WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application to a tool that is now used to design all types of web pages – direct sales pages, product showcase pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, someone is probably already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you discover how to create beautiful web page layouts with drag & drop ease in WordPress sites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The WordPress Content Editor Still Meet All Of Your Page Design Needs?
With so many developments that the WordPress platform has gone through in recent years, many WordPress users and developers feel that using the WordPress content editor to build or edit complex website pages can sometimes be quite difficult.
(The WordPress visual content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding more complex content elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the content shown below …
To create the above in your content would require typing something that looks like this inside your default WordPress visual editor …
Typically, this is not an issue … until you choose to change a fundamental aspect of the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 3 into box 2, or replace the button inside a box from red to purple. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with code inside the editor.
The WordPress visual editor is supposed to provide non-technical users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, but as you can see, if you are trying to create more complex page elements, what you see in the visual editor is not what you are getting when the web page gets published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, you may even be better off working inside the html (text) editor tab instead of the visual editor when trying to create fancy page elements …
Even though WordPress is the most user-friendly CMS platform available, this makes it difficult for WordPress site owners without knowledge of HTML or CSS to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental challenge of having to use HTML and shortcodes to create content in the default WordPress visual editor can be summarized by asking 2 questions:
1) Speed – How long does it take to create a web page using this editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the editor resemble the content in the “front end” when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above, what you see in the back end doesn’t look even remotely similar to what you see in the front end. This means that users have to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require a number of steps before you can start configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching browser tabs and performing updates to see how your content is progressing, which can interrupt the creative process, as you wait for the updates to refresh.
A number of WordPress web developers have come up with a range of solutions to make the visual editor easier. Some of these solutions range from plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to themes that come with built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make content creation easier!)
Some solutions include so many page design features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these editors work fine, but they don’t really address the fundamental problem with using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing non-linear content on a web page becomes overly complicated, involves multiple steps and doesn’t match what users expect to see on the “front end.”
If you want to create or edit complex layouts quickly, this can start to become really frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your web content?
Now that you’ve asked this question, imagine the following …
- You spot something in the content that needs to be changed so you, just click on the content and start writing. Your content has been instantly edited.
- You can just drag and drop items around the page, and see them exactly as they will appear on the front end without having to mentally translate HTML or shortcodes.
- You have an idea for an item of content you would like to create, so you immediately start typing, and you build your page as you go, without delays, with no switching of tab browsers, and no waiting for pages to republish and reload.
Would that not be the ideal way to create content for your web site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages ”on the fly” for your web content without technical constraints!)
If you are ready to change the way you create content in WordPress site, then here is a plugin that you may want to consider using …
Thrive Content Builder Plugin – The Ultimate Drag And Drop Front End Content Builder For WordPress Web Sites
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive click-to-edit drag and drop content and landing page editing plugin for WordPress.
Thrive Content Builder is a new and exciting way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress website.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor with a sidebar menu that lets you drag and drop elements to your page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editing option to your WordPress site)
The plugin is actually a combination of the Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages plugins combined into one, plus an additional plugin feature called Thrive Lightbox.
In this article we’ll take a look at each of the above and how these powerful features work together to help you transform and improve your web presence and create amazing sales pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Creation Plugin For WordPress
You can easily add content to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every element of your page can be created with ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” ease …
Once elements have been positioned on your page, you can then further edit or customize them without having to go through additional steps or switching tabs …
The built-in Thrive Landing Pages also lets you build highly attractive landing pages that can also be easily edited …
Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing pages with the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin installed is so effortlessly simple, that the developers warn that you will never look at creating and adding content the same way once you start using it
For more details about the plugin go here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin that we have reviewed on this site.
Go here for more information about using this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up your page design and content creation process:
Fast And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Thrive Content Builder installs like every other WordPress plugin. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Edit And Build Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is is not only simple to use, it also lets you create, edit and add content right inside your pages in real-time.
What You See Is Truly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back-end” as you work within the editor – typefaces, visual elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Some additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Beautiful Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any kind of layout you can imagine with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
- Add Customizable Elements With No Short Codes Involved: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get an exciting and an easy-to-use drag and drop content builder, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of customizable design elements that you can insert into your layouts without using shortcodes, such as flat design elements, feature grids, testimonials, responsive Google maps, etc.
- Distraction-Free Content Creation: Not having to deal with technical stuff for the page to reload frees up your attention and allows you to build the web pages your business needs, quickly and without having to deal with code or click through multiple steps to get what you need done.
