Is Webflow good for blogging? (+ how to format a blog post)

Creating a blog that performs takes time, effort, and knowledge, regardless of your chosen platform.

However, Webflow gives you many customization options that make that process easier.

In this post, we'll show you how to create and format a highly configurable blog. That means we'll not use the Webflow blog template. We'll use our own examples.

Let's see how and why you should start with a Webflow blog.

Is Webflow Good for Blogging?

Webflow is great for blogging because it has intuitive on-page editing options and Collections (i.e., customizable content types). Moreover, it's a convenient one-stop solution for SEO settings, and managing content for higher rankings.

Clean code and smooth workflow implementations. That's where Webflow truly shines.

It also features easy integration with SEO plugin Semflow. This is especially useful for those who have basic SEO knowledge. For example, Semflow will check if the target keywords appear in appropriate places. And more.

Moreover, Webflow will automatically define your URL structures, meta titles, descriptions, and Open Graph (OG) settings, though if you want to really enjoy its full scope, you'll need to invest effort in customizing each of these SEO elements.

So, is Webflow good for blogs? Yes, indeed. Yet Webflow is important for many more reasons than just blogging.

How to Create a Blog in Webflow (5 Steps)

To match your target audience's expectations, you must examine your competitors' work.

Analyze elements such as scannable layouts, visuals, topics, categories, and more.

Make sure to create a folder containing documents where you can store your inspirational examples and discuss them with your team.

The first part of blog setup is choosing a template or starting from scratch. The second option allows you to customize your blog based on your needs.

As we prefer the second option, here are all the tips you need to apply before creating a blog in Webflow:

1. Decide on Article Categories Based on Search Intent

Listicles, how-to articles, comparison/review articles, and guides are all article formats that assist readers in finding the information they seek. You should choose those related to your industry.

Blog categories serve as organizational pillars for your website, enabling readers and search engines to locate desired information. Therefore, they provide a structured framework by grouping individual posts ad subtopics under your chosen categories.

In our example, we have how-to guides, reviews, and tips on business strategy.

These main topics (Webflow development, Design, Strategy) are our blog categories. But sometimes, topics can fall under two categories, like comparisons, where we help the reader decide which product/service to choose.

2. Choose Your Colors Based on Your Brand‍

As you choose a color palette, keep in mind the blog categories. Each category should align with the preferred color.

Blue, for instance, is our color for the Webflow development category. It evokes trust, security, and strength.

So, after running some analysis, choose the relevant colors that match your industry.

3. Develop Your Image Style

The main image should help readers quickly digest the idea of your content and reinforce your firsthand experience. Although images should make your words more approachable, we decided to use images that connect mainly to our brand style, not exactly to the topic.

That means we don't implement the exact diagram or some visual example for the topic. Instead, we use our original abstract symbols that align with our brand.

Here is the visual representation of blog categories including descriptive and abstract symbols.

The open graph image serves as the visual preview of your webpage. It includes a logo, title, description, and image (symbol) that aligns with your branded content. This reinforces your brand image and enhances user recognition.

Here is an example:

4. Refine Your Blog Format

To help the reader skim read, you need to break up the copy with specific elements, and give the search engines an easier way to index and crawl your content. Therefore, to format your blog post, you need to use scannable layout, utilize whitespace, maintain logical and consistent headings and more.

Expert quotes, callout boxes are all formatting elements, meant to break up long paragraphs.

But making your content scannable doesn't mean that you should only focus on specific points. Instead, it means you should focus on the content as a whole by using formatting techniques to make your article visually attractive and easy to read.

Even though people skim through content, ensure every word is worth reading.

So, incorporating a series of various formatting elements will make your content valuable.

Here is how to format blog posts in Webflow.

Table of Contents (H4)

A table of contents serves as an easy-to-read structure that should direct readers to the specific content section they want to read immediately. Therefore, it should be a clickable element. This is especially important regarding the best-off pages.

