a new tool with your existing tech stack, rather than the more nebulous problem of integrating a new tool within your organizational structure. But ultimately, your people are your most valuable assets. Planning for how technical changes will impact their roles in your organization helps you invest in the best parts of your company, and can make you stronger in the process.

Interested in learning more about how to set up your team for long-term success? Check out our ebook for tips and strategies from best-in-class organizations.

As Webflow continues on our rapid growth path and our mission to bring development superpowers to everyone—Rachel and the product organization will play a key role in pushing Webflow’s innovation and products forward. 

Prior to Webflow, Rachel served as Vice President and General Manager of Dropbox’s Core Business, where she helped Dropbox go multi-product and built products for over 700 million users worldwide across 220 countries. During her tenure she also led Dropbox’s AI strategy, including the acquisition of search startup Command E. 

Additionally, she’s supported private and public companies through profitability and hyper growth — managing engineering, product, data, and design teams at LiveRamp, Euclid, and Talkdesk.  

Rachel also serves as a mentor at UC Berkeley and is an angel investor for pre-seed, seed, and series A startups across SaaS, AI, and security industries. 

We recently sat down with Rachel to discuss her product philosophy and vision, why she’s excited to join the team, and what she sees next for Webflow. 

For more, check out the press release here. 

Kicking things off, we’d love to learn more about your background and your career. 

The last couple of decades I’ve spent building out large SaaS businesses. During that time, I’ve led everything from product management to design to engineering to data. When it comes to product, my expertise lies in product-led growth and direct sales motions, and building products that support those, such as analytics and workflow products.

The last eight-plus years in particular, I’ve focused primarily on AI-powered workflow products and ran the AI group and led an AI acquisition during my time at Dropbox. 

What excites you about Webflow? 

Back in college, I built websites for a living. I worked on sites for everyone from agencies, to major museums, to the National Parks Association — you name it.  And it was painful. To start from scratch, build something custom for those sites, and collaborate across a bunch of different entities that were not necessarily in the same company — there was so much friction and it was incredibly slow. 

That’s the challenge when you’re writing code or designing something: you want to get it out and see how people interact with it, but then you have ten different steps to actually get it out the door and get it published — and it hasn’t really changed over the years.

As someone who’s worked on a lot of professional websites for clients and gone through these pain points first-hand — I immediately gravitated towards Webflow as a product and how it eliminates so much of that friction. 

Webflow is an opinionated and superior way to build a website that is abstracted from the code, but you have confidence in what you’re shipping. And beyond that it’s so extensible. 

I recently was playing around in Webflow and built a fairly complex job board website. I used three different off the shelf, no code products to programmatically populate that job board. And I was able to do it in a weekend. This is something that probably would have taken me a month to build custom. It was amazing. 

The way that Webflow has built itself as an extensible platform is very different from pretty much any other product that’s on the market. The Sitecores, the Adobe Experience Managers — they’re all very much built as this kind of monolith where you can only use their product from end to end, or you don’t at all. 

The flip-side of that is the WordPresses of the world, where everything is highly custom and needs to be cobbled together, often requiring developer support every step of the way

With Webflow, you have the best of both worlds where you’ve got an opinionated way to build, but it is also extensible and platformizable. And to me, that’s what anybody who’s building a website these days should want. 

I’m so excited to continue to innovate and bring more of this to our customers as we move forward into 2024. 

What’s your approach when it comes to leading a product organization and strategy? 

The number one thing I really think about is “how do you turn PMs into GMs?”  Meaning how do you empower your team to think holistically across the product.  This means that it’s not just about the product, but it’s about understanding what are all the edges around your organization that your product touches and how you are subsequently orchestrating and managing those edges across the organization. And most importantly, how PMs can own the impact of their products with their customers and operationalize success.

Say we’re bringing something to market. Beyond the product, you need to ensure that the marketing plan is interlocked with the product-led growth motion as well as with the marketing-led and sales-led motions. 

It’s also about how to marry product-led and sales led growth-motions. A lot of times we think about them as very discrete products and motions, but in reality, it’s the same customer and user, and the motions need to work together in a complementary and seamless way.

As a CPO, I think it’s so important to think this way and encourage the greater product team to think “distribution first.” Being a GM for the last three and a half years has given me very clear insight into how we can build products for impact.

AI is such a hot topic right now in the tech space. What’s exciting you about it and where do you see it going in 2024 and beyond? 

AI is in this very interesting place.  It’s been everywhere in the last year or so — but really we’re just in the first inning of how AI is going to impact workflows — which is where I see it headed next. 

At Dropbox, we focused on how users could use our AI tools to manage and retrieve their file-based and cloud-based content in order to improve their workflows. Though the products are different — there’s actually a lot of similarities between Dropbox and Webflow when it comes to AI.  Like Dropbox, Webflow has a real opportunity to continue building AI capabilities to make it easier to collaborate across teams, departments and companies and speed up how people work together and build websites every single day.

When it comes to the industry at large, one of my favorite use cases of generative AI has been GitHub Copilot. Not only does it allow experienced developers to eliminate more laborious tasks like writing unit tests, they’re able to essentially take somebody who’s never coded before and turn them into a 10x engineer with AI-generated prompts and code suggestions.

We’re in a really exciting chapter with AI. I’m excited to build on the great work our team has already done, and bring it natively to Webflow users in their everyday workflows. 

Whether you’re starting a new business or looking to revamp your company’s existing structures, a strategic plan is crucial for success. It complements existing documents, such as mission statements and individualized project plans, and considers future opportunities and potential setbacks.

With a strategic plan suited to your specific goals, you can chart a realistic, sustainable road map that acknowledges your current organizational challenges while unlocking future possibilities. Learn how strategic planning can benefit your organization and set you up for long-term success.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a continuous, systematic process for organizations to define their short- and long-term direction. It involves comprehensively assessing internal aspects, like employee development, budgets, and timelines, and external elements, such as market trends and competitors, to enable effective resource allocation so your organization can achieve business goals and scale effectively.

The strategic planning process is dynamic and requires adaptability to changing circumstances to establish a structured approach to decision-making and maintain team agility. At its core, strategic planning serves as a road map that steers an organization from its present state toward a well-defined future, ensuring sustainable growth.

The benefits of strategic planning

As a holistic road map, a strategic plan well suited to your organization can propel your productivity. Here are a few benefits that strategic planning brings:

• Creating a shared purpose. Strategic planning involves team members in setting the organization’s mission, vision, and values. This collaborative process ensures that every team member understands and connects with these fundamental principles — fostering a sense of shared purpose and direction.
• Proactive planning. The strategic planning process translates abstract ideas into actionable objectives. Setting specific, attainable goals and mapping out strategies to achieve them provides a clear blueprint for the future that’s guided by informed decision-making and deliberate goal-setting.
• Effective resource allocation. Strategic planning allocates resources such as finances, personnel, and technology based on their potential impact on business goals. This process assesses the resources required to achieve each objective and distributes them to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.
• Defining long-term and short-term goals. Strategic plans break down long-term, overarching goals into smaller, short-term objectives to create a step-by-step pathway to achieve the larger vision. This makes goals more manageable and actionable and enables regular monitoring and adjustment of these goals.
• SWOT analysis. Strategic planning provides a clear understanding of your organization’s current status, position in the market, and well-being through a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. By evaluating both internal and external factors, this process helps identify areas where your organization excels, where it can improve, and external factors that could impact its success, ultimately helping you strategize for future growth and stability.
• Anticipating market trends. Strategic planning enables organizations to foresee and prepare for future changes by analyzing market data and trends. This proactive approach involves evaluating emerging trends, consumer behavior, and technological advancements to adapt strategies accordingly, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.

How does a strategic plan differ from other project management and business tools?

When creating a long-term vision, a strategic plan becomes pivotal in steering your organization toward success. However, there are other project management tools and workflows with similar goals. Here’s how strategic plans differ from those processes.

Strategic plans vs. business plans

While a strategic plan outlines the organization’s long-term direction and actions to achieve overarching goals, a business plan focuses more on starting new ventures or restructuring existing ones. The strategic plan is broader in scope and encompasses long-term visions like market expansion, while the business plan might detail the steps to attract new customers and establish brand identity.

For example, a new brick-and-mortar sports apparel store might have a business plan for attracting new customers and establishing a brand identity, with a strategic plan that focuses on expanding into online sales to capture a broader audience over a three-year period.

Strategic plans vs. mission statements

A strategic plan outlines a comprehensive set of strategies to achieve organizational goals, while a mission or vision statement concisely communicates the organization’s core purpose. The mission statement sets the tone and direction, and the strategic plan lays out the specific initiatives, such as research and development investments and partnerships, to realize that vision.

Consider a mission statement for a security camera company — to create seamlessly integrated security systems that protect homes. Meanwhile, their strategic plan details initiatives such as product development, resource allocation, and personnel plans to achieve that mission statement.

Strategic plans vs. company objectives

Company objectives are specific, feasible, and measurable targets. In contrast, a strategic plan provides a broader blueprint for aligning resources and realizing those objectives. The strategic plan incorporates and supports various company objectives through detailed action plans and resource allocation.

For instance, an ecommerce platform aims to increase online sales by 15% in the first quarter. To achieve this, their marketing team creates a strategic plan prioritizing a digital marketing revamp, including optimizing the company website, driving organic traffic, and boosting search engine optimization (SEO).

Strategic plans vs. business cases

Unlike strategic plans, which broadly set the direction for multiple projects and initiatives aligned with a company’s long-term goals, business cases justify individual projects and focus on a specific initiative’s viability and benefits.

For example, a business case might focus on the financial feasibility and expected outcomes of introducing a new analytics feature in a software product. In contrast, the strategic plan of this software company might include goals such as becoming a leader in data-driven solutions, where the analytics function features prominently.

Strategic plans vs. project plans

Project plans are detailed documents that outline specific timelines, tasks, and budgets to complete a project. In contrast, strategic plans incorporate multiple project plans, ensuring they align with the broader goals and vision of the organization, and provide the context and framework for developing and implementing individual project plans.

For a web development team, a project plan could detail the steps for redesigning a client’s website, including milestones, resources, and deadlines. However, the strategic plan for this web development company might aim to become the go-to agency for innovative web solutions. Their strategic plan guides not just this single project but others in terms of technology adoption, client engagement strategies, and market positioning.

The 5 essential steps to strategic planning

Now that you’re familiar with strategic plans’ benefits and use cases, here are five best practices to create one tailored for your organization.

1. Understand your position

Before drafting the actual plan, it’s essential to understand your position in the market. Conduct a SWOT analysis of your industry that focuses on current market trends, client needs, and the competitive landscape. This comprehensive understanding helps you grasp where your organization stands and what unique opportunities or challenges you might face so you can establish a solid foundation for future strategies.

2. Set clear goals and objectives

After understanding your market position, establish specific, attainable, and measurable objectives that align with your business’s mission and broader goals. Ensure these goals are relevant, time-bound, and fit within your organization’s resources and budget. Doing so effectively guides your efforts and provides a framework for measuring progress.

3. Define the organization-wide plan

After brainstorming broad long- and short-term goals, convert them into a cohesive strategy encompassing all departments. For example, if launching a new website design is your goal, involve developers, designers, and marketers in your planning process. Assess and use each team member’s strengths and encourage cross-departmental collaboration. This step ensures that your strategy is holistic and aligns every department toward common objectives.

4. Establish and meet KPIs

Implement key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your project. For a web development agency, these could include metrics such as website loading speed, user engagement rates, or client acquisition. You can also use data visualization tools, like Google Analytics, to gather insights and track objectives and key results.

This phase is where you translate strategy into action by allocating resources according to your pre-established goals and measure the progress against these KPIs.

5. Review and update

Strategic plans in business are flexible. As markets and consumer demands evolve, so must your approach. Regularly review your KPIs, collect customer feedback, study market trends and industry changes, and motivate your team to be flexible when necessary.

A continuous, iterative process ensures your organization remains responsive and aware of ever-changing conditions, allowing you to effectively anticipate new hurdles, improve existing frameworks, and leverage opportunities.

Plan, take action, and scale with Webflow

Success isn’t the result of chance — it happens through careful planning and preparation. With the right tools, you maximize your resources and effectively implement your enterprise’s strategic plan.

From large-scale ecommerce websites to small businesses, Webflow transforms how you scale. Deliver optimized performance through your website, empower marketing teams with SMART goals, and foster collaboration for streamlined workflows.

Whether you’re building from the ground up or adapting to new trends, Webflow helps you manage growth effectively and take your business to the next level. Explore Webflow Enterprise for resources focused on scaling businesses with an optimized digital presence and seamless team collaboration.

With most internet traffic now originating from mobile devices, designing for smaller screens isn’t just an option — it’s a requirement. To adapt to this surge, mobile-first design is crucial. This approach streamlines applications and provides fast-loading websites that cater to the ever-growing mobile audience and future-proofs your digital audience.

What’s mobile-first design?

Mobile-first design starts with optimizing the user experience for mobile devices before scaling up the design to larger screens, such as laptops and desktops. With this approach, developers and designers recognize the increasing prevalence of global mobile users. They strive to create websites and applications that captivate and function well on smaller screens so they can offer users seamless digital experiences regardless of the device.

Two key principles of mobile-first design strategies are:

• Progressive advancement. This principle centers on starting the design process with the most constrained platform — the mobile device. By focusing on the essential features required on the smallest screen, you target the core functionality of the site or app, such as intuitive navigation, fast loading times, and responsive design elements. These components remain a priority even as you scale the design up to larger screens, which lets you integrate additional features and more complex designs without compromising the mobile user experience.
• Graceful degradation. In contrast, graceful degradation begins with designing for larger devices and then adapting the design to fit smaller screens. Under this approach, designs for larger devices are “degraded” in a controlled and strategic manner to fit the constraints of mobile devices. This ensures a robust desktop user experience that functions equally well when scaled to a mobile format.

Why is mobile-first design important?

Mobile-first design isn’t just a trend — it’s a strategic approach to take on mobile-dominant markets. Here’s why you should embrace mobile-first layouts:

• Increases user-centricity. Mobile-first designs emphasize user needs by tailoring core functionalities, such as navigation and design responsiveness, to the constraints of smaller screens. This focus increases usability and satisfaction for a growing population of mobile users.
• Enhances performance optimization. Starting with mobile-first design compels organizations to optimize for performance from the onset. This includes improving loading times, performance, and responsiveness, which are crucial for mobile users who rely on cellular data and expect quick information access.
• Adapts to a mobile-dominant market. A mobile-first design is essential to address the increasing number of users accessing the internet through smartphones and tablets. If you neglect mobile design, your brand risks alienating the many people who rely on smartphones and tablets for internet usage, leading to a loss of audience and potential revenue.
• Fosters strategic and sustainable growth. Mobile optimization not only improves user experience and customer satisfaction, but also keeps digital assets relevant as more users shift toward smartphones and tablets.
• Drives innovation. Embracing a mobile-first mindset encourages teams to adapt to changing user preferences and innovate within the constraints of mobile technology, leading to creative solutions that benefit users across all devices.

