WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool to a tool being used to design all types of web pages – landing pages, product showcase pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, somewhere around the world someone is probably already building it with WordPress!
In this article you will learn how to create beautiful web page layouts with drag & drop ease in WordPress websites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The WordPress Visual Editor Meet All Of Your Content Creation Needs?
With so many advancements that the WordPress platform has gone through in recent years, many WordPress users and developers believe that the WordPress editor is now lagging behind other areas of developments being made to the software.
(The built-in WordPress content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” content, but adding more complex content elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, if you look at the image below …
To create the above in your content would require entering something like this in your WordPress editor …
Normally, this is not really an issue … until you choose to edit something in your layout (for example, move part of the content from box 3 into box 2, or replace the button inside a box from red to orange. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress editor is supposed to provide users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) content editor, but as you can see, if you are creating with more complex layouts, what you see in the visual editor may not be what you are getting when the web page is published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, some people argue that you could be better off working with the html source itself instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to build fancy layouts …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it difficult for non-technical website owners to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental problem about having to use shortcodes and HTML to create content in the default WordPress editor can be summarized by asking 2 questions:
1) Speed – How long will it take to build a page using this editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the ”back end” resemble the “front end” content when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above, what you see when working in the back end looks nothing like what you see in the front end. This means that you need to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require multiple steps before you can start 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 interrupts the creative process, as you wait for the content to load.
A number of WordPress web developers have tried to come up with various solutions to try and make the visual editor easier. Some of these solutions range from stand alone WordPress plugins you can install on your site that add new functionality to the editor, to 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 page-building features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these alternative solutions work, but they still don’t address the fundamental challenge of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing 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 to create or edit complex page layouts quickly, this can start to become very frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your pages?
Now, imagine this …
- You look at your content and if you see something that needs to be fixed, just click on the content and start typing. Your content is then instantly fixed.
- You just drag and drop elements on the page, and the page looks exactly as it will appear on the front end without having to mentally abstract from HTML or shortcodes.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content you’d like to create, so you simply begin typing, and your web page gets built as you go, without delays, with no switching tabs, and no waiting for new pages to republish and reload.
Would that not be the ideal way to create content for your website? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your posts and 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 Description
Thrive Content Builder is a ground-breaking plugin for WordPress that lets you easily add content to WordPress posts and pages using a truly visual 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, the plugin 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 editor to WordPress)
The Thrive Content And Page Builder 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.
Let’s take an in-depth a look at all of the above plugins and how these exciting features work seamlessly together to help you transform and improve your website and create awesome sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin For WordPress
This plugin lets you easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Everything on your web page can be built by dragging and dropping things around the page and then clicking to edit them …
Once elements have been positioned on a page, you can continue to further customize or edit these without going through additional steps or opening more configuration windows …
The built-in functionality of the plugin also lets you work inside highly attractive landing pages that can also be easily customized …
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, designing web pages with the plugin installed is so effortlessly easy, that the developers guarantee that once you start using it, it’ll ruin the experience of using all other content editors forever, and you’ll never look back!
Go here to learn more: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another terrific plugin for WordPress that we have previously recommended on this site.
To read more about the plugin, see this post:
Benefits
Below are just some of the many benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up the process of creating content for your WordPress web site:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Thrive Content Builder is very easy to install. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Building & Editing
Thrive Content Builder is is not only simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you add content to your web pages in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back-end” as you work within the editor – fonts, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Stunning Web Page Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any type of layout you can imagine with drag and drop ease.
- Customizable Elements Included: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get an exciting and an easy-to-use click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a collection of web design elements that you can customizable and insert into your web pages without using short codes, such as tabbed content, content reveal feature, call to action buttons, code insert boxes, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to wait for your new content to reload frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you work or click through multiple steps to get what you want done.
(Thrive Content Builder lets you easily create, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, content toggle, borderless content, dividers, code insert boxes, etc.)
Plugin Features
Thrive Content Builder offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Built-In Content Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have all of the regular WordPress content editing options that you are used to (e.g. underlines, paragraph formatting, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” list of multi-style elements available on your post or page screen for editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin includes various attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help increase your conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantee forms. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Web Element Design: Add responsive columns, boxes, content section dividers, e.g. which will display great on all different kinds of devices.
- Add Animation Events To Web Pages: The plugin’s Event Manager feature lets you create animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – 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 gorgeous-looking web pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No web coding skills required
- Works with all WordPress themes
Thrive 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, 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 over 30 templates available, with more templates scheduled 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, in order to have fully customizable landing page templates, you would need to either pay a web site designer to do the work, or learn how to code web pages 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 building conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you stunning pre-built web 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 templates …
The landing page templates included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Modify text in all buttons, bullet points, headlines, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of the landing page
- Replace all background images or colors
- Change the color of links, text, buttons, etc.
- Use your own fonts
- Use your own images and graphics
- Modify the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of web page elements
- Translate everything on the page into different languages
- Add any type of custom content inside the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own web pages from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change or edit any aspect of the page)
Thrive Lightbox Plugin – Transform Your Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin package also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable two-step opt-in forms and events to your web site …
(Add lead capture forms and animation to your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox 2-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process helps increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on an image or button, and then they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Opt-in forms help increase your conversion rates.)
Thrive Lightbox 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 web pages, using a range of effects (e.g. zoom in from the page center, slide in from left to right, rotate, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your WordPress site with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over the events, triggers and design.
Testimonials From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials users have submitted regarding 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”
Thrive Content Builder Plugin – Useful Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any WordPress theme, not just with the Thrive Landing Pages plugin. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on pages or posts that were not created with the plugin.
You can add short codes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly on your website.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content you build with Thrive Content Builder.
Plugin Support
Thrive Landing Pages and Content 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 updates, plus one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, 100% 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 License Edition – This license option allows you to run the plugin on a single site. Cost includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This license option allows you to run the plugin on unlimited websites that you personally own. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency License – Use on all your websites & on all your client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: The cost to purchase Thrive Content Builder can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The price shown above was current at the time this review was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin author when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
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 the time-saving benefits of ready-made web page elements and template sets that help make designing your pages faster, and on the other hand, you also have complete control over the design process and the ability to change everything on your page, using the plugin’s click-to-edit and drag and drop features, that allows you to see exactly how the content you are working on will appear to visitors when published.
For ”how to” videos showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive Content Builder website.
Install This Plugin …
If you want to edit something, you click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, do it, and you’ll see the change happen instantly. If you want to move something, all you have to do is drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no extra steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your site and create awesome sales pages and engaging content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For more information, visit the plugin website here:
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