WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application into a tool that can be used to design all types of web pages – direct sales pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, someone is bound to be already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you discover how to create stunning content faster with drag & drop ease in WordPress web sites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
The WordPress Editor – Is There An Easier Way For Designing Pages In WordPress?
With all the many advancements that WordPress has undergone in recent years, many WordPress developers feel that using the built-in WordPress WYSIWYG editor to build or edit more complex web pages can sometimes be challenging.
(The default WordPress WYSIWYG content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding complex content elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the layout shown below …
To create the above layout, you would have to insert short codes into your content for each page element you want to display on your page …
Generally, this is not really an issue … unless you choose to change the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 3 into box 2, or change the button in a box from dark green to blue. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code.
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, when working with more complex layouts, what you see may not be what you get …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, users would probably be better off working with the html source itself instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to create fancy layouts …
Even though WordPress is the most user-friendly CMS platform available, this makes it hard for users without knowledge of HTML or CSS to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental problem of using HTML and shortcodes to create content with WordPress can be summarized by asking 2 questions:
1) Speed – How long will 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 screenshot, what you see in the editor looks nothing like what you see in the front end. This means that users have to abstract what the content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require taking multiple steps before you can begin configuring your page layout, or endlessly going back and forth between tabs and performing updates to see how your content is progressing, which then affects how fast you can create your content, as you wait for the page to load.
A number of WordPress web developers have tried to come up with a range of solutions with the aim of making the visual editor more intuitive. Some of these solutions range from plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WP 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 combine so many page design features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these solutions work fine, but they still fail to address the fundamental issue of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating and adding 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 become quite frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your content editor to work?
Now that you’ve asked this question, imagine the following …
- You spot something in the content that needs to be corrected so you, simply click on the content and start editing it. Your content has been instantly edited.
- You just drag and drop elements on the page, and see them exactly as they will display on the front end without having to mentally translate shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for a specific item of content you would like to add, so you just start typing, and your page gets built as you go, without delays, with no switching of tab browsers, and without having to wait for new content to republish and reload.
Would that 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 the pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages in real-time 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 Plugin – Create Beautiful Web Page Layouts With Drag & Drop Ease In WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive click-to-edit drag-and-drop content and landing page building plugin for WordPress.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin provides you with 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 and a sidebar menu that lets you drag and drop design elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content editing option to WordPress)
The Thrive Landing Pages And Content Builder 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.
In this article we’ll take an in-depth look at each of the above and how all of this exciting functionality works seamlessly together to help you easily transform and improve your web presence and create awesome sales pages and content.
Thrive Content Builder – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Creator And Editor For WordPress
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily add complex design layouts to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every element on your web page can be configured by dragging and dropping things around the page and then clicking to edit them …
Once you have positioned elements on your page, you can then continue to customize or edit them without having to go through multiple steps or complicated settings screens …
The built-in functionality of the plugin also lets you build stunning landing pages that can just as easily be edited or customized …
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, working on content with Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder installed is so amazingly simple, that the developers warn that once you start using it, it’ll ruin the experience of using all other content editors forever, and you will 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 for WordPress that we have previously recommended on this site.
See this page to read more about this plugin:
Benefits Of Using Thrive Content Builder And Landing Pages
Here we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up your page design and content creation process:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Thrive Content Builder is quite easy to install. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user login and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Creation
Thrive Content Builder is is not only really simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you create content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the content editor – fonts, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get on the front end of your site.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Add Eye-Catching Layouts With Drag & Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
- Customizable Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get a click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a collection of functional and eye-catching design elements that you can add to your web pages without using shortcodes, such as pricing tables, content reveal feature, call to action buttons, responsive video embeds, etc.
- Distraction-Free Content Creation: Not having to wait for the updated content to load 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 insert, edit and customize page elements like testimonial boxes, pricing tables, content reveal feature, call to action buttons, Google Map embeds, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder provides WordPress users many unique features. Below we have listed just a few of these:
- Regular Editor Functionality Is Still Available: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress content editing options that you are used to (e.g. underlines, paragraph centering, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements Menu: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” list of elements available on your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with a range of eye-catching and customizable elements that will help increase the effectiveness of your sales pages, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantee forms. In addition to customization options, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Element Design: Add mobile-friendly elements like column layouts, guarantee boxes, content dividers, e.g. which will display great on all different kinds of devices.
- Add Animation Events To Web 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 Sets
Landing page template sets are web page 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 add conversion-optimized pages to your web site)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money designing gorgeous-looking web pages for your WordPress site
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No web coding skills needed
- Works with all themes
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 sets that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language)
There are currently over thirty templates available, with more templates being worked on. In addition to the templates shown above, 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
Typically, in order to fully customize a landing page template, you would need to either hire a web site designer to do the work, or learn how to code web pages 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 creating conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you attractive pre-designed web page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or customize anything on your page template …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you are able to:
- Modify text in any bullet point, button, headline, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of your landing page
- Change the background image or background colors
- Change the color of buttons, links, text, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Change content area size
- Change the order of elements on your page
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add custom content anywhere in any of the pages
- Start with a blank page and create your own templates, or even build your own custom landing pages library.
(Change and edit anything on your page template)
Transform Your Site Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox
The Thrive plugin package includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable two-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your web pages …
(Add lead capture forms and animated elements to your WordPress website with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Thrive Lighbox Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-step opt-in process can help increase your conversion rates. When visitors click on a button or image 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 an opt-in form appear when your visitor clicks or hovers their mouse 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 in from the page center, slide in from bottom to top, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your sales 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.
User Testimonials
Here are just some testimonials customers have provided 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”
Thrive Content Builder Plugin – 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 pages or posts that were not created with the plugin installed.
You can add shortcodes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly when published.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built with Thrive Content Builder.
Product Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages provides free updates, new landing pages and upcoming features. The Thrive team is constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive plugins are really well-supported, and users get unlimited updates, and one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 100% refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that just keeps 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 Licensing – This license lets you use 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 enables you to use the plugin on all of your personal web sites. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License Edition – This license enables you to run the plugin on all of your own domains and any client sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: The price of Thrive Content Builder can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing when this review was written. This may or may not be the actual pricing charged by the product 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:
Additional Plugin Information
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 template sets that help make designing your content faster, and on the other hand, you have 100% control over the design process and the ability to change everything on your page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that lets you see exactly how the content you are working on will appear after being published.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive website.
Our Recommendation …
If you want to edit something, just 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, you 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 marketing pages and 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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