What’s the difference between mobile-first and responsive design?

Mobile-first and responsive design are both strategies for creating functional websites across devices, but they differ significantly in their starting point and implementation.

Mobile-first design methodology centers on mobile devices from the start, shaping sites for optimal performance on smaller screens. Starting with mobile ensures that the website is quick to load and responsive on devices where users may have limited bandwidth or processing power. It also tailors the user interface and experience for mobile users, who may have different usage patterns and needs than desktop users.

Responsive web design, in contrast, typically begins with a desktop version of a site that’s modified to adapt to smaller screens. By using flexible grids and layouts, responsive design ensures that websites will reconfigure themselves to provide a consistent experience whether users are on a desktop, tablet, or mobile. While this approach is versatile, it may result in a mobile experience that feels like an afterthought because the primary focus is on the desktop.

In essence, while responsive design is about adaptability, mobile-first design is about intentionality — ensuring that the mobile user’s experience is not just accommodated but prioritized.

5 best practices to implement a mobile-first approach

Delivering effective mobile-first designs requires a combination of best practices across design, development, and testing. Here are some strategies to ensure your mobile-first designs make an impact.

1. Design for touchscreens

Most mobile users own touch-enabled smartphones, so you must tailor interactions to mobile gestures. Design with touch in mind, considering pinch, swipe, and tap actions. Ensure buttons and elements are appropriately sized and suitable for touch input, and implement haptic (vibration) feedback to improve the user experience and reduce frustration.

For example, focus on large, tappable areas and intuitive swipe gestures instead of relying on desktop-centric hover effects.

2. Simplify navigation

Keep menus simple, straightforward, and intuitive when designing for mobile. Prioritize core content, such as home, about us, and product pages, and remove unnecessary or heavy elements to help users find what they need without hassle or confusion. Consider collapsible elements, such as a hamburger menu, that expands and shrinks. This saves space and provides interactivity while keeping the layout clean and organized.

With a limited canvas, you must create streamlined navigation that works around the limitations of smaller screens. For example, avoid sudden pop-ups that occupy most of the screen and disrupt the user experience.

3. Optimize for speed and performance

Speed and performance retain mobile users who expect quick access and seamless interactions. Optimize graphics, images, videos, and code to ensure fast page loading and swift response times. Doing so minimizes the load on browsers and servers and provides users with responsive webpages that enhance satisfaction and promote continued user engagement.

To achieve this, actively compress images and implement responsive design techniques that allow text, images, calls to action (CTAs), and layouts to adjust fluidly across different screen sizes. This maintains the visual integrity of your interface and effectively translates your design to any device, preserving the user experience.

4. Conduct usability testing

Test your mobile designs under various conditions and scenarios to ensure they stand up to real-world use. Evaluate how your pages and apps perform across network speeds, device orientations, screen sizes, and hardware capabilities to confirm their resilience and adaptability. Additionally, use A/B testing to directly compare different design approaches and identify which is more effective.

Incorporate user feedback when testing by gathering insights from the start of the design and development process. This proactive approach lets you collect valuable data on user behavior and preferences and refine your design to more closely align with user interests so you can ensure your mobile experience is functional and user-approved.

5. Design progressively

Start small and scale up. When adopting a mobile-first strategy, start with the basics that work well on smartphones and tablets, then gradually add features and expand your design perspective as you have more space. Establish a robust framework that seamlessly accommodates various devices and screen sizes from the start to secure consistency across your digital ecosystem and set the stage for smooth scalability, helping ensure future growth.

Continuing this strategy, focus on building a solid design system that caters to multiple devices and screen sizes and allows you to create a consistent and cohesive ecosystem. This prepares your online presence for long-term growth and facilitates smooth expansion over time.

Build stunning mobile-first websites with Webflow

Shifting to a mobile-first approach presents challenges, but it’s a step worth taking to drive progression. While you may hesitate to break established workflows, you can adopt a strategy that targets a substantial amount of web traffic to ensure your brand remains accessible to your target audience and beyond.

Webflow provides several resources to facilitate mobile-first design, with inspiring examples and practical guides to creating enterprise websites and user-centered interfaces. Leverage our robust content management system and build web experiences at scale to expand your business with Webflow Enterprise.

Faced with an overwhelming amount of content vying for attention, online audiences are selective. Simply presenting information isn’t enough anymore — modern users demand more and crave narrative-based, visually appealing journeys that inform and captivate.

Rich content satisfies these needs by combining storytelling with vibrant visuals and interactive elements. This not only drives deeper engagement but also crafts immersive user experiences, laying the foundation for lasting brand loyalty and increased trust. Ultimately, integrating rich content into your site positions your brand as a go-to source in a crowded digital marketplace.

What’s rich content, and why is it important?

Rich content includes multimedia formats and interactive elements that engage users more powerfully than traditional text or static images. You might add videos, animations, and soundtracks to enrich content.

With so many options at their fingertips, users actively choose platforms that entertain and immerse over static pages. In fact, interactive content achieves 50% higher engagement than static content. To meet this demand, your brand must integrate rich content to differentiate itself from competitors, boost engagement, and magnify its message.

The high shareability of rich content doesn’t just widen visibility — it also boosts the chances of viral traction, as your content spreads rapidly and broadly across the internet to draw heightened attention and interaction. This means any team can leverage rich content to improve visibility and engagement.

What are the different rich media formats?

Every brand can benefit from rich content, regardless of industry or niche. Here are seven rich media examples to consider incorporating into your website.

1. Images

Images serve as powerful visual anchors in digital content by effectively communicating ideas, evoking emotions, and enriching storytelling. Whether it’s photographs, illustrations, or graphics, images capture viewer attention and quickly convey information. And when strategically distributed within text content, images also accentuate key points by breaking up dense text and ensuring the content remains visually engaging and navigable.

For example, a travel blog enriched with vivid, high-resolution photos of captivating destinations intrigues readers and fuels their imagination by helping them visualize embarking on a similar adventure and pushing them closer to conversion.

2. Videos

Videos are one of the most engaging forms of digital content. They span a broad spectrum and can include interviews and demos or educational snippets. Videos weave compelling narratives that resonate deeply with viewers by combining music, sound effects, captivating visuals, storytelling, and editing techniques. Their dynamic nature boosts viewer engagement and enhances shareability, amplifying online visibility through increased clicks, reach, and impressions.

A how-to cooking video, for example, doesn’t just list ingredients and steps — it brings the entire culinary process to life. Visually guiding viewers through each phase entices them to recreate the dish and share the recipe with their family and friends. This further extends the media’s influence by driving organic traffic and engagement.

To craft such engaging videos, start with a resonant story and concept and invest in high-quality equipment, such as lights, cameras, and microphones, for professional-looking results. Plan the video’s sequence and script before shooting, and ensure you don’t deviate from the central theme and topics. Use editing software in postproduction to enhance the video with images, sound effects, and music.

After you create it, maximize the video’s exposure by sharing the final product on your website and social media.

3. Animations

Animations transform static images into lively sequences and offer a captivating visual narrative that can make even complex content more digestible. Unlike static graphics, animations string together multiple images or illustrations rapidly to capture and hold attention. They’re great for highlighting website products, enriching video content, or visually breaking down intricate ideas.

For example, organizations selling complicated products, online learning services, or difficult-to-use software can use animations instead of text-heavy documentation or lengthy presentations to make their complex subject matter more engaging and understandable for their audiences.

4. Interactive quizzes

Interactive quizzes evaluate knowledge, preferences, and individualized feedback through user participation. By drawing users into an active dialogue, quizzes enhance the user experience by making it more memorable and impactful. Offering a quiz to users signals that a brand values their input, which helps to foster trust and build a foundation for future interactions.

Imagine a sports apparel company that introduces a quiz titled “Discover Your Ideal Running Shoe.” Such a strategy entertains visitors and delivers a customized experience by guiding them toward a purchase that best suits their needs. It might also compel visitors to share this quiz with others, drawing more traffic to the site.

To effectively manage and edit such content, using a rich content editor (RCE) is essential. An RCE streamlines the creation and editing processes by enabling you to customize rich text and incorporate multimedia and interactive elements into your website. This flexibility in managing rich text content significantly enhances presentation and boosts user engagement, making quizzes entertaining but also impactful and encouraging visitors to share their experiences, in turn driving more traffic to your site.

5. Webinars

Webinars deliver pre-recorded and live content, like presentations, training, seminars, and workshops, to audiences worldwide. Beyond their informational value, webinars also provide opportunities for real-time interaction and enable participants to engage directly with industry leaders and experts.

By hosting webinars, brands can position themselves as an industry leader and foster community engagement through interactive Q&A segments and supplementary downloadable resources.

Consider a software company revealing a groundbreaking new feature. Hosting a live webinar allows them to demonstrate this feature in action, answer questions, address concerns, and build anticipation among their user base.

6. Podcasts

Podcasts offer engaging audio content that explores diverse topics through conversations, interviews, and candid narratives. While they’re audio-centric, many podcasters now provide video accompaniments to their recordings.

Podcasts’ adaptability to listeners’ lifestyles sets them apart from other rich content formats. Whether you’re commuting, working out, or relaxing at home, you can integrate podcast listening into your routine. This flexibility allows audiences to stay updated and informed without dedicating specific time to listening.

For instance, someone interested in the latest tech advancements can absorb insights from industry experts while going about their daily activities.

7. Sound and music

Sound effects and background music are pivotal audio tools that complement the mood and depth of content by creating a richer, more immersive experience. When harnessed strategically, these elements elevate the ambiance of your website and rich content and fortify their auditory identity. By curating or creating signature soundtracks or effects, you can leave lasting auditory imprints that prompt users to recognize and connect with your brand instantly.

For example, an ecommerce platform selling relaxation and wellness products might use a soothing, tranquil soundtrack of waves crashing on a beach to resonate with visitors. This helps potential customers envision the relaxation these products promise, even before purchasing, which deepens their purchase intent.

How rich media boosts engagement

Adding rich media to your site goes beyond aesthetics — it deeply influences user interaction and engagement. Here are a few ways it elevates the user experience.

Eye-catching visuals

Rich media grabs attention with standout graphics and visuals that keep visitors glued to the screen. To maximize this impact, prioritize high-quality visuals and thoughtfully integrate them into your site’s design while ensuring they resonate with your target audience.

Tailoring visuals to reflect your brand’s identity — like using consistent colors or thematic imagery — helps forge a stronger connection with viewers.

Vibrant product photos that pop off the page or demonstration videos that vividly showcase a product’s benefits can compel visitors to delve deeper into the site and even lead them down the marketing funnel.

Hands-on interactions

Interactive elements transform visitors from observers to active participants. When you nestle features like polls, quizzes, and surveys on landing pages and blog articles, you foster deeper engagement and gather valuable audience feedback.

Consider an ecommerce platform aiming to launch a new product line. By integrating a short quiz on their homepage asking visitors about their preferences related to this product — color choices, design aspects, or usability features — the company gains direct insights from potential customers. These insights can then inform future product developments or marketing strategies.

You can also include interactive animations to improve your website’s visual appeal and functionality. Think of a product image that zooms in to show detailed features when a user hovers over it or 3D renders that let visitors explore a product from every angle by clicking and dragging. These details enrich the user experience and make visitors more likely to engage with your content and respond to calls to action (CTAs).

Relatable storytelling

Rich content lets you share your company’s story, values, and mission through captivating and emotionally resonant multimedia that allows your target audience to connect with your brand more deeply. Captivating videos, interactive timelines, and engaging animations relay your brand’s messaging and immerse your audience on an explorative journey.

If you want to showcase your startup’s growth and challenges, for example, you can create an animated timeline detailing the significant milestones and obstacles you’ve overcome instead of crafting a simple write-up. This interactive experience gives visitors a sense of your brand’s evolution and makes them more invested in your story.

By engaging your audience with authentic storytelling, you foster loyalty and encourage them to actively participate in your brand’s ongoing narrative.

Enhanced understanding

When you’re presenting complex topics or data-heavy information, rich media like infographics, charts, and visualizations are invaluable. These tools make complicated content more accessible and digestible to your audience by translating it into a visual format. Strategically integrating these visual elements into blogs, reports, or dedicated resource sections not only increases engagement but also amplifies learning.

Text, while informative, won’t always capture the nuances or relationships of complex data. Visualizations offer a clearer presentation and allow audiences to grasp concepts and patterns that might be challenging to convey through words alone.

Consider a health organization trying to convey the benefits of a balanced diet. Instead of slowing readers down with jargon-filled text, they craft colorful charts or animations illustrating the nutritional breakdown of different foods. Simplifying and visualizing this information empowers visitors with knowledge and makes them more likely to revisit the site and further engage with its content.

Elevate your website with rich content

Rich content is a valuable tool to help your brand maintain a cutting-edge presence among your competition. It elevates visuals and interactivity and forges stronger audience connections through storytelling. By harnessing the power of rich media, you foster a sense of community among visitors and keep them entertained.

With Webflow, you can integrate dynamic content into your website. Our visual Designer allows you to add images, videos, and sound into your designs and build websites with interactive elements and responsive design.

Visit Webflow University to access lessons on customizing rich text elements and learn how to use image and video fields to add dynamic multimedia. Take your website to the next level with Webflow.

Most likely, you remember the experiences you had, not just the objects or things that you saw. That’s how humans work: we’re wired for stories and interactive journeys that engage all of our senses. 

This same principle applies to web design. To be memorable, your marketing site needs to be more just a static page — it needs to come to life and offer an experience. Fortunately, in 2024, it’s easier than ever to differentiate your website and connect with your users through experiential design. 

What is an experiential marketing site?

In short, a site that’s experiential offers more than just a transaction or a form. Through rich graphics and various design elements, an experiential site plays with ideas like depth, movement, and texture, while it engages your emotions or sense of humor with smart copy. 

An experiential site can be all-encompassing, but it doesn’t have to be. Smaller tweaks like microinteractions and parallax scrolling can make a page come to life, too. To get started, here’s some of our favorite examples of experiential marketing sites. 