Take it a step further by designing custom code to add extra tables to complex pages with lots of information. For instance, we did this for the Webflow pricing blog post, which has many pricing plans for different needs.

Our goal was to save readers time by making it easier to find what they're looking for. We hyperlinked our table of contents to each section.

<style>

.pricing-table table {
  background-color: white;
  table-layout: fixed;
  width: 100%;
  border-spacing: clamp(0.875rem, -0.198vw + 0.923rem, 0.75rem);
  border-radius: 4px;
}

.pricing-table th {
  font-weight: 500;
  font-size: 1.125rem;
  background-color: #171926;
  text-align: left;
  padding-inline: clamp(0.5rem, 0.396vw + 0.403rem, 0.75rem);
  padding-block: clamp(1rem, 1.093rem + -0.381vw, 0.75rem);
  color: white;
}

.pricing-table th:first-child {
  border-right: solid #f7f5f3 2px;
}

.pricing-table td {
  color: #171926;
  border-bottom: solid 2px #f7f5f3;
  padding-inline: clamp(0.5rem, 0.396vw + 0.403rem, 0.75rem);
  padding-block: clamp(0.875rem, 1.093rem + -0.381vw, 0.75rem);
}

.pricing-table td:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
  border-bottom: solid 2px#f7f5f3;
}

.pricing-table td:nth-child(odd) {
  border-right: solid #f7f5f3 2px;
}

.pricing-table a {
  color: #171926;
  text-decoration: none;
}

.pricing-table a svg {
  color: currentColor !important;
  opacity: 0;
  height: 0.85em;
  margin-left: 0.25rem;
  transition: opacity 0.3s;
}

.pricing-table a:hover svg {
  opacity: 0.75;
}

</style>

White Spaces (H4)

Employ whitespace to separate elements such as text, images, quote boxes, and more. This will create breathing space and highlight important information.

Descriptive Visuals (H4)

Users prefer immediate answers, even in images, rather than sifting through a huge block of content. So, to offer credible, firsthand experience, you must also create descriptive visuals.

The goal is to support your information with visuals to help your readers find what they need more quickly.

Here is a visual representation featuring statistics and a text-based graph icon.

And here is visual representation showcasing an informative graph and a listicle for better understanding.

Callout Boxes (H4)

They need to highlight important or interesting information to attract the reader's attention. Ensure that callout boxes do not duplicate content.

Callout boxes take an important sentence (typically buried in a wall of text) and set it off to draw the reader's eye.

Callout boxes aim to catch the attention of skim readers and break up long walls of text.

Expert Quotes (H4)

Incorporating expert quotes requires additional time compared to callout boxes. It entails thorough research to select a suitable quote. It's advisable to undertake this process during article creation, particularly when your creativity strikes.

Ensure the quoted individuals are recognized authorities within your field. Or you can just express an essential information, such as:

5. Build Author’s Page

The context of author bios is about building trust with readers. This means that content written by an authoritative writer will naturally rise in ranking because Google ranks what users find helpful.

It showcases the user experience associated with content creators or reviewers.

How to Add a Blog Post as an Editor in Webflow?

Creating a blog post as an editor in Webflow is incredibly simple. There are two essential steps:

Open the "Editor "and go to your "Collections"> "Blog".

Click on the "New Blog" green button.

And you are ready to start filling all the required blog fields.

Here's how to fill all the blog fields:

Name

Insert the title of your blog post. To write a catchy blog title and increase click-through rates, you must use numbers, brackets, question marks and more to hone in a specific point.

Like this:

Slug

Once you've added your title, Webflow will automatically create a slug. But keep your slug simple and optimize it for SEO.

Separate the post name by dashes, including the target or related keyword you want to rank for.

For instance, when a user searches for "Webflow blog," if your page has a slug that exactly matches the title, it may result in a lengthy slug, which isn't favored by search engines.

