How to Upload Your Own Costom Website Template to Webflow

One mistake I've seen recently in the no-code community have been creators diving into a Webflow projection from scratch.

This isn't to say that it's a bad thing — creating from scratch allows y'all to brand a site that is completely your own with custom elements. However, when information technology comes to speed and efficiency, templates are the way to get.

Webflow'southward templates have redefined how we design and develop websites. They feature predefined components that are like shooting fish in a barrel to accommodate and edit to run across your needs, and let you lot to use very fiddling time and energy on your site, allowing y'all to focus on other priorities.

Here, I take you deeper into how templates can speed upward the blueprint procedure and kickstart your concern. I'll likewise guide you through the process of creating a fully customized, SEO-optimized website with a template as its base.

The issue with custom design

Don't get me wrong. Custom design is great, and we do a lot of fully-custom builds at Period Ninja. But if you're working on a new idea and want to test the market really fast, a bare canvas can exist a little scary. All of the sudden, the following questions start popping upwardly in your head:

• What wireframe kit to use?
• Where do I find the wireframe kit?
• How practise I write copy without a blueprint?
• Where'south a skillful identify to get inspiration?
• Is this a expert font? How will information technology wait on the web?
• Are margins & paddings correct?
• Is this layout going to work for mobile?
• Should I think about mobile blueprint too?
  

And the list goes on …

Answering these questions is really quite easy if you're a professional person designer and don't accept to piece of work under tight deadlines. However, if you're designing every bit a side hustle or a hobby — or blueprint isn't your primary part — finding the right answers can accept what feels like an eternity.

The worst part is that you go to see your competitors launching new features and refreshing their designs while y'all're still working on your most viable product (MVP).

Get to market faster with Webflow templates

What if you don't have to answer all the questions above? What if you could simply focus on your cadre business features only however brand your site look professional person and trustworthy — and non to mention, good?

When you lot kick off a project using a Webflow template, you'll become a set of predefined components at your fingertips. It'south like having the best possible wireframe kit e'er. Everything you lot want to include in your blueprint is already adult and easy to edit.

Even better: If you use a template that fits your specific needs, it's probably going to have all the sections and functionality that your business requires to go live. This way, you'll know exactly what icon to buy (or design,) which images to get, and how much copy you demand to write.

You don't take to worry about web development at all anymore. Y'all tin just focus on your business.

How nosotros utilise templates at Menses Ninja

At Flow Ninja, we have a specific process nosotros follow when we desire to launch a client projection as fast equally possible and use a template as a base. I've outlined our process below every bit a crook sheet for the adjacent fourth dimension you lot're building a Webflow site from a template.

Sitemapping

First by using tools like FigJam to outline your website sitemap. This step is crucial to make your website work. We usually endeavour to keep the sitemap as MVP as possible, but when you lot're migrating from WordPress or another platform you should probably migrate all pages.
We recommend color-coding each folio like in the example above. Here'southward how we do it:

• Give core pages their own color — in the example higher up, the pages are yellow.
• Requite pages that are P2 priority another color — above, we employ greenish.
• Requite CMS collections their own color — above, these are blueish.
  

In one case you take a high-level overview of the site in a sitemap like what's pictured higher up, it's going to make planning out your site possible and will reduce the overall corporeality of work y'all'll have to do. Plus, yous'll be able to hands identify where y'all can use Webflow CMS to convert pages to templates, making information technology easier to develop your site later on. If you're under a fourth dimension crunch with deadlines, yous can remove less important pages to accelerate the launch (and come back to them later on).

If you want to get one step farther, y'all tin can outline the individual sections yous want to add together to each page. This will set up yous for the next step and make searching for the right template easier.

Finding your template

First, go to the Webflow template marketplace. When starting a search, I recommend browsing by Category, every bit there are more than 15 categories to choose from. Also, templates are unremarkably congenital with a specific category in mind, and each category features sections suitable for your needs.

Alternatively, y'all can use a UI Kit. These too include all of the sections and components you need to build your website.