Jasper

With a video that mixes funhouse mirrors and urban drone footage, Jasper’s site instantly captivates the eye. As you scroll below the fold you see a realistic preview of Jasper’s product where letters are typed on the screen — giving users the illusion that they’ve tested the product themselves. 

DIKO

If you’re dreaming big in 2024, consider brand agency websites for inspiration. They tend to take more creative risks than the average business, and DIKO is a perfect example. Their site almost looks like a modern art exhibit, with the Warholian colors and self-aware “this is a paid advertisement” sticker that unfolds on the page. Truly, it’s a site that’s best experienced for yourself. 

Ramp

Ramp’s site is a great example of how carefully-selected design elements are able to engage the user, without distracting from the message. As you scroll below the fold, the visual blocks in the banner shrink away into the center of the page. It’s a small touch, but something that’s hard not to play with again and again. 

Mural

With smart, snappy headline copy and bright colors, Mural’s website lets its brand’s personality shine through. A product preview starts off with text and post-it note elements that fly onto the screen, inviting the user to play the full video. Further down, clickable elements and a bold graphic style encourage the user to linger on the page, since it almost feels like interacting with a product. 

Design elements for experiential sites

As we saw in the examples above, experiential sites employ a variety of design elements to achieve their intended effect in large and small ways. Some designers will lean towards bold, immersive elements such as striking visuals and multi-sensory features that capture user attention as soon as they land on the page. Other designers favor subtlety and integrate considered touches that enrich the user experience without dominating it. 

The decision to go bold, stay subtle, or find a harmonious balance between the two largely depends on the brand’s personality and the story it wants to tell. Regardless of the approach, we expect designers to gravitate towards these design elements when crafting these online experiences:  

• Rich graphics: Textured and layered graphics that add depth and visual complexity to sites. As we noted in our 2024 trends post, we expect sites to move away from the clean and minimalist design aesthetic to sites full of color, texture, and richness.
• Micro-interactions: Small animations and visual cues that thoughtfully enhance a user’s experience on a website. This can be something as small as the way a button behaves on hover. A good example of this being how Mural’s buttons “fill in” with an animation.
• Parallax scrolling: A visual technique where the foreground and background content move at different speeds, adding a layered, three dimensional feel to the experience.
• Kinetic typography: A design style that uses moving text to set a tone, capture attention, and entertain users. We saw an example on Jasper’s site, where text is animated on the product preview. 

Crafting an experiential site has never been simpler

Static transactional websites were once the norm, but those days are past. With GPUs and processors that can load intricate animations quickly, and modern browsers that can run heavy workloads — not to mention the ability to use generative AI to jumpstart your designs — 2024 is shaping up to be a year where if you can dream it, you can do it.

As more visitors flock to your site, the pressure on its infrastructure intensifies. Effective scaling addresses these demands by ensuring that these increased loads don’t compromise user experience and offering consistently fast load times and smooth navigation. It’s an approach that boosts user satisfaction and solidifies your website’s reputation for reliability.

What’s website scaling?

Website scaling is the process of improving your website’s capacity to accommodate more traffic, data, and user demands effectively. When you scale your site, you enhance its infrastructure to handle higher demands, such as an influx of visitors or increased concurrent transactions.

Website scalability isn’t limited to present-day traffic numbers — it helps you future-proof your site to meet long-term needs and prepare for sudden traffic spikes without slowing down, crashing, or becoming unresponsive. Without proper scaling, you risk delivering a subpar user experience, losing potential customers, compromising the company’s reputation, and missing engagement and revenue opportunities to high bounce rates.

Horizontal versus vertical scaling

There are two approaches to scaling websites: horizontal and vertical. Here are the benefits each offers.

Horizontal scaling

Horizontal scaling, or scaling in and out, involves adding more servers or nodes to a system to distribute your website’s load. Instead of strengthening one server, this method sets up a network of interconnected servers that function concurrently and share the workload.

Advantages of horizontal scaling

• Resilience and redundancy. Should one server malfunction, others in the network compensate and take over requests, ensuring continuous website availability.
• Long-term cost-effectiveness. As traffic grows, you can incrementally add servers, translating to flexible and predictable budgeting.
• Simpler maintenance. Modular infrastructure lets you add or remove servers effortlessly, streamlining overall system upkeep.
• Load balancing. Server distribution evenly disperses incoming requests and web traffic to prevent bottlenecks and maximize resource use.

Vertical scaling

Vertical scaling, or scaling up and down, enhances a server’s capabilities. Instead of multiplying or adding servers, you improve a single server’s resources — like processor speed, RAM, or storage — to boost its performance.

Advantages of vertical scaling

• Straightforward deployment. Unlike horizontal scaling, which requires setting up and managing multiple servers, vertical scaling focuses on enhancing existing servers, streamlining system coordination.
• Short-term cost-effectiveness. Vertical scaling is often cheaper and requires less technical involvement than horizontal scaling, making it suitable for small and medium-sized businesses looking to scale systems gradually.
• Unified processing. A single powerful server is ideal for scaling web applications that require multi-threaded processes to process simultaneous requests.
• Reduced overhead. Fewer systems mean less monitoring, simpler maintenance, and decreased overhead costs, freeing up resources to focus on more impactful business areas, like strategy and innovation.
• Rapid performance boost. Upgrading a single server’s infrastructure is faster than adding multiple servers and provides a quick performance boost to specific applications and services.

In practice, websites with fluctuating traffic surges often favor horizontal scaling because of its distributed nature. However, it demands higher technical expertise due to complex load balancing and data synchronization over multiple systems.

Conversely, vertical scaling suits web applications that rely on a single server. It offers simplicity and immediate performance gains but might not be as cost-efficient as you approach a server’s maximum capacity.

A hybrid approach — combining horizontal and vertical scaling — often proves most effective. Starting with vertical scaling for initial growth and transitioning to horizontal as traffic and user demands increase offers flexibility. The decision hinges on your budget, long-term goals, and your application’s features and architecture.

Why you should have a scalable website 

A scalable website is a valuable asset for any organization, and its benefits go beyond handling traffic spikes. Here are a few reasons why you should scale your website:

• Better reliability. Scalable websites’ ability to handle increased traffic and demands leads to reduced downtime and greater reliability. This lets visitors access your website without issues and ensures a seamless user experience.
• Improved user experience. Scalability improves the overall user experience through quicker page loads, fluid navigation, and consistent performance, even during traffic peaks. By providing users with a positive experience, you retain your existing audience and attract new visitors. This smooth digital journey can also encourage casual visitors to explore your site and interact with its contents, then convert them into paying customers, maximizing engagement.
• Enhanced business growth. As businesses evolve, so do their digital demands. Whether handling traffic surges, accommodating more extensive storage needs, or meeting unexpected user requirements, a scalable site allows you to promote and grow your business while mitigating technological constraints.
• Cost efficiency. Horizontal scaling lets you incrementally add resources, matching your exact needs without overspending. Meanwhile, vertical scaling offers a cost-effective solution for initial growth phases or more modest expansions. Regardless of your approach, these scalable strategies ensure you invest wisely by directing resources where they’re most needed and eliminating wasteful expenditures.
• Higher SEO rankings. Website performance metrics such as responsiveness and loading speeds are crucial determinants for search engine rankings. Leading search engines like Google prioritize sites that deliver optimal performance in their ranking algorithms. A scaled website’s enhanced performance positively impacts search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, resulting in a higher ranking, better visibility, and increased organic traffic.
• Maximized marketing returns. Successful marketing campaigns will drive traffic to your website. Scalability ensures your website accommodates these sudden surges without interruptions, remaining efficient and responsive. This means every marketing dollar spent gets its full worth, as your website caters to each new visitor.

Aside from managing traffic influxes, a scalable website provides strategic advantages that give you the platform to scale through SEO, marketing, and performance optimization efforts.

6 ways to expand to high scalability

Increasing your website’s scalability involves several techniques and strategies to accommodate growing traffic and data volumes while maintaining peak performance. Here are six ways to scale effectively.

1. Load balancing

Load balancing ensures you don’t overload any system by spreading incoming website traffic across multiple servers. This method, used in horizontal scaling, ensures your website remains robust and can smoothly handle simultaneous requests. Load balancers have algorithms that gauge server load and redirect incoming traffic to the server best positioned to handle the request.

Popular load balancing tools include NGINX and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Load Balancing. These tools often adopt various distribution strategies, like the round-robin technique that cycles traffic through each server in turn or the least connections method, which funnels traffic to the servers with the fewest active connections.

2. Caching

Caching stores data in a temporary storage location, or cache, for faster retrieval. This practice, common in both horizontal and vertical scaling, speeds up content delivery and reduces server strain, allowing for greater scalability. Caching tools like Redis and Memcached enhance in-memory data storage performance, while content delivery networks (CDNs) handle static files, making them readily accessible.

3. Content delivery networks

CDNs (a form of horizontal scaling) store copies of your website and blog content on servers in various geographic regions. When users request content, the nearest CDN server responds, quickly delivering content while minimizing latency.

Set up a delivery network by joining a provider like Cloudflare, Amazon CloudFront, or Akamai. Using a CDN takes the load off your primary server and ensures consistently rapid content delivery, no matter your users’ location.

4. Database optimization

Optimizing databases is essential for storing and retrieving large data volumes. By optimizing databases through techniques like indexing, query optimization, and strategic scaling, you improve data retrieval speeds and deliver content faster.

Consider using NoSQL databases such as Amazon DynamoDB, MongoDB, and Apache Cassandra. These platforms scale out by distributing the database across many servers. This horizontal scaling allows for fast expansion and accommodates larger datasets and higher user loads without a proportional increase in latency. Even when data volumes swell, they provide fast, consistent access, ensuring uninterrupted access and availability.

5. Microservices architecture

A microservices architecture divides your website into smaller, autonomous sections that communicate through application programming interfaces (APIs). This horizontal scaling method allows you to scale individual applications rather than the entire system to make development and updates more agile.

Tools like Docker manage containerized site segments, while API gateways such as Amazon Web Services and Kong streamline communication between these microservices.

6. Content optimization

Content size directly impacts load times. While not directly a scaling method, optimizing content supports both horizontal and vertical scaling. By reducing data load through methods such as image compression and file minification, content optimization reduces the amount of data transferred, enhancing loading speeds. For example, you can optimize content to help animation-heavy homepages load faster for an improved user experience.

Tools like TinyImage and JSMin allow you to compress various formats and JavaScript files without losing quality. You can also use Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to measure site speeds and identify optimization opportunities for faster performance.

Choosing the right content management system

To effectively scale your website, choosing the right content management system (CMS) is crucial. Our responsive design capabilities ensure your site performs optimally across all devices, and our intuitive interface simplifies site management, making scaling and project oversight seamless.

Webflow offers integrated scalability features such as automatic image optimization and compression, a global content delivery network, and advanced distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection. Whether you’re running a high-traffic ecommerce platform or a small business site, our visual web development platform suits your needs. 

Join the many companies that already use Webflow for their online solutions. Start your journey with Webflow today for a scalable, robust web presence.

It’s the new year, and you might be hoping to freshen up some aspects of your enterprise website. We love the enthusiasm — but don’t skip the preparation! Before you start, there are steps you can take to ensure your next project goes smoothly. We recently caught up with Maria Gonzalez, Head of Web Design here at Webflow, to share four universal best practices for any team setting out to make a change to their website.

1. Start with a structured brief

“It always starts off with a brief,” Maria says. “The brief asks for the objectives of the project, the problem we’re trying to solve, the metrics, the goals, and any SEO considerations that we need to keep in mind as well.”

While the name might be “brief,” it’s important to go into sufficient detail. You should define the general problem your customer is facing, but also the shortcomings of your existing solution. Then, explain in clear language how your proposed offering (this new website or page) will solve your user’s problem. That’s the “what” of your solution. 

To answer the “how,” describe the value proposition of your project. What problems will this new website solve for your users? How would you explain this if you were talking to them directly? Your answers here can serve as inspiration for your copywriting team to find the right tone and positioning for your users. 

It’s critical to also define any risks and dependencies so that stakeholders understand what external factors might affect project success. If these are articulated ahead of time, you can define an effective strategy to eliminate or get ahead of any roadblocks so they don’t jeopardize your hard work. 

2. Size projects appropriately and keep stakeholders informed 

Once the brief is ready, stakeholders should come together to review it and define the scope. You should scope your projects based on the functional requirements, need for new design work, and existing workload. Do you need to build entirely new visual assets or can you reuse a template with new copy and a few tweaks of creative elements? 

“If we’re only making copy updates or updating visuals on a page, that’s a very small project that takes us a day,” Maria says. A large project — “the classic example is a homepage” — would be something that’s brand new, without an existing template, where there’s a need to create new components and patterns. 

If you’re making a point to reuse components often (see tip #3), you’ll find that most projects fall somewhere in the middle. “Let’s say we had a Marketing Solutions page, and we want to build an Engineering Solutions page. We follow the same established template but with new copy and new creative,” Maria explains. In situations like these, she recommends budgeting more time for the design (e.g., 2 weeks) than the implementation (1 week or less). 

Once scoped, it’s essential to specify the project timeline in a project management tool like Asana. This roadmap serves as a project tracker so stakeholders can be informed of progress throughout the project’s lifecycle.

3. Reuse and recycle components as much as possible

In the interest of delivery speed and visual cohesiveness, you should define and reuse shareable components within your platform. As much as possible, you want to refrain from “building from scratch” and leverage assets that already exist — components, templates, style classes, etc.

If you have a well-defined project brief, you should have a crisp understanding of the user problem and proposed design solution, which can guide designers towards the right components. If possible, you might even want to include a list of potential reusable components in the brief, and/or give an idea of what pages this new one should resemble.

Another benefit of using components is that they can empower your cross-functional partners. Maria explains: “We created templates for our partners in marketing. Now, they can update pages in our Resource Library, for example, without needing to rely on engineers or designers for everything.”

4. Use the design brief as a tool for ongoing alignment

As you start development, especially on a larger project, there are always going to be questions that come up that you didn’t anticipate. Even if you’re reusing components as much as possible, you might need to build something new where there’s a discrepancy between what the designers envisioned and what the developers can actually implement.

When in doubt, refer back to the brief, Maria recommends. Focus on the definition of the problem that you are trying to solve for your customers. How important is this particular component to solving this problem? Is there another way to get the same result that won’t compromise scale?