That being said, the "webflow-blog" is definitely better than "is-webflow-good-for-blogging-how to-format-a-blog-post."

Custom Fields

We created these fields to manage the published and updated dates better. Why?

When you edit articles that have already been published in Webflow, the CMS automatically updates the published date on your posts. This can create issues, especially when refreshing content for SEO reasons.

Meta Tags (Title Tag & Meta Description)

The title tag concisely and accurately describes a web page's content, though Google may adjust it for search results to align with user intent.

A meta description clearly summarizes a web page's content, typically around 160 characters. It should be descriptive enough to entice clicks, though the optimal length can vary depending on the cotext.

Images (Main & Open Graph)

Simply drag-and-drop or browse your images in Webflow.

Once you've done with adding your image, make sure to implement alt text.

Minutes Read

Respecting your readers' time is crucial by letting them know how much time they'll need to invest in reading your content.

Around three-quarters of internet users read blogs, typically around 10 a day. About 40% skim content, spending just about 37 seconds per blog.
‍Tempesta Media

And Webflow's feature for tracking minutes read is simple. Just input the number once you've got the results from the reading time calculator tool.

Blog Content

When you copy and paste your content into Webflw, here's how it appears:

Webflow Editor helps editors recognize and show all the parts of a blog post they've copied into it.

So, when you paste your content into Webflow, it automatically spots blog elements like images, callout boxes, headings, and paragraphs.

Everything is neatly shown, making the editing process easy.

Author

With Webflow, adding and optimizing your author's page is a breeze. Simply add and edit all the elements you want.

Images & Alt Text

In Webflow, it's easy to add the image and alt text.

Before adding images in Webflow, have your alt text ready in your Notion (or other) document. Then, when you upload an image, you can easily copy and paste the alt text simultaneously.

Like this:

Also, make sure to have a media folder where you'll keep everything organized. If you are working with a team of designers, they can upload everything there, and you can discuss it there if additional changes are needed.

Like this:

Our practice is to cut the alt text, apply the image from our folder, and copy-paste the alt text into the custom field (i.e., custom description).

Here are the steps.

1. Select the inserted alt text and "Cut" it.

2. Click on the "Image" icon and insert your image.

3. Select the inserted image and click on "Rectangle icon" to expand the image.

4. Select the "Custom description" and paste your alt text there.

That's it!

Callout Boxes

Keep callout text below 160 characters. Put them anywhere apart from the introduction or the conclusion.

Here is how to apply them in Webflow.

Select the required text and click on the “Quotation mark” icon.

Remember, these are meant to break up long paragraphs, so add them where you have a lot of text.

Skim through the article, pick a meaningful sentence, and create a callout box.

Topic Type & Categories

First, let’s see how to add blog categories in Webflow.Including your categories within a blog post is straightforward. There is a dropdown menu where you can choose which category to apply to a specific post.

But before you do that, you must clearly define those categories.

How to Preview a Blog Post in Webflow?

For editors, there isn't an option to preview the post directly. Instead, editors can only set it to "Stage for Publish" and request assistance from a Webflow developer to preview it for them.

So, as en editor either save your blog post as a draft or set it for publishing.

And a Webflow developer can toggle the preview mode by clicking on "Publish".

In Webflow, it looks like this:

How to Export Webflow Blog Posts?

You can export the content from Webflow, and import the exported content into other platform.

In Webflow CMS, you can add items to Collections in the following ways:

• Manually
• Importing them using a CSV file

This lets you bring in lots of items from an outside source straight into the CMS. You can also update existing items selectively with CSV imports, making it easier to manage large amounts of data.

Additionally, you can export the content of any Collection as a CSV file, which is handy for backing up your items. You can then use this file to import items into other Webflow sites or move them to different platforms.

Conclusion

We hope this guide on how to build a blog on Webflow helped you realize how easy this platform is to use. Whether you decide to start with Webflow blog templates or create your own, you won’t regret it.