Asking for a Figma file

If you're really in a rush, yous tin can always start building your site directly in Webflow. Yet, nosotros encourage everyone to begin with the interface design tool Figma — or something similar — so your classes and styles in Webflow aren't messed up while testing possible solutions for the site.

Depending on the vendor, when you buy a Webflow template, you should be able to enquire for a Figma file and receive information technology inside 24 hours of purchasing. If you decide to buy one of FlowNinja'south templates, y'all'll receive a gratuitous Figma file afterwards sending us your proof of purchase from Webflow Marketplace.

To go alee of it, you can always reach out to a specific vendor before buying a template to ask if they offer a Figma file after purchase.

Outlining the site in Figma & writing copy

Once your sitemap is completed, you can beginning poking around the template and find components to use. After just a few hours, you should have a mockup for every page with the corresponding components.

This is going to come in handy once y'all first writing copy for the site. Instead of writing endless heading variations to fit your page, the template will give y'all the exact paragraph length.

If you accept a copywriter in your squad, nosotros recommend you ship them the Figma mockup and have them write copy in Google Docs. However, if you're the simply i in charge, you tin write the copy straight in your pattern.

Customizing your template

Here comes the best part.

Since Figma as well allows changing global components, you tin can start playing around with the styles. Testing various fonts, color schemes, or paradigm approaches will exist really easy, and you won't have to worry nearly breaking and restoring the template to its initial land.

We recommend changing the following styles to customize your template:

• Fonts
• Colors
• Push designs
• Icons
• Images
  

By merely changing these few items, you lot'll end upwardly with a custom website that's unique from the original template.

Applying global styles in Webflow

Later on yous take the final copy, styles, images, icons, and colors in Figma, and y'all're happy with how the site looks, y'all tin offset building it in Webflow.

One of many things that make Webflow stand out from the pack is that ALL Webflow templates have global style guides. We're going to show an case of Flow Starter that's added to all of our templates.

• Change the Global Torso Font
• Change All Headings Font
• Style Rich Text
• Change All Paragraphs Fonts
• Change All Listing Styles & Fonts
• Change All Links Styles & Fonts
• Apply New Global Colors
• Update Push Styles
  

You can find near of the tutorials for these items at Webflow University.

Create all pages, use copy, images, and icons

We're virtually done. After creating global styles, the template should already look branded.

At present it'south fourth dimension to replicate everything you have in Figma, insert adequate copy into all pages and components, and add together images and icons in the Webflow Designer.

Modify SEO titles, descriptions, OG images, alt texts, and the favicon

By offering back up to more than than a thousand of our template customers, we've noticed that most of them forget this crucial footstep to finalize their website.

In order to make this template completely your ain yous'll have to override the template'south default SEO championship, description, and OG prototype. This is crucial, equally yous don't desire to end upwards sharing your site and having people see something that shows that it'southward a template.

Nosotros recommend using a elementary "Folio Proper name — Company Proper name" pattern for the page title and keeping SEO descriptions between 50 – 160 characters.

Other things to consider include the OG image that needs to be exactly 1200x630 pixels; the favicon which needs to be a ii:ii ratio; and writing proper alt texts to all images you've uploaded. You can find a really proficient tutorial here.

Become live!

Your site is now ready to accept visitors. Depending on the size of your site and your skill, the entire procedure can span from a day to a couple of weeks. One thing is sure — your project won't be dragging for vi months or longer.

To sum upwards...

Templates at Webflow are a powerful tool. In one case you understand the basic principles behind them, y'all'll step upwards your designing process by skipping a lot of the planning stages while all the same having complete creative control. We hope our short introduction to templates and how we use them has inspired you to create a new site using a Webflow template.

Who is Flow Ninja?

With over 50 happy clients and over one thousand template customers, nosotros've worked with an array of businesses — from pocket-size firms to enterprises. Our team members are always ready for a new hazard, using Webflow tools every bit our weapon of choice.

If yous take any questions feel gratuitous to send us a Support ticket, nosotros're going to make it free for anybody, non merely people that bought our templates for the next calendar month.

If you desire u.s.a. to help you in a fully custom build, or create a site from scratch, experience free to make it bear upon with us here.

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Source: https://webflow.com/blog/webflow-templates

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