This is why it’s so important to circulate your brief ahead of time and ensure buy-in. The brief will remain your source of truth throughout the project — guiding designers as they tweak wireframes, developers or engineers as they test new builds or make UI adjustments, or copywriters as they refine content.
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The best web plan is a detailed one

No matter what web project you’re tackling, you can set your team up for success with a well-structured brief. This becomes the foundation for how you scope your project and stay on track through launch. And if you see ways to reuse components, you can save time and empower stakeholders in marketing to own more of the website — a win-win.

Now that you’ve covered the basics, want a deep dive on reinventing your web development processes and web team? Check out our ebook on Reimagining web development teams.

Brand communication isn’t just about what you say to your customers. It’s a harmonious blend of various elements — your visuals, the platforms you engage on, and the nature of your interactions. Together, these components shape your brand’s identity, encouraging customers to engage with your brand.

What is brand communication?

Brand communication is how an organization conveys its identity, values, and offerings to its target audience through various activities and touchpoints, such as advertisements, email campaigns, social media, and website content. At its core, it encompasses three fundamental components:

1. Messaging. This includes the narrative of a brand, its promises, and its unique value propositions. Consistent and clear brand messaging ensures that audiences understand what a brand stands for and what it offers.

2. Visuals. Beyond just a logo, visuals include the imagery, color schemes, typography, and design elements used across all brand touchpoints. These elements work harmoniously to create a recognizable and cohesive brand identity.

3. Interactions. This refers to how brands engage with audiences, whether through customer service, social media engagement, experimental events, or other marketing channels. Positive and consistent interactions reinforce brand promises and help build trust.

Effective enterprise communications not only shape the way audiences perceive your brand but also profoundly influence their behavior. By crafting a compelling narrative, showcasing captivating visuals, and delivering meaningful interactions, brand communication helps companies foster strong emotional connections with their users. In turn, this drives brand loyalty and equity — the added value that branding gives products or services beyond their practical benefits.

Why businesses need strategic brand communication

Strategic brand communication plays a pivotal role in shaping how audiences perceive and interact with a brand, directly influencing a company’s reputation and bottom line. Here are some more reasons why businesses must prioritize brand communication:

• Enhance brand recognition. Strategically delivering your brand’s core messages amplifies its prominence and visibility. When customers can instantly distinguish your brand in a crowded marketplace, they’re more inclined to gravitate toward your products and services, driving increased loyalty and sales.
• Deepen customer loyalty and advocacy. Expressing your brand’s values consistently attracts consumers and establishes trust by signaling authenticity. When a brand’s values resonate with customers, they often become its advocates, enhancing its reach and reputation.
• Offer a competitive advantage. In saturated markets, many brands claim unique value propositions, but those that communicate with authenticity and clarity truly stand out. Effective brand communication actively captures consumer attention and builds trust. This positions your brand as the preferred choice, compelling customers to choose it over competitors.

5 enterprise brand communication strategies

Here are five impactful strategies to enhance your brand communication plan and improve its outreach and audience resonance.

1. Tailor your communication efforts to a broader market

Embracing a wider market scope often improves the efficacy of enterprise brand communication strategies. Instead of zeroing in on niche demographics, casting a wide net can yield more robust results. Key aspects of this broad communication strategy include:

• Audience segmentation. Tailoring your communications to a broader market doesn’t mean diluting your brand’s message — it’s about finding ways to make that core message resonate with various audiences. By segmenting and aligning all communications with your brand’s core values, you appeal to a broader audience without sacrificing what makes your brand unique.
• Simplified messaging. Clear, concise messages resonate more deeply with diverse audiences. When you steer clear of technical lingo or segment-exclusive language, you prevent potential alienation and foster increased inclusivity for more customers.
• Omnichannel engagement. Leveraging a diverse mix of marketing channels — from traditional ad spaces like billboards to dynamic platforms like social media or content marketing — ensures your brand voice enjoys widespread reach and engagement across multiple demographics.

Coca-Cola stands out as a stellar example of a brand that embraces a wider market. They use slogans that are inclusive and appeal to universal feelings like “Open happiness” and “Taste the feeling” to connect with a diverse audience.

2. Foster brand advocates and loyalists

Cultivating brand advocates and loyalists drives sustainable brand growth. When consumers believe in your product or service, they naturally recommend it to others, increasing your customer base.

Beyond satisfying your audience with your offerings, aim to resonate with your audience’s values and aspirations. This isn’t about mimicking their beliefs, but understanding what matters to them and reflecting that understanding in how your brand communicates and behaves. It’s more than a superficial connection — it taps into deeper emotions and leads to trust and loyalty.

By establishing this rapport, along with incentives like loyalty programs and exclusive promotions, you encourage repeat brand interactions, which fosters appreciation and creates a deeper bond between your brand and its followers. As these satisfied customers evolve into brand advocates, their organic, authentic advocacy often outshines conventional advertising, amplifying your brand’s presence and trustworthiness.

Apple excels in this area by ensuring product excellence and fostering a sense of community through initiatives like the Genius Bar, the Apple Support Community, and warranty programs like AppleCare. Their approach to engaging customers through product launch events and encouraging user-generated content exemplifies how to deepen customer relationships and transform customers into brand advocates.

3. Study your competitive landscape

Diving deep into your competitive landscape unlocks a wealth of insights about customer preferences and behaviors. By closely observing what your competition is doing right (and wrong), you can identify market gaps or areas of unmet needs. This understanding lets you shape strategies that position your brand more effectively, ensuring relevance.

For example, if you discover that a competitor’s product lacks a feature that customers frequently request through market research, introducing that feature into your offering can capture that market share. Monitoring competitors’ customer reviews and feedback also gives you a direct line to what the market values most, enabling you to tweak your marketing messages, product development, or customer service approaches to better cater to those preferences.

Amazon embodies this approach by continuously monitoring their competition in ecommerce, cloud computing, and streaming. They use diverse customer engagement and marketing channels to reach a wide customer base and directly compete with other tech giants through advertising and promotions. This competitor awareness helps Amazon remain on top across multiple sectors, demonstrating how to keep abreast of the competitive landscape to stay relevant and effectively meet market demands.

4. Create as much valuable content as possible

Consistently producing high-quality and valuable content strengthens your brand presence and solidifies your credibility among your target audience. By addressing their needs and providing solutions to their pain points, you deepen their engagement with your brand and encourage them to return for more. This positive feedback loop is vital — engaged customers are more likely to remain loyal and even refer new customers through positive word-of-mouth.

Valuable content also boosts your online visibility. Search engines prioritize and reward websites that offer relevant, beneficial content. You naturally boost your site’s search engine rankings when you consistently offer valuable information. This higher visibility translates to increased organic traffic, which leads to better customer acquisition and retention when paired with engaging content.

Take Home Depot, a leading home improvement retailer, as an example. By creating engaging content like how-to guides, articles, and video tutorials that cater to DIY enthusiasts, the brand not only establishes itself as an industry authority but also drives organic website traffic and brand awareness.

5. Optimize your site with engaging messaging and visuals

Impactful images, videos, and other rich content articulate your brand’s narrative in ways that words alone can’t. They don’t just elevate your site’s aesthetics — they convey your brand’s story and offerings more effectively, guiding visitors to understand and connect with what you’re presenting. 

For example, in an ecommerce marketing strategy, clear and appealing product images play a crucial role. They give visitors a tangible sense of your products, their details, and their quality, instilling confidence and influencing their purchase decisions.

The key lies in synergy. When designers and copywriters work closely together, they create a marriage of visuals and messaging that sparks genuine emotion — a powerful driver for audience engagement and interaction. Customers who form an emotional bond with your brand transform from passive consumers into enthusiastic advocates and champion your brand to others.

Nike is a household brand that demonstrates the power of combining impactful visuals with meaningful messaging. Their marketing strategy communicates their mission of empowering athletes and features high-quality images and videos that showcase their products and inspire their target audience. By combining captivating content with striking visuals, Nike simultaneously drives sales and cultivates a strong community of brand advocates.

3 expert tips to improve your communication strategy

Improving your brand communication strategy drives better engagement and business outcomes. Here are three expert tips to guide you.

Ensure visual consistency across platforms

Ensuring visual consistency fosters brand recognition, helping customers identify and recall your brand. This cements your brand’s identity in customers’ minds and instills a sense of reliability and professionalism.

Streamline visual consistency by developing detailed brand guidelines or a website style guide. These roadmaps guide your team on how best to consistently use visuals like logos, colors, and typography, regardless of the platform or channel. Then, strategically plan out your content design. This ensures that your communications visually captivate audiences and resonate with their needs and expectations.

Beyond developing these guidelines, it’s vital to centralize your asset management and ensure every team member accesses the correct, up-to-date resources to preserve your brand’s integrity. Investing in regular training sessions and audits of your brand’s visual assets across platforms also helps ensure alignment by identifying discrepancies.

Leverage automation and personalization

Automation streamlines communication processes and enables efficient and consistent messaging across various channels to ensure customers receive relevant and timely information. Personalization empowers you to customize these messages to reflect each customer’s unique needs and behaviors.

For example, using customer behavior analytics from platforms like Google Analytics can help you identify audience segments that frequently visit a specific product but abandon the purchase at the final step. Leveraging this insight, you can then create personalized email campaigns using marketing automation tools like Mailchimp or Constant Contact to target those users with incentives and information addressing their potential concerns. You can also analyze purchase history to encourage further purchases by recommending related products or offering bundles to customer groups consistently buying a particular product type.

Choose the right media channels

To elevate your enterprise’s brand communication, pinpoint the media channels that resonate most with your audience. For example, if you run a high-end skin care brand, platforms like Instagram that heavily emphasize visuals and YouTube, ideal for showcasing in-depth tutorials, might become essential components of your strategy. However, you shouldn’t rely solely on industry norms — dive deep into understanding the habits of your target audience to know where to reach them.

Use audience analytics tools like Google Analytics to reveal metrics such as engagement rates, peak activity times, and content preferences. Implement surveys to gather direct feedback about what your customers want and how they feel about your current offerings. Lastly, use social listening tools like Brandwatch to monitor real-time conversations, sentiments, and emerging trends. This comprehensive approach ensures that you’re not only understanding your audience’s current state but also anticipating their evolving needs — and that sets your brand up for sustained engagement and growth.

Communicate your brand with Webflow

Your website serves as the home base for your communication strategy — it’s where your audience will always return to connect with your brand. To create stunning, easy-to-navigate websites that resonate with audiences, check out Webflow Enterprise and see how companies build with Webflow. We have the tools and resources you need to create a website that reinforces your brand identity and supports your communication strategy.

Consumers rely heavily on internet searches to discover nearby businesses and services, so local search engine optimization (SEO) has become essential for companies aiming to enhance their visibility, especially brick-and-mortar stores. To rank high in search results and be discoverable to local customers, you need a comprehensive local SEO checklist to ensure your website’s keyword usage covers all bases. 

Read on to explore why local SEO is important, discover the ultimate local SEO checklist for better rankings, and learn to implement optimization strategies today.

What’s local SEO?

Local SEO is a specialized approach to search engine optimization that focuses on improving a business’s online visibility for location-based search queries. Many consumers research online to find and compare stores, restaurants, and services in a specific geographical range, which means your organization’s website must not only appear in these rankings but also stand out among the competition. 

Here are some key benefits of maintaining top local rankings.

Targeted traffic

The fundamentals of SEO help you attract highly relevant and targeted traffic, and local SEO narrows this focus even further. By optimizing your online presence for local search, you can home in on your target audience, reaching potential customers in your immediate geographical area who input keywords directly related to your service. These users are more likely to convert into paying customers seeking real-time solutions to their queries. 

Increased visibility

Strong local SEO enhances your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), making your business more discoverable to users looking for products or services in your area. This increased web presence can significantly boost your online and offline sales by bolstering your business’s credibility and relevance to users’ needs.

Better conversions

When your business appears prominently in local search results, you’re not just attracting any traffic — you’re attracting the right traffic. People searching for local businesses are often further along the buying journey and more prepared to convert into customers as they enter the consideration stage of the marketing funnel.

Competitive edge

Effective local SEO strategies provide a competitive edge in your immediate market. By appearing at the top of these searches, you stand out from competitors that have yet to leverage their SEO for local visibility. You need to ensure potential customers find your business — ideally before finding others — and that your place in the rankings outperforms competitors.

Cost-effective marketing

Compared to traditional advertising methods like complex marketing campaigns and paid advertisements, implementing local SEO is a cost-effective way to promote your business. It lets you target a specific demographic without wasting resources on efforts to reach a broader, less relevant audience. Tailoring your website to local SEO requires less time and resources than complex marketing initiatives that involve wireframing, UX testing, and design components.

Mobile-friendliness

Users frequently search for local services using their smartphones or other mobile devices. Consider the scenarios when you’d seek a nearby restaurant or shop — you’re often on the go, away from your desktop, and looking for immediate answers. Effective local SEO ensures your business is readily discoverable via mobile searches, online maps, and mobile review apps like Yelp and TripAdvisor to serve customers in real time.

Trust and credibility 

Prominent placement in local search results enhances your business’s credibility by verifying its relevance and showcasing the value of your service. Users tend to trust and engage with companies that appear on the first page of search results, so ranking high ensures they find your site and encourages them to convert.

Ultimate SEO checklist to rank locally

To learn how to rank locally, you must follow a well-structured local SEO strategy. Here are some tips for local SEO:

Claim and optimize Google My Business listing

Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that allows you to manage your business’s online presence across Google, including in Google search results and Google Maps. If you haven’t already, register your business with GMB and claim your listing. This step ensures your Google business profile is visible to locals who might need your services. Once you’ve claimed your listing, follow these steps:

• Complete your profile — Provide all the necessary details, including your business name, address, phone number, website, hours of operation, and relevant service categories. Keep these details accurate and up to date.
• Add high-quality photos — Upload high-resolution images of your business, products, and services. Enhance your listing by giving potential customers a captivating visual representation of your offerings.
• Collect and manage reviews — Encourage customers to leave reviews on your GMB profile, and respond to reviews promptly — positive or negative. Managing your reputation is essential for local SEO, as potential customers will compare your services and public image to competitors in the area.
• Use Google Posts — Share updates, promotions, and news about your business using Google Posts. These posts appear in your GMB listing and can engage potential customers directly in the search results.‍
• Monitor insights — Regularly run a local SEO audit in Google Analytics. This process evaluates your SEO performance, providing reports on user interactions and conversions on your site. Use these insights to guide your next steps in your local SEO strategy.

