WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool to a tool that can be used to design all types of pages – direct sales pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, someone is bound to be already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover the most intuitive visual editor for WordPress.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The Default WordPress Visual Content Editor Still Meeting All Of Your Page Design Needs?
With all the rapid advancements that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress developers and users feel that using the default WordPress editor to create or edit more complex web site pages can be quite challenging.
(The built-in WordPress content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” text and media, but adding complex content elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, if you look at the illustration below …
To create the above in your content would require adding something that looks like this into the WordPress editor …
Generally, this is not an issue … unless you have to change your layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or change the button inside a box from red to gold. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code.
The WordPress 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, when creating with complex layouts, often what you see on your editor screen is not really what you are getting when the content is 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 WordPress text editor tab instead of the WordPress visual editor when trying to add fancy layouts …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it difficult for users with no knowledge of HTML or CSS to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental issue with having to use HTML and shortcodes to create content in the default WordPress WYSIWYG editor can be summarized as follows:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a web 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 image, what you see when working in the content editor does not look even remotely similar to what you see in the front end. This means that users need to abstract what the content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require taking a number of steps before you can start configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching tabs and performing tweaks and updates to see how your content is coming along, which can interrupt the creative process, as you wait for the content to refresh.
Many WordPress web developers have tried to come up with a range of solutions to address this issue. These solutions range from WP plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WordPress themes that provide built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make content creation easier!)
Some solutions combine so many complex page-building features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these solutions work fine, but they still don’t address the fundamental issue of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating and adding 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 your page content to look ”perfect” quickly, this can start to become quite frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your page editor to work?
Now that you’ve asked this question, visualize this …
- You see something in your content that needs to be corrected so you, simply click on the content and start editing it. Your content is then instantly fixed.
- You can 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 code.
- You have an idea for some content you would like to create, so you immediately begin typing, and your page gets built as you go, with no delays, no tab switching, and without having to wait for new web content to refresh and reload.
Would this not be the ideal way to build content for your WordPress web site? A true visual editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your posts and pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex web 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 And Page Builder
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a unique plugin for WordPress that gives you complete control over every aspect of your content pages with true click-to-edit and drag and drop simplicity.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin is a new and incredibly easy way to speed up the process of adding great content to your WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor with a sidebar menu that lets you click, then drag and drop design elements on your page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editing option to WordPress)
The Thrive Content Builder And Landing Pages 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 plugins and how these exciting features work together to help you transform and improve your web presence and create amazing marketing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder For WordPress
You can easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every element on your web page can be created with ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” ease …
Once elements have been positioned on the page, you can then easily customize these without going through additional steps or opening more settings screens …
The built-in Thrive Landing Pages also lets you create beautiful landing pages and easily customize these …
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing pages and working on content with Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages installed is so effortlessly simple, that the developers guarantee that once you start using it, you’ll never look back!
Learn more about this plugin here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin we’ve written about on this site.
To learn more about this plugin, go here:
Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up content creation:
Easy To Install
Thrive Content Builder is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin account and activate.
Add & Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is very simple and intuitive to use and lets you create content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back-end” as you work within the content editor – typefaces, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of using this plugin include the following:
- Stunning Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with intuitive drag and drop functionality.
- Design Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get an amazing click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes an impressive collection of functional and attractive design elements that you can customizable and add to your content layouts without using shortcodes, such as tabbed content, feature grids, call to action buttons, responsive Google maps, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to wait for the updated 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 layers of menus to get what you want done.
(Thrive Content Builder lets you easily add, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, content toggle, borderless content, buttons, responsive video embeds, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder offers a number of great features to WordPress users. Here are just a few:
- Built-In Editor Functionality Is Still Available: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. underline, paragraph centering, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” table of elements to your post or page screen for creating and editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin comes with a range of eye-catching and customizable elements that will help increase your sales conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonial boxes, and guarantee forms. In addition to customization options, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Responsive Element Design: Add responsive columns, boxes, dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on devices with differently sized screens.
- Add Animation To Pages: Thrive Content Builder’s Event Manager feature lets you create animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – Landing Page 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 initial signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages gives you access to conversion-optimized page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time designing and customizing pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No technical 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, web page templates that are conversion-optimized 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 planned for release. In addition to the templates that are currently available, expect to see new templates in the future for email lead generation, sales pages, training pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customize Your Landing Page Template
Normally, to be able to fully customize a landing page template, 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 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 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 attractive pre-built web page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or edit anything on the page …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Edit text in any headline, bullet point, button, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of the landing page
- Replace all background images or color
- Change the color of buttons, links, text, etc.
- Use your own fonts
- Use your own images and graphics
- Edit the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of elements on the page
- Translate pages into a different language
- Add any kind of custom content in the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change and customize anything on your page templates)
Transform Your Website Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox
The Thrive package includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully customizable 2-step opt-in forms and events to your WordPress site …
(Add opt-in forms and animated objects to your web pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Thrive Lighbox 2-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-step opt-in process can help increase your conversion rates. When visitors click on an image or button 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 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 effects (e.g. fade in, slide in from bottom to top, rotate, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your web pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over your events, triggers and design.
Testimonials From Users
Below are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have published about 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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“I’m blown away by the plugin. Keep up the incredible, WordPress changing work, guys! Dean Phillips”
Plugin Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any WordPress theme, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on existing pages or posts that were 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 you build using Thrive Content Builder.
Product Support
Thrive Content and Page Builder 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 software is really well-supported, and users get unlimited software upgrades, plus 1 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 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 Edition – This edition enables you to run the plugin on a single web site. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license lets you configure the plugin on all web sites that you own. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – This option lets you set up the plugin on all of your own websites and any client websites. Pricing includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: Price details for Thrive Content Builder depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Presently, the product retails for the prices shown above. This may not be the actual price set by the software seller when you visit the site and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing here:
Additional Info
The developers of the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin repeatedly maintain 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 time-saving features like ready-made web page elements and beautiful, pre-designed template sets that help to speed up page design and content creation, and on the other hand, you have complete control over the design process and the ability to edit and customize everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that allows you to see how the content you are working on will display after being published.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive Content Builder website.
We Recommend …
If you want to edit something, you click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, do it, and you will see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, all you need to do is simply drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no overly complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your web site and create awesome sales pages and content, Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For full details, visit the plugin website:
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