WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application to a tool that can be used to create all types of web sites.
Whatever you can think of, somewhere around the world someone is most likely already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover the fastest way to build stunning content in WordPress web sites.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The Default WordPress Visual Editor Still Meeting All Of Your Content Creation And Editing Needs?
With so many advancements that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress users believe that the WordPress content editor is more suitable for performing regular content editing (e.g. text running down the page with centered images or videos, etc.), than building and customizing content elements within more complex layouts.
(The WordPress editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding 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, users would need to insert short codes into the content for each of the elements they would like to display on the web page …
Typically, this is not really an issue … unless you have to change the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or replace the background color inside box 2 from red to light green. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress visual content editor is supposed to provide users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, but as you can see, if you are working with more complex layouts, what you see in the visual editor is not really what you are getting when your page is published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, users could be better off working directly with the html source itself instead of the WordPress WYSIWYG editor when trying to create something other than simple layouts …
Even though WordPress is the most user-friendly CMS platform available, this makes it hard for non-technical website owners to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental issue 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 web page using the 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 screenshot, what you see in the editor does not look at all like what you see in the front end. This means that you need to translate mentally what your content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require multiple steps before you can start configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching tabs and performing updates to see how your content is coming along, which then impacts how fast you can create your content, as you wait for your page to reload.
A number of WordPress web developers have come up with different solutions with the goal of making content editing more intuitive. These range from standalone WordPress 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 end up including so many complex page design features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these solutions work, but they don’t really seem to address the fundamental issue of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing sophisticated content elements 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 become really frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your web content editor to function?
Now that you’ve asked this question, imagine the following scenario …
- You look at your content and if you spot something that needs to be fixed, just click on the content and start changing it. Your content has been instantly fixed.
- You can drag and drop items on 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 an item of content you’d like to add, so you just start typing, and your page gets built as you go, without delays, with no switching tabs, and no waiting for new web content to reload.
Would this not be the ideal way to build content for your WordPress website? A true WYSIWYG 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 pages quickly 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 And Landing Pages – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Editor For WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a revolutionary WordPress plugin that lets users quickly create and edit content on their posts and pages with a click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin provides WordPress users with a new and exciting way to speed up the process of creating great content on.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor and an item menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editing option to WordPress)
Thrive Content Builder 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 an in-depth look at each of the above plugins and how all of this exciting functionality works seamlessly together to help you transform and improve your web presence and create awesome sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder
You can easily add complex design layouts to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your page can be built and edited with ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” ease …
Once elements have been added to a page, you can then easily customize or edit these without going through multiple steps or complicated option screens …
You can also create highly attractive landing pages that can just as easily be edited or customized …
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 with the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin installed is so effortlessly simple, that the developers guarantee that you will never look back once you start using it
Learn more here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another amazing plugin that we have written about on this site.
Go here to learn more about using this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up the process of creating content for your WordPress website:
Easy Installation
Thrive Content Builder is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Building And Editing
Thrive Content Builder is is not only very simple to use, it also lets you edit and build content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the content editor – fonts, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of the plugin include:
- Eye-Catching Web Page Layouts With Drag & Drop Ease: Create any type of layout you can imagine with intuitive drag and drop functionality.
- Add Customizable Elements With No Short Codes Involved: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get a click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a very decent collection of functional and attractive design elements that you can customizable and use on your web pages without using short codes, such as pricing tables, content reveal feature, dividers, credit card icons, etc.
- Distraction-Free Content Creation: Not having to wait for the updates to refresh frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you build content or click through multiple steps to get what you need done.
(Thrive Content Builder lets you easily create, edit and customize page elements like testimonial boxes, columns, styled lists, dividers, responsive maps, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder provides many powerful features to website owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Built-In WordPress Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress editing options that you are used to (e.g. underlines, paragraph centering, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” list of multi-style elements available on your post or page screen when creating or editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin comes with a range of attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help you increase the effectiveness of your sales pages, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantees. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Add responsive columns, guarantee boxes, content section dividers, e.g. which will adjust to display great on different device screens.
- Add Animation To Pages: Thrive Content Builder’s Event Manager feature lets you create animated content 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 signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages lets you easily add conversion-optimized web pages to your web site)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time designing and customizing pages for your site
- 100% conversion-optimized page templates
- No coding skills needed
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages not only lets you create beautiful-looking content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of beautifully 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 over 30 templates available, with more templates scheduled for future release. In addition to the templates shown above, expect to see new templates in the future for email lead generation, sales pages, training pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Fully Customizable Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, to be able to fully customize a landing page template, you would need to either hire a web developer 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 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 creating conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you stunning pre-built web pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or edit any element of the page template …
With the landing page template sets included with this plugin, you can:
- Modify text in all headlines, buttons, bullet points, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of your landing page
- Change the background image and edit colours
- Edit the color of links, buttons, text, etc.
- Use your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Change content area size
- Change the order of elements on your pages
- Translate everything on the page into a different language
- Add any type of custom content anywhere inside any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own web pages from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change or customize any aspect of the page templates)
Thrive Lightbox – Transform Your Web Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin combo also includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully customizable 2-step opt-in forms and events to your web site …
(Add opt-in forms and events to your web pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Two-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 …
(Capture more leads and subscribers with a 2-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 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 attention-getting elements on your web pages, using a range of effects (e.g. zoom out, slide in from bottom to top, roll out, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your sales pages 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.
User Testimonials
Here are some of the testimonials and feedback that users have published about 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”
Thrive Content Builder – 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 with 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 with Thrive Content Builder.
Thrive Content Builder Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages Plugin provides free updates, new landing pages and upcoming features. The plugin developers are constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive products are well-supported, and users get unlimited updates, plus 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, complete money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product that will just keep getting better.
Product 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 Edition – This edition enables you to configure the plugin on a single domain. Cost includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This option lets you activate the plugin on all of your personal websites. Pricing includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – This option allows you to activate the plugin on all of your own web sites and your client web sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: The cost of purchasing the Thrive Content Builder software can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this content was published. This may or may not be the actual price set by the software seller 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 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 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 your design process and the ability to edit and customize anything and everything on your page, using the plugin’s click-to-edit and drag and drop features, which lets you get things done without having to go through multiple steps.
For a demo video of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive 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’ll see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, simply drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no additional steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your business online and create amazing sales pages and engaging content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For more details, check out the plugin here:
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