Keyword research and optimization

Using a keyword research tool like Moz or Semrush, identify common search terms relevant to your business and relative to your city or region. To maximize the impact of terms on your site, follow these steps:

• Prioritize on-page optimization — Incorporate these local keywords naturally into your website’s content, meta description, headings, and image alt text. This strategy helps both search engines and the right viewers find your website. Ensure your content is informative and relevant to users’ immediate needs. Information gaps may prompt users to seek other services whose websites provide more useful details.
• Implement local schema markup — Local schema is a type of structured code that provides search engines with additional information about your business, such as location, operating hours, and contact details. Including this data in your content and metadata ensures both search engines and users can find and view crucial information at a glance.

Local content creation

A hallmark of a strong local online presence is engaging your nearby community. Here are some ways to connect with customers in your area and draw them to your business: 

• Create location-specific content — Develop content that caters directly to your local audience, such as blog posts or guides that address local news and topics of interest. This strategy positions you as a community leader, increasing trust and engagement among local users.
• Use local landing pages — If your business serves multiple locations, create dedicated landing pages for each to ensure nearby customers find the correct details. These pages should feature location-specific content like hours of operation, contact information, and particular offerings.
• Optimize images for local search — When uploading images to your website, use filenames and alt text that include local keywords and location information. These tags help search engines discover and rank your page.
• Promote local events — If your business hosts or participates in local events like community fairs or fundraisers, promote them on your website and social media channels. This strategy generates buzz in your area and can draw in both new and repeat customers.
• Local backlinks — Quality link building from reputable businesses in the area boosts your local SEO ranking. When users see endorsements and referrals from other trusted local companies, they’re more likely to visit your website and give you their business. Build ties with well-known services in your community through positive vendor relationships, marketing partnerships, and mutual endorsements. These community connections can lead to valuable backlinks on their web pages, bolstering your reputation and your local SEO rankings.

Capitalize on customer reviews

Consumer endorsements go a long way in converting new customers. They vouch for your services and allow you to interact directly with your audience. Follow these tips to maximize reviews:

• Request reviews — Encourage customers in your target audience to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook. These reviews give potential consumers a sense of what to expect from your services and inform their decision to convert. Make providing feedback simple by linking directly to review platforms.
• Respond to reviews — Respond to both positive and negative reviews so customers feel valued. Resolve reported issues by providing explanations, solutions for improved satisfaction, or special offers to compensate for subpar experiences. Thank customers for positive feedback to show you’re grateful for their support.
• Leverage reviews on your website — Showcase positive reviews on your site to highlight your good reputation and build trust with existing and potential customers. Create dedicated testimonial pages or display select reviews on relevant pages like specific product listings.
• Implement a review management strategy — Create and apply an actionable strategy for ongoing review management. This process involves consistently monitoring and responding to customer evaluations and applying feedback to future operations. An airtight system keeps critical feedback from falling through the cracks and saves you from losing customers and missing opportunities for improvement.

Along with fundamental basics of SEO and a content strategy, these tips can improve your visibility in local SEO results.

Optimize local SEO with Webflow

Empower your in-house team to develop websites and landing pages optimized for local SEO with Webflow, a visual web development platform made for teams of all sizes. Webflow offers user-friendly web design and development tools that help create and launch professional sites without needing coding expertise. 

Using localization features, you can produce engaging landing pages and compelling content that resonates with your local audience, all within a visually intuitive interface. Watch your local SEO efforts drive your business’s traffic, conversions, and growth with Webflow.

A content management system (CMS) helps you build web content without requiring specialized knowledge or technical skills. It usually consists of two parts:

• Content management application (CMA): an interface to build your site
• Content delivery application (CDA): an app that updates your site’s content

Without a CMS, you’d need to code each web page manually, a resource-intensive process for recurring, templated content like blog posts, case studies, and release notes. Robust management software empowers you to standardize templated pages in one place. 

There are many different kinds of CMS platforms to serve everything from massive multi-site enterprises to website builders for small businesses.

Why you need a CMS

While CMSs may differ in their interfaces, database structure, and development features, they all organize content and help build your website. The best CMS platforms also manage content creation with seamless collaboration. You need a CMS for three primary reasons. A CMS:

• Houses all your content
• Streamlines website-building efforts
• Implements customizable user roles and permissions

It houses all your content

Websites use an immense amount of text and data, including large media files like graphics, photos, videos, and audio. To help organize these files, a CMS provides a few key solutions for digital asset management.

First, a CMS stores your digital content in content collections — databases that automatically organize your content types — ​​so you can easily insert it into your website design. You might have collections based on the categories of posts, authors, projects, or clients. For larger sites, some CMSs also offer storage for product information and images. A CMS provides indexing, which allows you to label files (with names, dates, and file types) so you can search and access content across multiple websites and mobile apps. This feature gives you more flexibility in how, where, and when you work with your content files.

It streamlines team website-building efforts

A CMS streamlines the web-building workflow by standardizing and managing templated pages in one place. As a result, teams using a CMS can build quickly and efficiently. In fact, visual-first systems make it possible for non-technical users to design for sites, reducing the reliance on developers and saving on labor costs.

The user interface functions differently for every platform. Some are based on themes, templates, or extensions that let you change settings and enter content into forms to customize your site’s appearance. Other CMSs feature drag-and-drop page builders to design and structure web pages visually. Systems often incorporate reusable elements, allowing you to construct similar pages quickly and apply broad design modifications without adjusting each page. 

It allows you to set user roles and permissions

Platforms like Webflow allow for multiple workspaces or different types of logins, each with specific permissions. Different user roles, like editor, author, or administrator, let you introduce collaborators to your website-building process while keeping them from seeing sensitive information. Sharing login access lets copywriters or editors change the text on the website directly, but by limiting permissions and capabilities, you can also prevent team members from inadvertently corrupting your page design.

Clients can have a login that allows them to upload new assets directly to the CMS for developers and designers to edit and incorporate. Some CMS platforms offer features like version control or design-locking mechanisms, allowing designers to seamlessly transition projects without overlapping or disrupting each other’s contributions as they work concurrently. 

Types of websites that use CMS

Some platforms specialize in specific types of websites. For instance, Adobe Commerce and Shopify specialize in producing ecommerce platforms. However, most CMSs can create any type of website your business needs. Some types of websites developers build with CMSs include:

Four types of CMSs

There are many popular CMSs, and they all shine in different areas. While some of these examples are website generators with CMS capabilities rather than fully functional CMS platforms, they all allow you to build and manage your website much more efficiently than if you were coding it from scratch.

The first major distinction between CMSs is whether they’re cloud-based or on-premise. A cloud-based CMS (like Webflow) relies on vendors hosting the software, which is accessible via the web. The advantage of a cloud-based CMS is that it automatically updates and eliminates the need for manual maintenance. If you opt to use an on-premise system, you may need to regularly migrate your sites to updated versions of the software due to security enhancements, feature improvements, and compatibility requirements. This process is a large and expensive undertaking, which is why automated systems appeal to many organizations.

Below, we’ll dive into the four main types of CMSs, including on-premise and cloud-based platforms.

1. Visual-first CMS

A visual-first CMS, sometimes called an agile CMS, is a visual interface that lets non-technical marketing and design teams create a site’s front-end views and customize content management without technical support from software developers. 

Examples of visual-first CMS platforms are:

• Webflow
• Squarespace
• Wix
• Bubble

Some platforms, like Wix, are simple and more consumer-focused. Others, like Webflow, can generate enterprise-level websites.

2. Open-source CMS

An open-source CMS is software whose source code is open for any developer to edit and add to. These platforms offer a lot of freedom and flexibility since you can use code to make your own changes, choose from an extensive range of themes and templates, and add plug-ins or add-ons for relatively unlimited functionality. 

However, reliance on plug-ins and development resources can present security risks and inefficiencies. For instance, you’ll need to know coding languages and how to style content with HTML and CSS. In addition, plug-ins often come from unvetted third-party companies. Open source frameworks become outdated and vulnerable to cyberattacks, requiring ongoing maintenance and updates simply to stay online.

Popular open-source CMSs include:

• WordPress (WordPress.org, not WordPress.com)
• Drupal 
• Joomla

3. Headless CMS

A headless CMS separates the back end of your website from the front end. The back end is the site infrastructure that delivers content to the “head” or front end of your website using an Application Programming Interface (API). Separating the front and back ends allows developers to build multiple heads for your CMS, dividing management from delivery and enabling different teams to work on the site simultaneously without disruption.

For instance, a headless CMS helps ecommerce businesses manage all their product listings in one centralized place before distributing them to your audience on social media, your website, and mobile apps.

You can also build websites that work for different countries, subsidiaries, or retail locations. However, this approach requires ongoing engineering resources to develop and update custom front ends, making headless CMSs better suited for larger businesses with available technical resources. 

Examples of headless CMSs are:

• Contentful
• Jamstack
• Adobe Commerce (formerly called Magento)
• Strapi (also an open-source platform)

4. Digital experience platforms

A digital experience platform (DXP) is an integrated software framework with a suite of tools for managing content across your digital presence. In addition to acting as a content manager, it usually includes specific tools for ecommerce, customer personalization, and analytics on reviews and listings. Consider using a DXP if you need a powerful enterprise content management system that handles vast quantities of content across many platforms.

Examples of digital experience platforms include:

• Adobe Experience Manager
• Sitecore
• Acquia
• HubSpot

Key factors to consider when choosing a CMS platform

The best CMS for you usually depends on its functionality and features. You can select a platform within your budget that’s simple to use to build specific features your website will need.

Pricing

The cost of CMSs ranges from free to thousands of dollars a year. 

Open-source CMSs are free by nature. Some platforms offer free trials, so you can experiment with their interfaces and learn how they work. Others have subscription tiers based on your specific needs or company size. 

Remember that the sticker price isn’t always the final cost of using a particular CMS. WordPress.org, for example, is free to start, but you’ll have to pay for some additional themes and plug-ins if your business needs to expand; these costs quickly add up. You may also need to pay for a web hosting provider if the platform doesn’t offer hosting.

We recommend comparing tool prices, using free trials, and calculating ongoing costs before committing to a system.

Ease of use and design flexibility

A CMS should make it easier to build for the web, but some tools still have a steep learning curve or require technical expertise. While open-source CMS tools are the cheapest, they also require the most technical knowledge. However, these platforms usually give you the most control over your design and the ability to add complex functionality. 

Some CMS platforms, like Squarespace and Wix, are user-friendly and simple to learn, but limit how much control you have over your design. Other systems’ workflows have a steeper learning curve but offer fairly unlimited customization. Tools like Webflow use visual development features that empower both technical and non-technical users to build complex functionality like animations and interactions.

Determine the in-house teams working on your website design to assess their technical skills. Then, select a tool that empowers them to do their best work. For example, marketing teams might benefit most from a visual-first CMS that supports designing front-end displays. Large retailers may choose a headless CMS to manage vast back-end data.

Security

The security of your sensitive information and protection against cyber attacks are essential for any commercial website, especially if you have an online store or collect customers’ private information on your site. 

You can evaluate security features when choosing a CMS to suit your privacy needs. Functions like two-factor authentication (2FA), SSL certificates, and SOC 2 certification create multi-step sign-on processes to make hacking more difficult. Be cautious when using a CMS that relies heavily on plug-ins; they are often created by unvetted third-party vendors and can introduce security risks. Some platforms vet all integrations and work with trusted developers.

Integrations

Integrations streamline and expand digital platforms’ functionalities. By connecting your CMS to other tools, you can automate workflows to reduce manual tasks and potential errors. For example, link your CMS to ecommerce platforms to simplify inventory management and order processing. 

Integrating your CMS with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software centralizes your customer data, enabling more targeted marketing and responsive customer service. Adding Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions like membership systems, payment gateways, and analytic tools enhances user experience, secures transactions, and provides insights into your website’s performance.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Your CMS can optimize your site visibility through SEO controls that allow you to customize alt text, meta descriptions, URL slugs, and page titles. Incorporating highly searched words and phrases in this metadata boosts your search rankings and helps your audience find your website. It also directs them to specific pages that answer their questions or provide products they’re seeking. Some CMS platforms have innate SEO features, while others offer additional plug-ins.

A CMS is where content meets design

A fast, secure, and organized CMS like Webflow helps you build websites with customized content structures, linked dynamic visuals, and filtered displays. This scalable system expands your creative possibilities and empowers you to design the website of your dreams. When choosing a CMS, think of it as a tool that frees you to focus on creative design instead of laboring over technical management details. By taking tedious manual work off your plate, these systems offer the freedom to invest in your site’s content value, aesthetic design, and contribution to your bottom line.

Color is perhaps the most powerful tool at your disposal as a designer because of its influential and communicative nature. It evokes emotion, influences our perception, inspires responses — conscious or subconscious — and even impacts generational appeal.

With 16.8 million colors to choose from, color combinations for your next logo design, web design, or brand identity design are just about infinite. Luckily for you, we got you covered.

First, let’s look at color theory and the color wheel

To understand why certain color combinations work so well, we first have to consider color theory and the color wheel. Color theory feeds into color psychology, which digs into how our brains perceive color. The color wheel helps you visualize relationships between colors, putting color theory into practice.

Let’s break it down below.

Color theory

Color theory is the art and science of using color. Research has shown that color has a psychological impact on human emotions, perceptions, and behaviors. For artists and designers, color theory unlocks color mixing and color schemes, serving as a collection of rules and guidelines that designers use to communicate with and appeal to an audience.

Pro Tip: Check out our beginner’s guide on color theory or color in design guide for a deeper dive into the study.

Color wheel

Part of these rules and guidelines make up the color wheel — designed by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. Sir Isaac intimately understood how color was defined by human perception and how it came together to create eye-catching combinations.

The color wheel is a powerful tool for visualizing the relationships between colors, thus putting color theory into practice. Sir Isaac’s experiments with prisms led to his eventual discovery of the primary, secondary, and tertiary color categorizations:

• Primary colors: red, yellow, blue
• Secondary colors (created by mixing primary colors): orange, green, violet
• Tertiary colors (created by mixing both primary and secondary colors): red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, red-violet

Human perception defines color. Our relationship with colors, psychologically and collectively, is what gives meaning to color; that meaning creates iconic and successful branding (think red and white for Coca-Cola). By understanding the color wheel and categories, you can better create color combos that look good together.

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To familiarize yourself with the color wheel, imagine a vertical line through the center of the wheel. Notice the distinction between warm colors (reds, oranges, and yellows) and cool colors (blues, greens, and violets). Warm colors embody a brightness or warmth, whereas cool colors convey a calmness or, well, cool effect. 

• Complementary color combinations are the pair of colors positioned opposite to each other on the color wheel. These contrasting colors catch the eye and leave quite an impact — examples: red and green, yellow and purple, orange and blue.

