WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool into a tool being used to design all types of web pages – marketing pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, somewhere around the world someone is probably already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover the simplest visual editor for WordPress.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
The WordPress Content Editor – Is There A Smarter Tool To Create Beautiful-Looking Content In WordPress?
Using the WordPress visual content editor to create or edit complex web site pages can be quite difficult for non-technical users.
(The WordPress editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding more complex page 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 add short codes to the content for every page element you want to display …
Typically, this is not an issue … until you choose to change the layout (for example, move part of the content from box 3 into box 2, or replace the background colour inside box 2 from bright red to orange. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code.
The WordPress visual content editor is supposed to provide users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, but as you can see, when working with more complex page elements, often what you see in the visual editor 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 instances, some people argue that users would probably be better off working with the html source itself instead of the visual editor when trying to create complex layouts …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it hard for WordPress site owners without knowledge of HTML or CSS to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental challenge of using HTML and shortcodes to create content in WordPress can be summarized as follows:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a web page using this editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the editor resemble the “front end” content when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above, what you see when working in the content editor doesn’t look at all like what you see in the front end. This means that users need to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require multiple 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 then impacts how fast you can create your content, as you wait for your updates to refresh.
A number of WordPress web developers have come up with various solutions with the aim of making content editing easier. These solutions range from standalone 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 creating complex page layouts easier!)
Some solutions end up including so many complex page-building features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these editors work, but they don’t really address the fundamental challenge of using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. Creating and adding sophisticated content elements 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 your page builder to behave?
Now that you’ve asked this question, imagine this …
- You spot something in your content that needs fixing so you, just click on the content and start editing it. Your content has been instantly changed.
- You can just drag and drop elements around the page, and the page looks exactly as it will appear on the front end without having to mentally translate shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for an item of content you would like to add, so you simply begin typing, and you build your web page on the fly, with no delays, no tab switching, and without having to wait for new pages to republish and reload.
Would this not be the perfect way to create content for your website? A true WYSIWYG content builder where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your page?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages in real-time for your web content without 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 – WordPress Click-To-Edit Drag And Drop Content And Page Creator
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive click-to-edit drag and drop content and page builder plugin for WordPress.
Thrive Content Builder provides you with a new and exciting way to speed up the process of creating amazing content on your WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and an item menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements on your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content builder to WordPress)
The plugin 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’ll take an in-depth look at each of the above plugins and how all of this powerful functionality works seamlessly together to help you transform and improve your web presence and create awesome sales pages and content.
Thrive Content Builder – WordPress Plugin
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily add content to your web pages and build complex page layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every element on your page can be built by ”clicking-to-edit” and “dragging and dropping” things around the page …
Once elements have been positioned on the page, you can then continue to customize or edit them without having to go through additional steps or switching tabs …
The built-in functionality of the plugin also lets you work inside highly attractive 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 pages with the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin installed is so effortlessly easy, that the developers warn that once you start using it, you’ll never look back!
More info: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin for WordPress that we have previously reviewed on this site.
Go here to learn more about the plugin:
Benefits Of Using Thrive Content And Landing Page Builder
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up content creation:
Fast And Easy To Install And Configure. Ready To Use In Very Little Time.
Thrive Content Builder installs just like every other WordPress plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Creation
Thrive Content Builder is simple to use and lets you create content in real-time.
What You See Is Really What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “backend” as you work within the content editor – fonts, visual elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see on the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Attractive Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag and drop ease.
- Design Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get a visually exciting drag and drop content builder, but the plugin also includes a collection of functional and attractive web design elements that you can use on your web pages without using shortcodes, for e.g.: pricing tables, borderless content, buttons, responsive Google maps, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to wait for your new content 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 steps to get what you want done.
(Add, edit and customize page elements like testimonials, content toggle, star ratings for review pages, page section dividers, responsive video embeds, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder provides many features to WordPress users. Here are just some of these features:
- All WordPress Content Functionality Is Still Available: You have all of the regular text editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, paragraph centering, headings and font sizes, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” list of multi-style elements to your post or page screen for editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin includes various attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help increase the effectiveness of your sales pages, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonial boxes, and guarantee forms. In addition to being customizable, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Add responsive columns, text boxes, content dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on devices with differently sized screens.
- Add Animation To Web Pages: The Event Manager feature lets you insert animated content elements, 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 from signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages gives you conversion-optimized page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money creating attractive-looking web pages
- 100% conversion-optimized landing page templates
- No web coding skills needed
- Works with all themes
Thrive Landing Pages and 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 landing 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 currently 30+ templates available, with more templates being worked on. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new web page templates for email lead generation, sales pages, lesson pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Fully Customizable Landing Page Template
Normally, in order to fully customize landing page templates, you would need to either pay a web designer to do the work, or learn web coding languages like HTML and CSS 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 mess around with 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 building conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you beautiful pre-built page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that lets you change or customize any element of your page …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you can do the following:
- Change text in any headline, button, bullet point, etc.
- Delete text, images or any other element of the landing page
- Replace the background image and edit colors
- Edit the color of buttons, links, text, etc.
- Choose your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Change the size of the content area
- Change the order of elements on your pages
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add any type of custom content inside any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own pages from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change and customize any aspect of the page templates)
Transform Your WordPress Site Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox
The Thrive plugin package also includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully editable 2-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your website …
(Add lead capture forms and animation to your WordPress pages with Thrive Lightbox)
2-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-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 …
(Opt-in forms can help improve your conversion rates.)
Thrive Lightbox 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 attention-getting elements on your pages, 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 the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have submitted regarding the Thrive Content Builder plugin:
”Wow! This is just getting better & better. This plugin is making my websites look so professional. Keep up the great work and thank you for the new features. Ladonna Ragalin”
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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 theme in WordPress, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content that was not created using the plugin.
You can add shortcodes inside Thrive Content Builder or Thrive Landing Pages and they will be displayed correctly when published.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built using Thrive Content Builder.
Product Support
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder 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 very well-supported, and users get lifetime updates, and one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, full money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product that just keeps getting better.
Plugin Price
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 License – This edition allows you to use the plugin on one web site only. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This option lets you run the plugin on unlimited websites that you personally own. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – Use on your websites and on client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: Pricing details of this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was current when this review was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the plugin developer when you visit the plugin site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
The Thrive Landing Pages and Content 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 page elements and beautiful, conversion-optimized template sets that help to make designing your content faster, and on the other hand, you also have complete control over your design process and the freedom to change and customize everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, which allows you to see exactly how the content you are working on will look on the “front end” when published.
For a demo video of the plugin, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive 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 immediately. If you want to move something, simply drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your web presence and create awesome sales pages and engaging content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For complete details, check out the plugin here:
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