WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application into a tool being used to design all types of pages – direct sales pages, portfolio pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, someone is probably already building it with WordPress!
In this article you will discover the fastest way to create beautiful layouts in WordPress.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
The WordPress Editor – Is There An Easier Option For Creating Content Layouts In WordPress?
With all the many improvements that the WordPress platform has gone through in recent years, many WordPress developers and users feel that the WordPress editor is not really suitable for creating or customizing sophisticated page layouts.
(The WordPress WYSIWYG content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding more complex content elements can be challenging!)
For example, if you look at the screenshot below …
To add the above to a page would require inserting something like this inside your default WordPress editor …
Typically, this is not really an issue … unless you want to edit some part of your layout (for example, move part of the content from box 1 into box 2, or replace the button inside a box from red to dark red. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress visual content editor is supposed to be an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) content editor, but as you can see, if you are trying to edit more complex content elements, what you see on your editor 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 situations, users would probably be better off working with the source html itself instead of the WordPress visual editor when trying to add fancy layouts …
Even though WordPress is the most user-friendly CMS platform available, this makes it hard for non-technical users to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental challenge with having to use shortcodes and HTML to create content in WordPress can be summarized as follows:
1) Speed – How long does it take to create a web page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the ”back end” match the “front end” content when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above image, what you see when working in the back end looks nothing like what you see in the front end. This means that you have to translate mentally what the content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require taking several steps before you can start configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching tabs and performing tweaks and updates to see how your content is progressing, which then affects how fast you can create your content, as you wait for the content to refresh.
A number of WordPress developers have tried to come up with a range of solutions with the aim of making content editing more intuitive. These range from WP plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WP themes that include built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make creating complex content easier!)
Some solutions require so many page-building features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these editors work, but they still don’t address the fundamental challenge of using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. 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 your web content to look ”perfect” quickly, this can start to become very frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your web content?
Now, imagine this …
- You spot something in your content that needs fixing so you, simply click on the content and start changing it. Your content has been instantly fixed.
- 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 visualize shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for an item of content you’d like to create, so you simply start typing, and your page gets built on the fly, without delays, no tab switching, and no waiting for new pages to refresh 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 page?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages quickly 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 Plugin – The Ultimate Drag And Drop Front End Visual Content Builder For WordPress Web Sites
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive WordPress click-to-edit drag-and-drop content builder.
Thrive Content Builder is a new and incredibly easy way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress site.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and a sidebar menu that lets you click, then drag and drop design elements on your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual editor to WordPress)
The Thrive Content And Landing Page Builder plugin is actually a combination of the Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages plugins merged into one, plus an additional plugin feature called Thrive Lightbox.
We’ll take a look at each of the above and how all of this powerful functionality works seamlessly together to help you easily transform and improve your website and create awesome marketing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder For WordPress
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every element of your web page can be configured by ”clicking-to-edit” and “dragging and dropping” things around the page …
Once elements have been added to the page, you can then edit these without having to go through multiple 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 Landing Pages and Content Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing pages with Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages installed is so effortlessly easy, that the developers guarantee that you will never look back once you start using it
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another fantastic plugin we’ve reviewed on this site.
See this post to read about this plugin:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up the process of creating content for your website:
Ready To Use In No Time
Thrive Content Builder is really easy to install. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Build And Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is simple and intuitive to use and lets you create, edit and add content right inside your pages in real-time.
A Truly Visual Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back-end” as you work within the editor – typefaces, visual elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits and advantages include:
- Beautiful Web Page Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag and drop ease.
- Customizable Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get an amazing drag and drop WordPress content editor, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of functional and eye-catching web design elements that you can customizable and add to your pages without using shortcodes, for e.g.: tabbed content, star ratings for review pages, section dividers, Google Map embeds, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to constantly switch tabs as you tweak your content and then wait for the updates to reload frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you build or edit your content or click through multiple layers of menus to get what you need done.
(Easily add, edit and customize web page elements like testimonial boxes, flat design elements, feature grids, buttons, code insert boxes, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder provides WP users many powerful features. Here are just a few of these:
- Regular WordPress Editor Functionality Is Still Available: You have all of the regular WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, paragraph centering, headings, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements Menu: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” list of elements to your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with a range of attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help increase your sales conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantee forms. In addition to customization options, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Responsive Page Design: Add responsive elements like column layouts, boxes, dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on devices with differently sized screens.
- Add Animation Events To Pages: The Event Manager feature lets you add animated page elements, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – Landing Page Templates
Thrive Landing Pages provides sets of templates that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language to take your visitors from initial signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages plugin lets you easily add conversion-optimized pages to your web site)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time creating attractive-looking web pages for your website
- 100% conversion-optimized pages
- No web coding skills required
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder not only can be used to create beautiful content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of professionally designed, page templates that are conversion-optimized and fully customizable …
(Landing page template sets 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 that are currently available, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, lesson pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customizable Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, in order to fully customize landing page templates, you would need to either pay a web site designer to do the work, or learn web coding languages like HTML and CSS 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 web pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or customize any element of your page template …
With the landing page template sets included with this plugin, you can do the following:
- Change text in all buttons, headlines, bullet points, etc.
- Delete text, images or any other part of your landing page
- Replace the background image or colors
- Change the color of links, buttons, text, etc.
- Use your own fonts
- Use your own images and graphics
- Change the size of the content area
- Change the order of elements on the page
- Translate everything on the page into different languages
- Add any kind of custom content anywhere in your pages
- Start with a blank page and create your own page templates, or even build a custom landing pages library.
(Change and edit anything on the page template)
Thrive Lightbox Plugin – Transform Your Web Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin package also includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully editable 2-step opt-in forms and events to your site …
(Add opt-in forms and animated elements to your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
2-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-step opt-in process helps to increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on a button or image, 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 opt-in forms appear when when visitors click or hover their mouse over a button or graphic elements, or when someone reaches a certain point on the page. You can also use the Event Manager to animate attention-getting elements on your page, using a range of animation effects (e.g. fade out, slide in from left to right, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your marketing pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over your events, triggers and design.
Testimonials
Here are just some testimonials and comments that customers have submitted for Thrive Content Builder:
”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”
Plugin Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any theme in WordPress, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. You cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content that was not created with the plugin.
You can add WordPress shortcodes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will be displayed correctly on your website.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built using Thrive Content Builder.
Product 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 updates, plus 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, thirty day, complete money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that will just keep getting better.
Software 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 License – This allows you to run the plugin on a single site. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This option enables you to run the plugin on unlimited web sites that you own. Cost includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – Use on all your domains & on all your client domains. Price includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: Pricing details of the product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the plugin is selling for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Info
The developers of the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages 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 page elements and templates that help to speed up page design and content creation, and on the other hand, you have 100% control over the design process and the ability to change anything and everything on your web page, using the plugin’s click-to-edit and drag and drop features, that allows you to work unhindered by overly complicated steps.
For demo videos showing how the plugin works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the plugin website.
We Recommend …
If you want to edit something, simply click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, do it, and you can see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, all you have to do is drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your website and create amazing sales 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 details, check out the plugin here:
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