• Analogous color combinations refer to any two to five colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel. These combinations create a sense of balance and harmony. Typically, one of these colors will be more dominant and sit in the foreground, while the other color will sit in the background — examples: yellow, yellow-green, and green; violet, red-violet, and red; red, red-orange, and orange; blue, blue-violet, and violet.

• Triadic color combinations select three evenly spaced colors throughout the color wheel. These combinations tend to be vibrant, creating a dynamic and harmonious visual contrast when combined. You can find your three triadic colors by creating a triangle on the color wheel — examples: red, yellow, and blue; green, orange, and blue-violet; red-orange, yellow-green, and blue-violet.
• Tetradic color combinations use four colors spaced evenly on the color wheel to form a square or rectangle — examples: Red, yellow-green, light blue, purple; magenta, green-yellow, blue-green, and indigo.

Understanding universal perceptions and color’s relationship with us is essential to becoming a great artist or designer. Its communicative nuances, subtle and near-innate, are a language of its own, vibrant and elusive.

Further research the color wheel to cement your understanding of the art and science of color, and consider playing around with color palette generators.

26 beautiful color combinations that’ll inspire your next design

From contrasting colors to colors that match, here are 26 of the best color combinations to inspire your next design, including classic and trending color combos.

Classic color combinations:

1. Blue & pastel pink

Combining blue and pastel pink creates a nice balance. Pink’s softer, spring-like pastel aesthetic alongside blue’s hints of sophistication creates a serene-like duality of balance and harmony. These contrasting colors evoke refined, feminine tranquility, ideal for beauty, health, and wellness brands.

Hex codes: #2F3C7E, #FBEAEB

2. Dark charcoal & bright yellow

Dark charcoal and bright yellow form a visually striking, high contrasting color combination. Paired together, these colors feel energetic and contemporary, making the ideal color palette for cutting-edge design agencies, dynamic athletic and sportswear, and urban lifestyle brands.   

Hex codes: #101820, #FEE715

3. Light red & yellow

The bold and vibrant color combination of light red and yellow is the embodiment of cheer. Reimagine this classic ketchup and mustard color pairing with a modern, pastel take by changing the tints from red to coral for children’s logos and branding and youth-focused food and beverage packaging.   

Hex codes: #F96167, #F9E795

4. Cherry red & off-white

Cherry red and off-white are truly versatile classics. Defined by its duality, classic and timeless, elegant and inviting, this color combination is ideal for luxury fashion and accessories brands, fine dining and hospitality industries, and romantic and bridal branding. 

Hex codes: #990011, #FCF6F5

5. Baby blue & white

Another classic color combo is baby blue and white. This serene combo communicates ease and trustworthiness, invoking the feeling of looking up at the sky on a sunny morning. Baby blue and white is the perfect color combo for brand colors in the healthcare, childcare, or non-profit industries.

Hex codes: #8AAAE5, #FFFFFF

6. Dark blue & light blue

Don’t overlook different shades of color in this the light and dark blue combo. Authoritative and cultivated, this monochrome color combination inspires professionalism and trust — making it an excellent color palette for insurance agencies or financial services firms.

Hex codes: #00246B, #CADCFC

7. Sky blue & bubblegum pink

A popular classic color combination, sky blue and bubblegum pink is a playful and bright combo that communicates adolescent joy. These bright colors are ideal for parenting brands, childcare logos, children’s apparel, products, and toys.

Hex codes: #89ABE3, #EA738D

8. Cherry red & bubblegum pink

Cherry red and bubblegum pink come together to form a fun analogous color combination. Paired, these colors create quite a gorgeous visual contrast, making an ideal color palette for bold and expressive beauty and lifestyle brands and products.

Hex codes: #CC313D, #F7C5CC

9. Forest green & moss green

Forest and moss green form a monochromatic color scheme, embodying the outdoors and nature sentiments ideal for eco-friendly and sustainable products or brands, outdoor apparel and gear brands, nonprofits, and cooperatives.

Hex codes: #2C5F2D, #97BC62

10. Midnight blue, royal blue, & burgundy red

Midnight blue, royal blue, and burgundy red combine to create a visually commanding color scheme. Mysterious, intriguing, bold, and luxurious, this combination evokes a passion and authority ideal for high-end fashion and jewelry, luxury cars and spirits, fine dining, boutique hotels, perfume, and cosmetics.

Hex codes: #1E2761, #408EC6, #7A2048 

11. Terracotta red, light beige, & muted teal

Terracotta red, light beige, and muted teal combine to create a mesmerizing and mysterious color combination. This earthy and neutral color palette draws great appeal to the eye. This beautiful, timeless color palette is fantastic for farm-to-market brands and restaurants, home decor and interior design agencies, outdoor apparel and gear brands, and botanical wellness brands or products.

Hex codes: #B85042, #E7E8D1, #A7BEAE

Trending color combinations

12. Pastel olive green & salmon pink 

Earthy, vibrant, and harmonious, the combination of salmon pink and pastel olive green color evokes warmth and nostalgia often associated with nature, peace, happiness, and balance. This fresh and playful color combination is ideal for eco-friendly and sustainable brands, wellness or mindfulness products, children’s products, and toys.

Hex codes: #A1BE95, #F98866

13. Deep periwinkle & soft lilac 

Dreamy and ever so whimsical, deep periwinkle and soft lilac come together to create a color combination that is both ethereal and grounded, exuding sensations of refined tranquility, gentle magic, or delicate serenity. These different shades of purple are ideal for beauty, wellness, spiritual or mindfulness brands and products. 

Hex codes: #735DA5, #D3C5E5

14. Salmon pink & soft peach 

Soft, subtly elegant salmon pink and soft peach are trendy colors that look good together. Inviting, with a touch of cheerfulness and sophistication, this color combination is excellent for children’s products, toys, beauty and wellness products, and even food and beverage packaging.   

Hex codes: #F98866, #FFF2D7

15. Seafoam green & light blue

Seafoam green and light blue offer a refreshing, harmonious balance. These cool undertones evoke a natural airiness or serene tranquility reminiscent of the sea, sky, and nature. The calming, balanced blue and renewing green combine ideally for spa and wellness brands and travel, education, and water-based brands. 

Hex codes: #C4DFE6, #66A5AD

16. Teal & light green

Like seafoam green and light blue, teal and light green come together to create a fresh, serene color combination reminiscent of lagoons or lush natural springs and pools. This harmonious color palette works for health and wellness brands as well as outdoor and nature-inspired brands.   

Hex codes: #20948B, #6AB187

17. Dark green & light gray

Color trends may come and go, but this classic and refined color palette is sure to stand the test of time. Dark green and light gray create a color combination that feels utterly serene and timeless. Green’s earthy and organic tones combined with gray’s calmness and neutrality create a color palette ideal for mindfulness and wellness brands, organic products, and brands offering high-quality craftsmanship, natural materials, and understated luxury.

Hex codes: #31473A, #EDF4F2

18. Cranberry red & bubblegum

Stylish and playful, cranberry red and bubblegum combine to create an eye-catching, contemporary color palette. The bold and exciting red, matched with the almost mischievous, optimistic pink, makes the ideal color combination for more creative or expressive fashion and cosmetics brands, sportswear, beverages, or candy packaging. 

Hex codes: #F52549, #FA6775

19. Deep blue, orange-red, & yellow-orange

Dynamic and playful, this deep blue, orange-red, and yellow-orange color combination is bold, vibrant, and energetic. Contrasting deep blue with warm oranges evokes a sense of movement and enthusiasm, that’s great for accent colors or logo colors. This color palette is ideal for adventure and outdoor brands, adventure travel, amusement parks, and food and beverage packaging.

Hex codes: #375E97, #FB6542, #FFBB00

20. Mauve, dusty rose, & soft blue-gray

Mauve, dusty rose, and soft blue-gray go together beautifully. The combination of soft blue and dusty pinks creates a refined, feminine palette with subtle charm and maturity, ideal for wedding and event planning, beauty fashion, home decor, and the wellness industries. 

Hex codes: #962E2A, #E3867D, #CEE6F2

21. Dark reddish brown, taupe, & light peachy brown

Rustic, warm, and oh-so-cozy, dark reddish brown, taupe, and light peachy brown create an earthy and inviting color combination. This timeless and sophisticated color palette is ideal for heritage and craftsmanship brands, interior design and real estate agencies, outdoor apparel and gear brands, artisanal brands, coffee shops, and bakeries. 

Hex codes: #330000, #73605B, #D09683

22. Dark navy blue, bright scarlet red, & light lemon yellow

Dark blue, bright scarlet red, and light lemon yellow create a striking visual impact, evoking feelings of excitement and bold appeal. This contrasting color combination works in various styles and themes, from retro to modern — ideal for sports and fitness brands, fast food and casual dining, amusement parks, children’s products, toys, and retro-inspired ‘Americana’ designs. 

Hex codes: #5031F, #CB0000, #E4EA8C

23. Teal blue, light blue, & light gray

Refreshing and modern, teal blue, light blue, and light gray combine to create a serene atmosphere reminiscent of clear skies and glacier waters. The blues of this cool and clean color combination evoke strong sentiments of trust, dependability, and stability, making it an ideal palette for hospitals, clinics, financial services, insurance, law firms, and cloud-based security brands.

Hex codes: #1995AD, #A1D6E2, #F1F1F2

24. Deep navy blue, bright red, & pale pink

Ever bold and contrasting, the playfully sophisticated combination of deep navy blue, bright red, and pale pink is striking and versatile. Navy and red create a strong visual impact, evoking a sense of movement or vitality, while the pale pink adds a touch of youthful, whimsical energy. These colors look good together, specifically for luxury brands in the automobile, fashion, or jewelry industries, sportswear, or design agencies. 

Hex codes: #002C54, #C5001A, #FDF6F6

25. Dark chestnut brown, burnt sienna, & soft cream

Warm and earthy, this combination of dark chestnut brown, burnt sienna, and soft cream draws inspiration from nature, evoking a rich autumn rustic theme. The balance of colors feels welcoming, traditional, and authentic, ideal for organic and farm-to-table products, heritage and craftsmanship brands, home outdoor brands, coffee shops, and bakeries. 

Hex codes: #46211A, #A43820, #F1D3B2

26. Dark charcoal, deep rust, & sky blue

Bold and contrasting, this sophisticated and modern color combination of dark charcoal, deep rust, and sky blue evokes a sense of power, comfort, and richness ideal for luxury brands in the fashion and automobile industries, as well as design agencies or architecture firms.   

Hex codes: #2A3132, #763626, #90AFC5

Get started with design resources on Webflow

So there you have it; the 26 best color combinations to inspire your next design. Check out Webflow’s Color Essentials to find the right color combo to help bring new life to your creative projects, or use a color picker tool to find new color ideas. And if you’re already feeling the inspiration, why not give these color combinations a go by getting started in Webflow.

With thousands of writing apps available, it’s hard to know where to start. Whether you’re tangled in the brainstorming phase or lost in the editing maze, we’ve handpicked the top free writing apps for designers, writers, and creatives. Follow our lead, and let these digital helpers guide you to writing success.

How do writing apps help?

Writers of all backgrounds and experience levels encounter creative challenges. Writing applications provide useful solutions for everyone, from professional writers and designers to individuals mastering a second language. These apps can transform time-consuming, poorly communicated projects into efficient, high-quality content, enhancing creativity and effectiveness. 

Writing apps can improve your writing process by:

• Speeding up processes
• Improving your designs
• Communicating designs effectively
• Diversifying your services

Speed up processes

Writing apps using generative AI produce large volumes of content quickly. While the initial output might not be perfect, it’s an excellent starting point. Using generative AI can provide inspiration and reduce the time and effort you need to transform a blank canvas into a polished product.

Improve your designs

Effective writing refines designs. Crisp, error-free copy, whether on a website or in a brochure, builds reader trust and boosts conversions. You can leverage writing apps to refine microcopy and UX writing elements, including headlines and calls-to-action (CTAs) — all while ensuring more inclusive language. These apps can help you avoid common SEO writing mistakes and as well as communicate more effectively with your audience, aligning written content with visual elements for a cohesive and user-friendly experience.

Communicate designs effectively

Using writing apps can sharpen design communication by guiding clear and persuasive articulation and enhancing content and presentation. This articulation adds value to tasks like presenting your design portfolio, collaborating on projects, or offering insights to those seeking advice. While they’re not a replacement for comprehensive written communication training, these apps offer valuable tools to help designers communicate more effectively. 

Diversify your services

Integrating writing services into your offerings can expand your creative reach. For example, leveraging tools like Copy.ai can empower web designers to craft marketing materials as part of a comprehensive design and marketing package. Alternatively, they could use app-generated blog post ideas as part of a content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

7 types of free writing apps for each stage of your project

Today, various free writing software are available, each offering tools to support every aspect of the writing process, including research management, idea generation, writing, editing, and time organization.

Here are our top picks for the best writing apps. Our curated list includes a variety of tools, both AI-powered and traditional. Some of these offer a “freemium” model, providing basic options for free with optional paid plans for more advanced features, while others are completely free to use.

1. Research: Google Keep

If you enjoy having multiple browser tabs open simultaneously, consider using Google Keep to manage everything. With Keep, you can save essential websites, notes, drawings, and images all in one spot. Rearranging your notes is simple with a drag-and-drop feature. Available as a Chrome extension and a mobile app for Android and iOS, Keep offers a practical way to organize your research — like a collection of digital Post-It notes.

Pricing: This app is completely free.

2. Ideas: Ahrefs Content Idea Generator

The Ahrefs AI-backed Content Idea Generator is a powerful ally in conquering writer’s block. Designed with bloggers in mind, this generator refines broad topics into focused articles by suggesting different approaches to the content, allowing complete control of the register (formal, casual, professional, creative, academic, or simplified), the language, and the output length. Ahrefs goes beyond tackling writer’s block by offering free complementary tools — an SEO-optimized title generator and a meta description generator enhance online content visibility.

Pricing: The content idea generator is included in Ahrefs’ free marketing tool set, along with an alt text generator, a title generator, and a meta description generator. Full Ahrefs packages, which include SEO and other website tools, range from $99/month (Lite) to $999/month (Enterprise).

3. Writing short-form copy: Copy.ai

‍Copy.ai harnesses AI to create marketing materials, including social media posts and captions, marketing emails, digital ads, product descriptions, website copy, and blog posts. It’s perfect for designers marketing their services or those wanting to offer marketing materials to clients. You can tailor the output to your brand voice by choosing a writing style — including friendly, witty, and empathetic — or uploading existing content so the software can analyze and recreate it in your style.

