Customize your Webflow template with confidence using this step-by-step guide. Learn how to update branding, content, fonts, and layouts, while keeping your site responsive, professional, and easy to maintain.
Bought a Webflow template but not sure how to make it your own without breaking the layout or ruining the clean design? You’re not alone. Customizing a Webflow template can feel intimidating especially if you don’t have a background in design or development.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to customize a Webflow template step-by-step, answer common questions, and share best practices to help you keep your website looking polished and professional.
Before we dive in, it’s important to understand that not all Webflow templates are built the same. Some are structured more professionally with reusable styles that make them super easy to customize. If you’re still deciding which template to start with, here’s my step-by-step guide to choose the best Webflow template for your business.
After buying a Webflow template, many people expect it to show up automatically as a project in their dashboard but that’s not how it works. When you purchase a template, Webflow saves it under your account, but you’ll need to manually create a site from it before you can start editing.
Here’s how to find and use your purchased Webflow template:
Note: Webflow frequently makes minor tweaks to its UX so this flow may change slightly. I’ll do my best to update this post as soon as that happens.
Before jumping straight into changing text or replacing images, take a moment to prepare. A little planning now can save hours of frustration later and help you avoid random edits that break the flow of a professionally designed layout.
Here’s what to gather before you start customizing:
You don’t stricly need everything to be finalized before you start, but the more you can gather now, the smoother your customization process will be.
Once your assets are ready, it’s time to start customizing but instead of randomly clicking around, let’s go about it the smart way. A well-structured Webflow template will have global styles, reusable components, and variables that make customization easier and faster, if you know where to look.
Since it’s a component, the logo will now update across all pages where that navbar is used.
[Pro tip: Some templates also include the logo in the footer. Repeat the process there to keep things consistent.]
To update colors across your template, go to the Variables panel:
Note: You won’t see changes update live across the entire site in real time from this panel. You will have to exit out of the Variables panel to see the changes in the Designer.
Go to the Style Guide page in the template (all Webflow templates are required to include this page). This is where you’ll find the foundational styles for all typography. This page is your best friend when making global changes.
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You can do this simply by double-clicking any text block on any page and start editing just like in a normal text editor. Keep your tone consistent with your brand voice and try to match the character length of the original text to maintain the layout. Update all text across the template using the Google or Word document you prepared, including:
If your template includes a CMS-powered blog or case studies section, you'll find a CMS Collection already set up in the left sidebar (Database icon).
To add your content:
The design is already built so your content will automatically appear in the template’s layout (e.g., blog list or case study grid) with the styling intact.
Click on any image to select it. Then:
If you’ve updated your logo, fonts, colors, text, images, and links, you’ve already taken care of most of the work. Your Webflow template is now tailored to your brand, and these changes are enough to make it feel uniquely yours.
But before you hit publish, there’s one more thing to cover: how to avoid accidentally undoing all that polish. Even the best templates can start to feel messy or inconsistent if you make certain changes the wrong way.
Changing font sizes, colors, or spacing directly on individual elements (instead of using global styles or classes) often leads to inconsistencies across pages. You may end up spending more time fixing scattered overrides than if you had made changes properly from the start.
What to do instead:
Edit fonts, colors, and spacing using base tags (like Body or All Headings) or shared classes from the Style Guide page or from. These changes will apply sitewide and maintain consistency.
Well-designed templates use intentional spacing to make content feel readable and balanced. When you start adding extra padding, shrinking margins, or tightening line spacing without consideration, the entire flow of the site starts to feel off.
What to do instead:
Stick to the spacing structure already built into the template. If you're adding new sections or content blocks, replicate the same spacing and alignment patterns to maintain a cohesive visual rhythm.
Some sections or elements may seem unnecessary right now, like a blog, testimonials, or case studies. But deleting them too soon can be a mistake. You might find a need for them later, and recreating the structure or styling from scratch can take a lot of time (and may not match the original design).
What to do instead:
If you’re unsure about a section or component, simply hide it. Select the element and use the “Hide” option in the Display settings. This removes it from the visible page, both for you and your visitors, but keeps the element intact so you can easily “unhide” it later.
As for entire pages you don’t need immediately, you don’t have to delete them either. Just unlink them from your navigation and mark them as “Draft” in the page settings. Draft pages won’t be published and won’t be accessible to search engines or users, but they’ll still be there for future use.
This is one of the most common concerns. You’ve followed all the steps, but the site feels… off. In most cases, the issue comes down to images.
Good design isn't just about layout…it’s about visual consistency, and images play a huge role in that. If the original template used high-quality, brand-relevant visuals and your replacements are mismatched or overly generic stock photos, the final result can feel underwhelming. So, make sure you choose images that::
Even when using free stock photos, you can still find high-quality, modern options that feel intentional. Sites like Lummi, Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay are good places to start.
Don’t worry…Webflow has your back!
Webflow automatically saves backups of your site every time you make significant changes. You can go back to any version, even the untouched original! To restore an earlier or the original version of the template:
It’s like an undo button for the entire site. You can experiment freely knowing there’s always a way to roll back.
Webflow templates are usually designed to look great across desktop, tablet, and mobile views right out of the box. If you're just swapping content (like replacing text or images), the design will hold up. But once you start making significant changes, like adding new sections, adjusting spacing, or changing layout structures, those updates won’t automatically adapt to smaller screen sizes. It’s up to you to check how your changes behave on tablet and mobile and adjust them manually if needed. So, here’s what to do:
Not at all. Webflow requires all templates to be built without using any custom code, which means you’ll be working entirely with Webflow’s native features and its visual Designer, no coding necessary.
Everything from updating text and images to changing fonts, colors, animations, and CMS content can be done using Webflow’s visual tools. The platform was built so that designers and business owners (even non-technical ones) could build high-quality websites without writing code.
That said, Webflow does allow for custom code if you ever want to add it, but it’s entirely optional and not needed to customize a template.
It happens! Even with a user-friendly platform like Webflow, some concepts or features can take time to grasp. Here are your options if you get stuck:
If it’s a template you got from me, you’re always welcome to reach out. I want your customization experience to be as smooth and stress-free as possible.
Over 150 businesses have used my templates to launch their websites faster and look more professional online. Go live in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of custom development, with one of my professionally designed and fully customizable website templates.
