WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool to a tool that can be used to create all kinds of websites.
Whatever you can think of, somewhere around the world someone is most likely already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you learn how to create beautiful page layouts with drag & drop ease in WordPress sites.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The WordPress Content Editor Meet All Of Your Content Creation And Editing Needs?
Using the default WordPress content editor to create or edit complex page elements can be difficult, especially for non-technical WordPress users.
(The WordPress WYSIWYG content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding complex content elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the layout shown below …
To create the above boxes with text and buttons, you would normally need to insert short codes into your content for each page element you want to create …
Typically, this is not really an issue … until you have to edit a fundamental aspect of your layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or replace the background colour inside a box from dark green to light blue. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress editor is supposed to provide non-technical users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, when working with more complex layouts, what you see on your screen may not be the same as what you get …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, users would probably be better off working with the source html itself instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to create non-linear layouts …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it difficult for users with no coding skills to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental challenge with using shortcodes and HTML to create content in the default WordPress editor can be summarized as follows:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the editor match the content in the “front end” when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above, what you see when working in the content editor does not look anything like what you see in the front end. This means that you have to abstract what the content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require a number of steps before you can start configuring your page layout, or endlessly going back and forth between browser tabs and performing tweaks and updates to see how your content is coming along, which can interrupt the creative process, as you wait for pages to refresh.
A number of WordPress developers have tried to come up with different solutions aiming to address this issue. Some of these range from standalone WP plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WordPress themes that offer built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make creating complex layouts easier!)
Some solutions combine so many complex page design features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these alternative solutions work fine, but they still fail to address the fundamental problem with using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing non-linear content on a 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 page layouts quickly, this can start to become really frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your web content builder to work?
Now, visualize this …
- You see something in the content that needs to be changed so you, just click on the content and start editing it. Your content is then instantly changed.
- You can drag and drop elements around the page, and see them exactly as they will appear on the front end without having to mentally translate any HTML or shortcodes.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content you would like to create, so you simply begin typing, and your page gets built on the fly, without delays, no switching of tab browsers, and without having to wait for new web pages to resave and reload.
Would this not be the perfect way to build content for your web site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around the pages and posts?
(Imagine being able to create complex web page layouts ”on the fly” for your web content with no technical skills required!)
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 And Landing Pages – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Editing Plugin For WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive click-to-edit drag-and-drop content and landing page creation tool for WordPress.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin is a new and incredibly easy way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress site.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor and a menu that lets you click, then drag and drop design elements on your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editor to your WordPress site)
Thrive Landing Pages And Content Builder is actually a combination of the Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages plugins rolled into one, plus an additional plugin feature called Thrive Lightbox.
We will take a look at all of the above plugins and how these features work together to help you transform and improve your website and create amazing marketing pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder – WordPress Plugin
With Thrive Content Builder easily add content to your web pages and build complex page layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your web page can be configured using simple ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” …
Once you have positioned elements on your page, you can then further customize them without having to go through additional steps or opening extra settings windows …
The built-in Thrive Landing Pages also lets you create beautiful landing pages that can also be easily edited …
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing web pages and working on content with Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder installed is so amazingly easy, that the developers guarantee that you’ll never look back once you start using it
Learn more about this plugin here: Thrive Content Builder
The integrated Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin was created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another great plugin for WordPress we’ve reviewed on this site.
For more information about the plugin, see this article:
Plugin Benefits
Below are 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 Set Up. Ready To Go To Work In Minutes.
Thrive Content Builder is quite easy to install. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Edit & Build Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is is not only really simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you create and edit content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Builder
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the content editor – fonts, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include:
- Beautiful Page Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag-and-drop ease.
- Customizable Elements Included: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get an exciting and easy-to-use drag and drop content builder, but the plugin also includes an impressive collection of web design elements that you can use on your content layouts without using short codes, such as columns, feature grids, call to action buttons, responsive videos, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to deal with technical stuff for the page to load frees up your attention and allows you to build the pages your business needs, quickly and without having to deal with code or click through multiple layers of menus to get what you want done.
(Insert, edit and customize web page elements like testimonial boxes, pricing tables, table of contents builder, buttons, HTML code insert boxes, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder offers many features to WordPress users. Below we have listed just some of these features:
- All WordPress Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have all of the regular text editing options that you are used to (e.g. underline, centering text, font sizes, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” table of elements available on your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with various attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help increase the effectiveness of your sales pages, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantee forms. In addition to customization options, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Responsive Design: Add mobile-friendly elements like column layouts, text boxes, content section dividers, e.g. which will display great on different screens.
- Add Animation To Pages: The plugin’s Event Manager feature lets you create animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Web Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – Landing Page Template Sets
Thrive Landing Pages provides sets of templates that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language to take your visitors all the way from signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages lets you easily add conversion-optimized pages to your web site)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time creating pages
- 100% conversion-optimized pages
- No technical skills required
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Content 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 page templates and fully customizable …
(Landing page sets that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language)
There are 30+ templates available, with more templates being worked on. In addition to the templates shown above, expect to see new templates in the future for email lead generation, sales pages, lesson pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Completely Customizable And Flexible Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, in order to have a completely customizable landing page template, you would need to either pay a web developer to do the work, or learn how to code web pages and figure out how to edit the page code 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 mess around with code or use overly 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 building conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you stunning pre-designed page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or customize anything on your page …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Change text in any headline, bullet point, button, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other part of the landing page
- Change the background image or background color
- Edit the color of text, links, buttons, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Change content area size
- Rearrange the order of elements on your pages
- Translate pages into a different language
- Add any type of custom content inside any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change or edit any element of your page templates)
Thrive Lightbox Plugin – Transform Your Web Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin combo includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable 2-step opt-in forms and events to your web pages …
(Add lead capture forms and animation to your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process helps improve your conversion rates. Visitors click on an image or button, and then they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Capture more leads and subscribers with a two-step opt-in process)
Event Manager
An “event” consists of a trigger and an action. You can make an opt-in form appear when your visitor clicks or hovers over a button or an image, 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 a range of animation effects (e.g. fade out, slide in from right to left, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over the events, triggers and design.
Testimonials
Below are a few of the testimonials and comments customers 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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”Your stuff is beautifully designed, fast and has great options for marketers that you just don’t see with other themes. Great, great job! Absolutely love Thrive! David Coleman”
Thrive Content Builder – Useful Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any WordPress theme, not just with the Thrive Landing Pages plugin. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on existing pages or posts that were not created with the plugin installed.
You can add short codes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly on the front end.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built with Thrive Content Builder.
Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages comes with free updates, new landing pages and upcoming features. The plugin developers are constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive plugins are really well-supported, and users get lifetime updates, plus one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, complete money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that will just keep getting better.
Product License Cost
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 Licensing – This license enables you to activate the plugin on 1 website only. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This license option lets you run the plugin on all websites that you own. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency License – Use on all your web sites & on all your client domains. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: The cost to purchase the Thrive Content Builder product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this review was published. This may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the current pricing:
Additional Information
The Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder plugin developers repeatedly 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 your design process and the ability to change everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that allows you to get things done without having to go through multiple steps.
For demo videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive Content Builder website.
The Bottom Line …
If you want to edit something, simply click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, you can see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, you drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no overly complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your website and create amazing marketing pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
To learn more, check out the plugin here:
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