Pricing: The free plan covers one user seat and up to 2,000 words. The Pro plan, which offers unlimited words and five user seats, costs $49/month. 

4. Writing long-form pieces: FocusWriter

While many AI-based apps can produce long-form pieces, they often exhibit inaccuracies and lack nuance. Despite technological advances, the depth and originality of human voices remain unmatched. To harness AI’s potential, many professionals, from writers to designers, benefit from distraction-free environments to enhance their productivity. Desktop apps like FocusWriter offer spaces that minimize digital interruptions, including features like daily goals to maintain productivity, adjustable themes to cater to individual preferences, and typewriter sound effects to enhance the tactile experience.

Pricing: This app is completely free (although donations are welcome).

5. Editing: Grammarly

‍Grammarly needs little introduction: around 30 million people and 50,000 teams rely on it daily for editing and proofreading. Grammarly’s free version includes grammar, spelling, passive voice, and tone checking, as well as suggestions for decreasing wordiness and increasing clarity. The paid version offers more advanced functionality like plagiarism checking and suggestions to improve readability, tone, and formatting. You can access Grammarly through various platforms, including desktop apps for Windows and Mac, browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and other browsers, a Microsoft Word plugin, and a specialized mobile device keyboard.

Pricing: The Premium plan costs $12/month, and the Business plan (which includes functionality for teams) costs $15 per member/month.

6. Sharing

If you’re part of a collaborative writing team, Bit.ai can simplify the sharing process. This user-friendly platform organizes collections of documents, linked websites, and other resources intuitively. Pre-made templates enable effortless presentation and sharing of documents within your team and with clients. The entire collection remains searchable, and embedding videos, spreadsheets, and other materials in document drafts is a breeze. Bit.ai offers a free limited plan for small teams, monthly pro and business subscriptions, and special pricing for education, non-profit, and startup organizations.

‍Pricing: The Pro plan costs $8 per member/month, and the Business plan costs $15 per member/month.

7. Time management: Pacemaker Planner

Great writers integrate writing into their daily routine, honing their skills consistently. The Pacemaker Planner app streamlines the logistical side of this habit, allowing you to tailor your writing goals to fit your lifestyle. Using Pacemaker, you can specify a word count target and track your progress with visual aids like graphs and tables. By documenting notes on your daily achievements, you can spot trends or tendencies, potentially discovering which conditions or times of day make your writing sessions most productive.

For the fiercely committed, a “No Excuses” feature ensures accountability by automatically charging a default amount of $10 for each workday you planned but didn’t log. The free version limits you to two plans, making it ideal for longer projects like dissertations or books, or you can link daily or weekly blog posts into one large project.

Pricing: The Premium Lite plan costs $5/month or $55/year (and includes five-year-long plans and email reminders). The Premium Pro plan costs $8/month or $72/year (and includes unlimited plans, time tracking, and high-level organization options).

Transform your content with the right tools

Writing apps can’t run the race for you, but they can give you a head start. Journalist Gene Fowler once wrote: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

While writing apps might not take all the torment out of crafting compelling content, they significantly streamline the process — guiding both writers and designers toward efficient, profitable creations that resonate deeply with target audiences.

When you’re happy with your content, the next step is to share it with the world. Visit Webflow University to find out how to put your work online with no coding needed. 

As organizations scale and diversify their project portfolios, the complexity of managing multiple concurrent initiatives intensifies. Cross-functional teams, crucial for propelling projects to completion, also struggle with the constant pressures of meeting deadlines and staying within budget. In this demanding environment, the risk of project misalignment and resource misallocation escalates, threatening the quality and timeliness of deliverables.

Enterprise project management (EPM) makes sense of this chaos by streamlining processes and enhancing outcomes to ensure projects progress smoothly. By adopting EPM, your organization can navigate the complexities of modern project management, maintain control over multiple endeavors, and drive successful, cost-effective outcomes.

What’s enterprise project management?

EPM is a comprehensive approach to project management tailored for large organizations. It encompasses a set of principles, methodologies, and tools designed to optimize project workflows and facilitate effective resource allocation.

EPM considers the unique challenges and complexities that arise when managing multiple projects across various departments. For example, EMP can help with coordinating cross-departmental efforts, aligning multiple project goals with the overall business strategy, and ensuring consistent project performance across a large organization. It’s a critical practice for modern enterprise management.

6 essential principles of enterprise project management

While every team’s EPM system is unique, a few fundamental components typically make up the framework. Here are some of the key elements that effective EPM addresses and monitors.

1. Risk analysis

EPM systematically identifies, assesses, and mitigates potential threats to minimize roadblocks. Effective risk analysis allows your organization to make informed decisions, allocate resources strategically, and maintain project continuity.

For example, if a web design project includes integrating a new ecommerce platform, EPM would require a risk analysis to identify potential issues such as integration incompatibilities or user data security concerns. By identifying these risks early, the team can plan for additional security measures or choose compatible systems to ensure a smooth launch.

2. Project estimation

Accurate project estimation is the cornerstone of successful project management. EPM emphasizes the importance of anticipating an initiative’s scope, budget, and duration with precision. This stage helps set realistic expectations, distribute resources, and establish reference points for monitoring progress.

3. Project reviews

Regular project reviews are vital for tracking progress, identifying bottlenecks, and adapting to changing circumstances. Using an EPM structure, you’ll conduct periodic evaluations using your project estimations to ensure that teams stay on course and meet goals.

For instance, if a web design project to create a responsive design for various devices is underway, regular reviews might reveal that the initial designs aren’t compatible with certain screen sizes. With EPM, these reviews allow for quick adaptation — perhaps a shift in design strategy or the introduction of additional breakpoints to ensure a seamless user experience across all devices.

4. Escalated problem resolution

Enterprise projects can be highly complex, and issues like scheduling conflicts, scope creep, and misaligned team objectives are always a consideration. EPM helps you design processes for anticipating and resolving such problems efficiently and thoroughly. This helps prevent project hiccups from snowballing into major disruptions for your organization.

5. Project management coaching

EPM relies on skilled enterprise project managers who can navigate the complexities of various projects. Providing coaching and development opportunities in your organization’s management office, such as supplemental courses or training sessions, ensures leaders have the necessary skills and knowledge to drive project success.

6. Time tracking

Effective time tracking is a vital component of EPM. It allows organizations to monitor project progress, even in individual task management. Careful tracking ensures timely delivery and directs resources where they’re needed most.

Advantages of efficient EPM

Despite its challenges, properly transitioning to an EPM approach offers numerous benefits that can significantly impact project success and your organization’s overall efficiency. Key advantages include:

• Enhanced team collaboration. EPM encourages collaboration among team members, ensuring everyone is on the same page and working toward common goals. This leads to strong communication, helps avoid misunderstandings, and fosters a more cohesive work environment.
• Improved project transparency. With EPM, project details are readily available, allowing for greater transparency. Clarity across teams ensures that all stakeholders are well-informed about project progress, challenges, and risks, which supports better decision-making.
• Higher project success rates. EPM’s systematic approach — which includes risk analysis, accurate project estimation, and regular reviews — greatly enhances the likelihood of project success. Teams using EPM are more likely to stay on track, meet their objectives, and deliver results on time and within budget.

How to effectively implement enterprise project management: 6 steps

Successfully integrating EPM into your organization requires careful planning and a structured approach. Here are the steps to implement EPM frameworks, project management tools, and methodologies into your program management processes:

1. Assess current practices

Begin by conducting a thorough assessment of your organization’s existing project management practices. Identify their strengths and weaknesses and areas where EPM can encourage significant improvements.

2. Define clear objectives

Set specific goals for what EPM will help you accomplish. These targets will serve as a roadmap for the implementation process and benchmarks for future success.

3. Select the right tools

Choose project management software that aligns with your organization’s needs. The right solutions may offer features such as project portfolio management, resource management, and reporting capabilities to make adopting EPM easy and intuitive.

4. Provide training and education

Ensure your team is well-versed in EPM methodologies through training and education programs. Project managers and team members should gain and grow the knowledge and skills required for successful EPM adoption. Your instruction system can include paid training for completing certifications in your chosen project management software.

5. Standardize your approach

Create a standardized framework for project management that incorporates EPM principles and methodologies. Some common structures include Kanban, Agile, and Scrum. Your framework should include processes for risk analysis, project estimation, reviews, problem resolution, and time tracking.

If resources allow, consider investing in an enterprise project management office (EPMO) whose sole focus is standardizing and implementing EPM frameworks throughout your organization.

6. Monitor and adjust

Regularly evaluate how EPM benefits your organization and project goals, and invite feedback from project teams. Adjust your approach to address any issues or challenges that staff identify.

EPM challenges and potential solutions

As with most structural changes, implementing EPM has its challenges. However, with the right strategies, you can anticipate and overcome many of these obstacles. Here are some typical EPM hurdles and tips for clearing them:

• Resistance to change. Change can be daunting, so a full pivot of company processes may meet resistance. To smooth out the restructuring process, involve key players like managers and administrators in decision-making and clearly communicate the benefits of EPM to the team. Highlight how it will streamline workflows, improve project success rates, and enhance collaboration.
• Resource allocation. Resources have limits, and various teams and members may have differing opinions about where to allocate them. EPM provides tools for efficient resource distribution, but meeting all teams’ needs can still be challenging. Use your EPM solutions to assess priorities and resolve cross-functional conflicts.
• Complex integration. Identifying where and how to implement EPM isn’t always straightforward, and restructuring all current projects can be complicated. To navigate complicated integration, implement EPM gradually, starting with small, manageable initiatives. As your team grows more familiar with EPM practices, you can expand the structure to larger projects.

Level up your enterprise projects with Webflow

EPM is the key to unlocking the full potential of your enterprise projects and helping your organization navigate the complexities of concurrent and large-scale projects with confidence and efficiency.

If you’re looking for a solution to support your enterprise web projects, check out Webflow Enterprise. The platform’s collaborative features and web development capabilities empower your team to work together smoothly and achieve heightened project success.

After all, traditional marketing campaign assets like whitepapers, case studies, and webinars are usually designed to be educational, not entertaining. But as business buyers increasingly rely on social media and other digital channels to learn about brands and products, marketers need to stand out.

That’s where trend jacking comes in. 

Trend jacking is a marketing tactic that’s lifted straight from the B2C playbooks of Oreo’s dunk in the dark viral tweet and Aviation Gin’s in-universe sequel to the controversial “Peloton wife” ad. The concept is simple: take a topic or event that’s already generating headlines, and create your own related content. Usually, trend jacking is tied to broader pop culture — but in B2B, it can also be applied to sudden shifts in the market, the rise of emerging tech, and other niche industry or newsworthy events.

In a perfect world, your audience should already be aware of and interested in the topic you’re trend jacking. That way, they’ll be more likely to engage with your social post, email, video, or article. 

But, when trend jacking isn’t handled correctly, brands risk looking clueless and cringey. To make sure you’re covered,  here are a few best practices B2B marketers should keep in mind when implementing trend jacking.

Three approaches to B2B trend jacking 

While the concept of trend jacking is relatively simple, executing it at the highest level can get surprisingly complex. Let’s explore three different levels of difficulty in B2B trend jacking, along with some real-life examples.

Level one: memes and reactions

This is one of the fastest and simplest ways to enter a conversation. When a meme or notable event starts capturing attention, join in the fun with your own reaction. 

For example, when Instagram launched its new text-based social app Threads, marketers were quick to share their complicated feelings about this new platform. And since freelance marketplace Upwork counts marketing managers among its core users, they responded with a timely — and all too relatable — TikTok reaction of their own, using trending audio for extra impact.

Memes and reactions are all about speed and simplicity. Create your brand’s unique take on a trending meme or headline, use any relevant hashtags, popular Instagram or TikTok audio, or visuals, and hit publish. 

These trend jacking moments usually happen on social media, but you can also reference memes and reactions in email subject lines, email body content, or blogs to pique interest — and, hopefully, boost engagement.

Level two: hot takes on trending topics

The next level of trend jacking is to go beyond a simple meme and add your brand or leader’s perspective to a larger conversation. 

For example, data observability platform Monte Carlo’s CEO shared a LinkedIn post with her take on a recent earnings call from Snowflake, the biggest brand in their industry. She connected the dots between Snowflake’s discussion of generative AI and the need for better data quality with the outcomes Monte Carlo provides for its customers — with likes, comments, and shares amplifying her post’s reach.

This approach requires a little more effort and thoughtfulness than jumping in with the latest meme, but it also puts more focus on your brand by sharing your unique point of view on the trending topic. Publish your hot takes on buzzy topics in blog posts, within long(ish)form social posts, or via your email newsletters. 

Level three: adding significant value to the conversation

To drive the most impact from your trend jacking, don’t just add your voice to the chorus of conversation — dig deep and provide significant value through your content. 

For example, audience research tool SparkToro used advanced trend jacking techniques when responding to a hot take from Elon Musk about Twitter’s percentage of fake users. As Amanda Nativdad writes, using their existing foundational tools, their team was “quick to parse through data to answer the question everyone was wondering about.” Within a few days of Musk’s headline-generating tweet, they published research that showed around 20% of Twitter’s accounts were fake or spam — much higher than the 5% rate initially reported. 

SparkToro’s findings generated significant press coverage, drove 23k unique pageviews of their website in a single day, and helped greatly improve their organic search rankings for terms like ‘audience research tool.’

Similarly, Camille Trent describes how her small but mighty team at PeerSignal deployed trend jacking around tech layoffs — and doubled their newsletter subscriber count. 

As a data and research provider for B2B SaaS marketing leaders, they spotted an opportunity in the fall of 2022 to bring substantive information about the widespread tech layoffs on their prospects’ minds. Using PeerSignal datasets, they assembled a list of tech companies currently hiring — and then waited for another tech giant to make headlines. When Meta announced mass layoffs on November 9th, they were ready to add to the conversation. Camille and her team promoted the hiring tracker on LinkedIn the day before publishing it in their newsletter, driving subscribers from 6k to 12k within a few weeks. 

In both cases, SparkToro and PeerSignal took the time to build meaningful content. Each team knew how their unique point of view and access to resources — specifically, their data — could help them add something of value to the conversation. And since both teams had assets to publish on their owned channels, versus social media alone, they were able to drive more tangible business outcomes than social likes or views.

