WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application to a tool being used to design all types of web pages – marketing pages, product showcase pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, somewhere around the world someone is most likely already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you discover the most easy-to-use WYSIWYG content editor for WordPress.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
The WordPress Visual Content Editor – Is There An Easier Option To Design Beautiful-Looking Website Pages In WordPress?
With so many improvements that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress developers feel that the WordPress editor is more suitable for performing regular content editing (e.g. blocks of text running down the page with left-aligned images or videos, etc.), than creating and customizing page elements within complex layouts.
(The default WordPress WYSIWYG content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional text and images, but adding complex page elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, if you look at the illustration below …
To create the above in a page would require inserting something that looks like this inside the WordPress editor …
Generally, this is not an issue … unless you decide to reconfigure your layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or change the background colour inside box 3 from dark green to light green. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with code inside the content editor.
The WordPress visual content editor is supposed to be an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, if you are trying to create complex content elements, often what you see on your editor screen is not what you are getting when your content gets published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some instances, some people argue that you could be better off working inside the text editor tab instead of the visual editor when trying to create complex page elements …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it difficult for WordPress site owners without coding skills to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental challenge of using HTML and shortcodes to create content in the default WordPress WYSIWYG editor can be summarized by asking two questions:
1) Speed – How long does it take to create a page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the editor resemble the content in the “front end” when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above screenshot, what you see in the back end doesn’t look at all like what you see in the front end. This means that you need to mentally translate what your content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require taking several steps before you can begin configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching browser tabs and performing updates to see how your content is coming along, which interrupts the creative process, as you wait for pages to refresh.
A number of WordPress web developers have come up with various solutions aiming to address this issue. Some of these solutions range from stand alone plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to themes that include 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 combining so many page-building features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these alternative solutions work, but they don’t really seem to address the fundamental issue of using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. 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 your web content to look “just right” 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 pages?
Now, imagine the following …
- You look at your content and if you see something that needs changing, just click on the content and start changing it. Your content has been instantly changed.
- You can just drag and drop items on the page, and see them exactly as they will appear on the front end without having to mentally translate code.
- You have an idea for some content you’d like to create, so you immediately start typing, and your page gets built as you go, with no delays, with no switching tabs, and without having to wait for new content to reload.
Would that not be the ideal way to build content for your WordPress site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your posts and pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex web page layouts 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 And Landing Pages – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Creation Tool For WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a unique WordPress plugin that allows you to easily add content to WordPress posts and pages using a true WYSIWYG click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
Thrive Content Builder is a new and incredibly easy way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and an item menu that lets you click, then drag and drop elements on your page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new editor to WordPress)
Thrive Landing Pages And Content Builder 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.
In this article we’ll take an in-depth look at all of the above and how these exciting features work seamlessly together to help you easily transform and improve your website and create awesome sales pages and content.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin
This plugin lets you easily add content to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your page can be designed by dragging and dropping things around the page and then clicking to edit them …
Once you have positioned elements on a page, you can then further edit them without going through multiple steps or opening more configuration windows …
You can also create highly attractive landing pages and easily edit these …
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 the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin installed is so effortlessly easy, that the developers warn that you’ll never look at creating content the same way once you start using it
For more details about this plugin go here: Thrive Content Builder
The integrated Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin was created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another fantastic plugin for WordPress that we have previously reviewed on this site.
See this page to read about this plugin:
Benefits
Below are just some of the benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up your page design and content creation process:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
Thrive Content Builder installs just like any other WP plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate.
Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is very simple and intuitive to use and lets you create, edit and add content right inside your web pages in real-time.
What You See Is Exactly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the editor – typefaces, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see in the front end of your site.
Some additional plugin benefits include:
- Attractive Page Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any type of layout you can imagine with intuitive drag and drop functionality.
- Add Design Elements With No Shortcodes Involved: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get an exciting and an easy-to-use click-to-edit content editor, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of functional and attractive web design elements that you can insert into your layouts without using shortcodes, like pricing tables, table of contents builder, buttons, responsive videos, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to constantly switch tabs as you edit content and then wait for the new content to reload frees up your attention and allows you to build the content your business needs, quickly and without having to deal with code or click through multiple steps to get what you want done.
(Insert, edit and customize page elements like testimonial boxes, content toggle, table of contents builder, section dividers, HTML code insert boxes, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder provides many great features to WP users. Here are just some:
- Built-In WordPress Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, paragraph formatting, headings, 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 provides you with various attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help you 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, boxes, dividers, e.g. which will display great on different-sized screens.
- Add Animation Events To Web Pages: Thrive Content Builder’s Event Manager feature lets you insert animations, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – 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 plugin gives you conversion-optimized web page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money designing gorgeous web pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web pages
- No technical skills needed
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder not only lets you create beautiful content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of professionally designed, landing 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 currently 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, lesson pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Completely Customizable And Flexible Landing Page Template
Normally, to be able to fully customize landing page templates, you would need to either hire 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 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 great-looking pre-built web pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or edit any aspect of your page templates …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you can:
- Modify text in any bullet point, headline, button, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other part of the landing page
- Replace any background images and background color
- Edit the color of links, text, buttons, etc.
- Choose your own fonts
- Select your own images
- Modify the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of page elements
- Translate everything on the page into different languages
- Add custom content anywhere in the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change or customize any aspect of the page)
Transform Your Site Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive plugin package also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully customizable two-step opt-in forms and events to your web pages …
(Add opt-in forms and animated elements to your pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
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)
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 reaches a certain point on the page. You can also use the Event Manager to animate attention-getting elements on your pages, using a range of animation effects (e.g. fade in, slide in from top to bottom, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your WordPress website with Thrive Lightbox)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over events, triggers and design.
User Feedback
Below are just some testimonials that plugin customers have published about Thrive Content Builder:
”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 – 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 on existing pages or posts that were not created with the plugin.
You can add shortcodes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will be displayed correctly on on your site.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built with Thrive Content Builder.
Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages provides 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 upgrades, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 100% refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that just keeps getting better.
Software 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 allows you to configure the plugin on a single website. Pricing includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This enables you to activate the plugin on unlimited sites that you personally own. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – Use on all your websites & on client web sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: Price details for the product depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the price at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing set by the plugin developer when you visit the website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the latest pricing details:
Additional Info
The Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin developers 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 web page elements and conversion-optimized template sets that help make designing your content faster, and on the other hand, you also have complete control over the design process and the ability to edit everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, which lets you see how the content you are working on will display to visitors when published.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive website.
We Highly Recommend This …
If you want to edit something, just 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 have to do is simply drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no unnecessary steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your business online and create amazing marketing pages and engaging content, Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For more details, check out the plugin here:
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