WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application to a tool that can be used to design all types of pages – landing pages, product showcase pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, someone is probably already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you discover the simplest way to create stunning page layouts in your WordPress website.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The WordPress Editor Still Meet All Of Your Content Creation Needs?
With all the many developments that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress users feel that the WordPress content editor is not really suitable for creating or changing sophisticated layouts.
(The WordPress visual content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding complex layouts can be quite challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the layout shown below …
To create the above layout, users would normally have to add shortcodes to the content for every single element they want to add to their page …
Generally, this is not an issue … unless you need to change your layout (for example, move part of the content from box 3 into box 2, or replace the button in a box from bright red to another colour. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress visual editor is supposed to provide users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, when creating with complex layouts, often what you see is not the same as what you are getting when the page 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 even be better off working directly inside the WordPress html (text) editor tab instead of the visual editor when trying to create non-linear layouts …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it difficult for non-technical users to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental issue about having to use shortcodes and HTML to create content in WordPress can be summarized by asking two questions:
1) Speed – How long will it take to create a 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 when working in the editor does not look anything like what you see in the front end. This means that users have to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require taking a number of steps before you can begin configuring your page layout, or endlessly going back and forth between browser tabs and performing tweaks and updates to see how your content is coming along, which can interrupt the creative process, as you wait for your updates to reload.
Many WordPress developers have tried to come up with a range of solutions with the aim of making the visual editor easier. Some of these alternative solutions range from standalone WP plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WordPress themes that offer built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make content creation easier!)
Some solutions end up combining so many page-building features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these solutions work, but they don’t really seem to address the fundamental problem with using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing 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 your content to look “just right” quickly, this can start to become quite frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your pages?
Now that you’ve asked this question, imagine this …
- You see something in the content that needs to be changed so you, simply click on the content and start changing it. Your content is instantly edited.
- You can drag and drop elements 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 simply begin typing, and your page gets built as you go, without delays, no tab switching, and without having to wait for pages to republish and reload.
Would this not be the ideal way to build content for your site? A true visual content editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around the pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex web page layouts ”on the fly” 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 Landing Pages And Content Builder
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a revolutionary WordPress plugin that allows you to easily add beautiful content to WordPress posts and pages with a truly visual click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
Thrive Content Builder is a new and exciting way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and a menu that lets you click, then drag and drop design elements on your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editor 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.
Let’s examine all of the above and how these exciting features work together to help you transform and improve your web site and create amazing sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder – Click-To-Edit Drag And Drop Content Creator And Editor For WordPress
You can easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your page can be built, edited and moved around using simple “drag and drop” and “click-to-edit” …
Once you have positioned your elements on the page, you can then further edit these without going through multiple steps or complicated option screens …
The built-in Landing Pages editor also lets you build stunning landing pages and easily customize these …
Thrive Content Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing pages and working on content with Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder installed is so amazingly easy, that the developers warn that once you start using it, it’ll ruin the experience of using any other content editor forever, and you’ll never look back!
Go here to learn more: Thrive Content Builder
The integrated Thrive Content and Page Builder plugin was created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another fantastic plugin we’ve previously reviewed on this site.
See this article to read about this plugin:
Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up content creation:
Quick And Easy To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Thrive Content Builder is very easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Creation
Thrive Content Builder is simple and intuitive to use and lets you edit and build content in real-time.
What You See Is Truly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back end” as you work within the editor – fonts, visual elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Additional plugin benefits include the following:
- Attractive Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any type of layout you can imagine with drag-and-drop ease.
- Add Customizable Elements With No Shortcodes Required: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get an exciting and simple-to-use click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a collection of functional and eye-catching design elements that you can customizable and insert into your web pages without using short codes, like pricing tables, star ratings for review pages, section dividers, responsive maps, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to deal with technical stuff, or wait for the page to reload frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you build content or click through multiple steps to get what you want done.
(Add, edit and customize web page elements like testimonial boxes, flat design elements, borderless content, section dividers, responsive videos, etc.)
Plugin Features
Thrive Content Builder offers web site owners many unique features. Here are just some of these features:
- Regular WordPress Editor Functionality Is Still Available: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, paragraph formatting, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” table of multi-style elements to your post or page screen for creating or editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin includes a range of attention-grabbing 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 being customizable, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Responsive Page Design: Add mobile-friendly columns, boxes, content dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on devices with differently sized screens.
- Add Animation To Web 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 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 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 building pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No tech skills needed
- Works with all themes
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 currently over thirty templates available, with more templates planned for future release. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new page templates for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customizable Landing Page Template Sets
Typically, to be able 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 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 complex 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 page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change and edit any element of your page template …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you can do the following:
- Change text in any button, headline, bullet point, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other element of your landing page
- Replace the background image and edit colour
- Edit the color of text, buttons, links, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Use your own images
- Modify content area size
- Rearrange the order of web page elements
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add custom content anywhere in any of the pages
- Start with a blank page and create your own page templates, or even build a library of custom landing page templates.
(Change or edit anything on the page template)
Transform Your Site Into A Powerful Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox
The Thrive plugin combo also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable 2-step opt-in forms and events to your web site …
(Add opt-in forms and animated objects to your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox 2-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-step opt-in process helps to improve your conversion rates. Visitors click on a button or image, and then 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 an opt-in form appear when when visitors click or hover 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 images on your pages, using a range of effects (e.g. zoom in from the page center, slide in from bottom to top, rotate, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your web pages with Thrive Lightbox)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin customers have submitted regarding 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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“I’m blown away by the plugin. Keep up the incredible, WordPress changing work, guys! Dean Phillips”
Useful Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any theme in WordPress, not just with the Thrive Landing Pages plugin. You cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on existing pages or posts that were not created using the plugin.
You can add WordPress short codes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will be displayed correctly when published.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built using Thrive Content Builder.
Thrive Content Builder Support
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder provides free updates, new landing templates and upcoming features. The Thrive team is constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive software is really well-supported, and users get unlimited software upgrades, plus one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, complete refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product that will just keep getting better.
Product Pricing
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 set up the plugin on a single web site. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license lets you install the plugin on all of your personal web sites. It includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – Use on your web sites & on all your client sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: Pricing for the Thrive Content Builder plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the software is selling for the prices shown above. This may or may not be the actual price set by the product author when you visit the product site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
The developers of the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder 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 web page elements and template sets that help to speed up the content creation process, and on the other hand, you also have 100% control over your 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 of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive website.
Get The Plugin …
If you want to edit something, simply click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, do it, and you will see the change happen instantly. If you want to move something, just 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 sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For full details, check out the plugin here:
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