Best practices for all B2B trend jacking

Not every company is equipped to publish a proprietary data report within days — but even a simple meme is important to get right. If you’re just getting started with trend jacking, there are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Stay relevant to YOUR audience

This is the secret advantage B2B marketers have when it comes to trend jacking: you don’t need to wait for a national event like the Super Bowl or a Barbie-level blockbuster. Since your audience is smaller than B2C brands like Oreo, you can be more surgical about the events you trend jack (and you won’t be competing with dozens of other marketing teams who’ve all had the same idea).

Find the smaller stories that your ideal customers care about, and join those conversations. For example, in our Monte Carlo example above, a Snowflake earnings call is not the Super Bowl — but for their CEO’s audience, it’s a noteworthy event.

Stay classy

The fastest way to trend jacking disaster is to hop on a story about death, tragedies, political controversies, or other sensitive issues. These are just not the opportunities you want to use to promote your brand. 

There’s a litany of what-not-to-do examples here, including Cinnabon’s RIP message memorializing Carrie Fisher’s “best buns in the galaxy” and DraftKings’ ill-advised “Never Forget” parlay involving New York sports teams on 9/11.

While these examples are obviously in bad taste, some memes have deep roots — so research any trending hashtag’s origins and make sure it’s something you actually want people to associate with your brand. 

Stay ahead of the curve

With trend jacking, timing is everything. You’ll want to execute your content within hours or days, not weeks, of a trend’s emergence or timely headlines. 

So if you want to jump on a cultural or buzzy moment, act as quickly as possible. 

But if you’re targeting a larger trend with a longer lifespan, like returning to the office or the rise of generative AI, take a page from the PeerSignal playbook. Prepare your content and wait for the next specific — but inevitable — story to generate headlines. Then, you’ll be able to publish your trend jacking piece at just the right time to capitalize on the trend. 

Avoid oversaturation

In the summer of 2023, it seemed like every marketer on LinkedIn was sharing their hot take on what B2B companies could learn from Barbie. And every early December, similar takes on Spotify Wrapped probably fill your feed. 

If you have something unique and meaningful to share on a very popular topic, go for it. But if you’re contemplating a trend jack simply because everyone else is doing it, your audience will be able to tell — and they’ll already be sick of the oversaturated conversation.

‍Bottom line? Follow the golden rule of B2B marketing: share helpful information your audience cares about. Trends will rise and fall, but delivering relevant, valuable content never goes out of style.

Software development for websites and web apps involves much more than the technical expertise required to write it. Your project’s success hinges on errorless code but needs a visually stunning layout, compelling content, and airtight management to keep it all on track.

Optimizing work protocols to create excellent products and services relies on the collective strengths of marketers, designers, and project managers. Team members must excel in their roles, collaborate well, and complement each other’s skills and work styles. Without this cohesion, you risk communication issues and protocol hiccups that could negatively affect your product’s performance. Learn why your organization’s success ties directly to the effectiveness of your software development team structure.

The importance of the right software development team structure

Building a strong software development team starts with hiring for specific roles — like a front-end developer, back-end developer, product manager, designer, and user experience (UX) engineer. Otherwise, your roster of talent is likely to fall short in certain areas.

For example, excluding quality assurance (QA) specialists from your team could lead to a product riddled with unchecked bugs despite the hard work of developers, marketers, and designers. This oversight delivers a subpar product, which frustrates users, damages your brand’s reputation, and incurs extra resources for post-launch fixes.

To sidestep such pitfalls, design your team structure to meet your project’s demands. Then, select the right people to fill these roles for a high-performing team that’s efficient, collaborates well, and adapts to changing project requirements.

Beyond role-specific expertise, team members need to possess interpersonal and communication skills to truly benefit group efforts. The right candidates not only possess the technical abilities required for their roles, but also understand the value of teamwork, clear communication, and shared objectives.

Below, we’ll dive into some key software development roles, common types of structures, and tips for arranging the ideal team for your organization.

Key software development team roles

Some project management practices, like the Agile methodology (more on this below), designate specialized jobs like solution architects, scrum leaders, and product owners.

However, there are a few fundamental team roles needed across various structures to ensure project success. The following positions are the building blocks of any effective software development team.

Software developer (front-end and back-end)

These software engineers provide the highest technical expertise to your project.

Front-end developers focus on building the user-facing aspects of a software application, such as navigation and user interface. They implement the design team’s work to shape your site’s look and feel.

Back-end developers, on the other hand, work behind the scenes. They manage databases, servers, and your site’s core functionality. This entails ensuring the software runs seamlessly and serves data on request.

Both developer roles are integral to the development process and bring life to the code that drives the software’s functionality.

Project manager

A project manager is responsible for the overall software development management. They’re the guiding force that ensures your project stays on course and are responsible for setting clear objectives, managing timelines, allocating resources, and overseeing the entire development process. Project managers also foster effective communication within your team to keep operations running smoothly.

UI and UX designers

User interface (UI) designers focus on crafting an aesthetically pleasing website interface, and user experience (UX) designers ensure that the interface is user-friendly and intuitive.

UI designers are responsible for elements of the visual hierarchy, like layout, color schemes, and graphics, to make your web platform visually appealing. UX designers handle the overall user experience to ensure your website is intuitive.

Together, UI and UX designers create an interface that looks great and offers a satisfying user experience.

Quality assurance engineer

Quality assurance engineers are responsible for testing for software quality. They rigorously test the code behind your site to identify and resolve bugs and errors. The QA role is essential for ensuring the software’s reliability and ability to meet user expectations.

Systems architect

A systems architect (or software architect) takes a high-level view of the product by designing its overall structure and verifying that all its components work in sync. These team members make critical decisions about the software’s architecture, data flow, and integration of various systems. Their role is pivotal in ensuring your service’s scalability, efficiency, and long-term stability.

DevOps engineer

A DevOps engineer bridges the gap between software development and information technology (IT) operations. They focus on automating and streamlining the software development and deployment process to make procedures more efficient and reliable.

Historically, DevOps engineers have managed the deployment pipeline. Now, with innovations like infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers, DevOps is shifting to a continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) model that implements automated regression testing as part of its practice.

This model automatically makes concurrent codebase changes and employs faster, more frequent updates across your webpages. CI/CD eliminates the need for a large team of QA engineers because the development process includes writing tests and the deployment pipeline builds in testing.

Common types of development team structures

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to team structure. The right choice for your organization depends on specific project needs and your company culture. Let’s explore some common development team structures and how they can benefit your operations.

Triad

The triad structure is a classic model involving a trio of core roles: a front-end developer, a back-end developer, and a designer. This arrangement fosters close-knit collaboration between the three key players and aligns user-facing elements with the platform’s technical operations.

A triad is ideal for smaller projects or startups, where efficiency and quick decision-making are key, as it eliminates more complicated communication and processes you might see with a larger team. It’s a lean approach that encourages cross-functional collaboration to rapidly produce results.

Generalist

A generalist development team structure relies on versatility, with each team member wearing multiple hats. For instance, a software engineer might take on full-stack developer (front-end and back-end developer) responsibilities. They may cover web design responsibilities as well.

This approach works for projects with limited resources in a fast-paced development environment as it reduces the required number of employees. It also capitalizes on team members’ adaptability and diverse contributions to different aspects of the project. Generalist teams thrive in situations where agility is essential and excel at maintaining a balance between functionality and aesthetics.

Specialist

A specialist team structure involves team members who each bring expertise to a distinct area of your project, like front-end or back-end development, UI or UX design, or QA.

Specialist teams work best for larger projects where in-depth proficiency is required. This structure supports hyperfocus on each development aspect and encourages autonomy in individual players.

Hybrid

A hybrid team strikes a balance between the adaptability of a generalist structure and the precision of a specialist structure. This model empowers team members to tackle a wide range of tasks while maintaining high-quality standards. Individuals will assume core responsibilities in areas of their specific expertise (as they would in a specialist structure), but they’ll also lend their skills to other development components as needed and available (as in a generalist structure).

This is an excellent choice for projects that demand versatility without sacrificing precise skill sets and suits a vast range of product development strategies.

Agile

The Agile team structure implements the Lean approach for software teams. Agile software development thrives on adaptability and iteration, making it an excellent choice for projects with rapidly evolving requirements or especially dynamic market conditions.

Key roles within an Agile team include:

• Scrum leaders facilitate the Agile process and promote teamwork and problem-solving.
• Product owners bridge the gap between external players (such as customers and investors) and the development team to make critical decisions based on user needs and market demands.
• Solution architects design the software’s structure and integrate components for scalability and long-term stability.

4 best practices when building a software development team

A cohesive software development team is efficient, productive, and innovative, and building one takes careful consideration. Here are some helpful tips for assembling your ideal team:

1. Select the right structure

Select a team formation that aligns with your project’s requirements and business needs rather than choosing based on an ideology. The model and key positions must match your project scope and support your objectives.

2. Embrace smaller subteams

Split large teams into focused subunits, as smaller teams promote efficiency and encourage close collaboration. Letting team members work tightly together helps them tackle specific aspects of the project with greater agility and effectiveness.

3. Foster team ownership

Empower your team by encouraging them to take ownership of their project duties. When team members have a personal stake in a product, they’re more motivated and committed to its success.

4. Balance your team

Create a team that’s well-ordered in terms of skill sets, experience, and role responsibilities. This entails allocating appropriate duties to individuals based on their abilities and choosing leaders capable of managing their reports. A well-balanced team ensures that all critical aspects of development — from coding to design — are adequately met.

Bring your development team together with Webflow

Webflow, a visual web development platform, empowers both technical and nontechnical web development team members to create stunning websites in one workspace. By facilitating a seamless transition from design to development, Webflow enables teams to take charge of their projects, collaborate smoothly, and transform ideas into reality.

Explore the possibilities of Webflow Enterprise to boost your team’s web development capabilities and take your projects to the next level.

Its government entity, the City of Los Angeles, is led by Mayor-Council-Commission form of government and comprises 44 departments and bureaus. Today, the City employs more than 45,000 people across a wide range of sectors.

As a governing body, the City is invested in creating a high-performing workforce that can support and run its local agencies. The Personnel Department is at the center of this effort, and its 600 employees are spread across 16 divisions to manage everything from the recruitment and selection of candidates for the city’s public safety departments to maintaining the safety and wellness of its employees.

In order to effectively tackle its mission to employ, develop, and engage a dynamic City workforce, the department needed to redesign its website to make it more functional, user-friendly, and accessible to its constituents. To learn more about the local government’s digital needs, criteria for its new website, and future web plans, we caught up with some of the department’s design, marketing, and IT staff to get the full rundown.

Kicking off a redesign that would help the department deliver more user-friendly web experiences

As a repository of critical information, the Personnel Department’s website was in need of a revamp to more seamlessly connect the people of LA to jobs and resources. “There was a ton of information available on the website, and we asked ourselves: can we reformat or reorganize it in such a way that would make it easier for constituents to access this information?” Rommel Rufon, the department’s Sr. Systems Analyst II, explains. That’s when Systems Analyst Arin Abedian got involved, tasked with redesigning the Personnel Department website.

“The Personnel Department website houses content for 16 different divisions — in addition to job listings for the city — which means there are several pages and an enormous amount of information we’re responsible for,” Arin explains. As a result, he began exploring solutions that could handle the City’s unique web needs ahead of the redesign. After coming across Webflow and attending Webflow Conf, he was drawn to the ability to redesign the site without writing code.

The IT and broader team had a number of criteria it needed in a web platform in order to move away from the department’s hardcoded site, including:

• A solution that offered enterprise-grade security and didn’t rely on vulnerable plugins to achieve certain use cases
• The ability to fully customize the website to support unique business needs, like hosting a jobs database
• The ability to tackle web tickets faster and provide non-technical employees with more ownership over the website

After fulfilling these requirements, along with the programmer-friendly Editor, ability to export clean, semantic code, and the ability to help the department maintain ADA compliance standards, the City of LA’s Personnel Department decided to proceed with its website redesign using Webflow. And to get started, Arin was tasked with building a page with critical COVID-19 vaccination information, which he was able to launch in just two days.

How the Personnel Department stands up public safety sites to drive recruitment efforts

One of the divisions under the Personnel Department is Public Safety, which manages the recruitment and selection of candidates for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD). Both entities have standalone recruitment websites that also fall under the Personnel Department’s domain — meaning Arin’s team needed to update and maintain these websites, as well.

Margaret Correa, lead designer, was responsible for the first LAPD recruitment site and recounts some of the core issues she faced updating the site, such as difficulty even implementing color or buttons. “I had to file a ticket for any simple site change, and I was limited in what colors I could use for the site.” She explained that even though tickets would sometimes get escalated, the IT team had so many competing requests that made it difficult to get web updates prioritized quickly. 

Eventually, the IT department became overwhelmed with minor, ad-hoc web requests and no longer had sufficient resources to continue supporting them. To move forward, they proposed two options: change how the website works or transition its ownership away from the IT department.

Putting the keys in designers’ hands so they can work autonomously

The LAPD website is updated daily, and Margaret — functioning essentially as the site’s primary owner — wanted to find a solution that best fit her and the department’s needs. After learning about Webflow from Arin, she discovered how it could help her quickly implement site changes, ensure the site’s design remained on brand, and incorporate custom design elements — tasks that typically created backlogs and negatively impacted the overall web design process. “Being able to change things on the fly — whether its color, photos, animations — is a dream for us,” Margaret explains. Arin seconded this sentiment, detailing how Margaret is no longer simply a designer, but also playing the role of a visual developer, owning the end-to-end website experiences — from design to launch. 

With the power of Webflow, Margaret and her team were able to redesign and launch the Join LAPD site with limited IT involvement, and now, they can easily manage and update it autonomously.

“Giving our designers the freedom to manage web content themselves is a huge time saver for our broader IT team. We can refocus on high priority work, while stepping in on occasion for more technical backend assistance.” — Arin Abedian, Systems Analyst

Looking ahead, the team is currently in the process of expanding their Webflow footprint and are in the process of redesigning the Join LAFD website.

Bridging the gap between constituents, City employees, and local government

As a local government, the ability to quickly disseminate information is paramount. Whether it’s essential guidelines regarding public health crises, posting job opportunities, or providing City employees with HR resources, the government and its agencies are responsible for making information accessible. That’s why the ability to use a web platform like Webflow has significantly transformed how the City of LA operates. It has empowered its web teams to work autonomously and quickly, eliminating web backlogs and making timely information readily available. 

The team has since been able to break free of silos and prioritize high-impact work, ensuring the city’s constituents and employees are always presented with the most up-to-date information, resources, opportunities, and policies. 

To learn more about how Webflow can help transform your team and website, get in touch with our team.