(Insert, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, pricing tables, borderless content, page section dividers, credit card icons, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder offers WordPress users many powerful features. Below we have listed just a few:
- Built-In WordPress Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have all of the built-in WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, centering text, font sizes, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements Menu: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” table of multi-style elements available on your post or page screen when creating and editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin comes with various eye-catching and customizable elements that will help you increase your conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonial boxes, and guarantees. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Page Design: Add mobile-friendly elements like column layouts, text boxes, dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on different-sized screens.
- Add Animation To Web Pages: The plugin’s Event Manager feature lets you insert animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Web Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – Landing Page Sets
Landing page sets are templates that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language to take your visitors from signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages plugin provides you with conversion-optimized page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time designing landing pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No tech skills required
- Works with all themes
Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder not only can be used to create beautiful-looking content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of professionally designed, conversion optimized web page templates and fully customizable …
(Thrive Landing Pages provides sets of templates that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language)
There are over thirty templates available, with more templates scheduled for release. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Fully Customizable And Flexible Landing Page Template
Normally, to be able to have a fully customizable landing page template, you would need to either hire a web developer to do the work, or learn how to code web pages and figure out what to do yourself.
As Shane Melaugh, co-founder of Thrive Themes says …
“There are many ways to get a pre-designed page published quickly, but the problem comes with customization. Total design freedom requires either hiring web developers to do the work for you, or learn how to do it yourself, which involves learning how to code or use complicated editors. Customizable usually means complicated, expensive or time-consuming. So, you can either have something that is fast and easy to set up, or something that is customizable and flexible. But you couldn’t have both … until now! With Thrive Landing Pages you get the best of both worlds for creating conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you great-looking pre-built pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change and edit any element of the page templates …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Change text in any bullet point, button, headline, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other part of your landing page
- Replace all background images or colors
- Edit the color of text, links, buttons, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Modify content area size
- Rearrange the order of elements on your page
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add any type of custom content anywhere inside any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own landing pages from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change and edit anything on your page templates)
Transform Your WordPress Site Into A Powerful Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive package also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully configurable two-step opt-in forms and animated objects to your WordPress site …
(Add lead capture forms and animated elements to your sales pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process can increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on a button or image, and then they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Visitors click on a button and are presented with an opt-in form)
Event Manager
An “event” consists of a trigger and an action. You can make opt-in forms appear when your visitor clicks or hovers their mouse over a button or graphic elements, or when someone scrolls down to a certain point on the page. You can also use the Event Manager to animate images on your page, using various animation effects (e.g. fade in, slide in from right to left, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your WordPress site with Thrive Lightbox)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over events, triggers and design.
User Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials that users have provided for the Thrive Content Builder plugin:
”You guys are simply awesome I am loving everything you are doing at the moment. Keep up the great work you really are making such a big difference in this field. Jule Fuller”
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”Great stuff! I am really impressed by all the new additions. You guys have shown a true commitment to making these themes and the Content Builder awesome. Michael Johnson”
Thrive Content Builder Plugin – Useful Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any WordPress theme, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. You cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content that was not created with the plugin installed.
You can add shortcodes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly on the front end.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content you build with Thrive Content Builder.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin Support
Thrive Content Builder Plugin comes with free updates, new landing templates and upcoming features. The plugin developers are constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive software is really well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades, and one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 100% money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that just keeps getting better.
Product Pricing
At the time of writing, the pricing information shown below includes all three components described above (Thrive Content Builder, Thrive Landing Pages & Thrive Lightbox):
- Single Site Edition – This option enables you to set up the plugin on a single site. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to install the plugin on unlimited sites that you personally own. Pricing includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – This lets you use the plugin on all of your own domains and all client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: The cost to purchase the Thrive Content Builder product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct when this content was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the software author when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price:
Additional Information
The developers of the Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder plugin emphatically assert that the plugin’s architecture gives you the “best of both worlds,” and help bring back the “joy of creating content.”
On the one hand, you have the time-saving benefits of ready-made web page elements and beautiful, pre-designed template sets that help to speed up your content creation, and on the other hand, you also have 100% control over the design process and the freedom to change anything and everything on your page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that lets you see how the content you are working on will display to visitors when published.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the plugin website.
Our Recommendation …
If you want to edit something, you click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, you’ll see the change happen instantly. If you want to move something, simply drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no extra steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your web site and create amazing marketing pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content, Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For more information, check out the plugin here:
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