WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application into a tool being used to create all kinds of web sites.
Whatever you can imagine, somewhere around the world someone is probably already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover how to create stunning content faster and design beautiful web page layouts with drag & drop ease in WordPress websites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The Default WordPress WYSIWYG Editor Meeting All Of Your Content Creation Needs?
Using the WordPress editor to create or edit sophisticated web pages can sometimes be quite challenging, especially for non-technical website owners.
(The WordPress WYSIWYG editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional text and media, but adding more complex page elements can be challenging!)
For example, if you look at the illustration below …
Creating the above in a page would require inserting something that looks like this inside the WordPress visual content editor …
Generally, this is not really an issue … until you choose to change your layout (for example, move part of the content from box 3 into box 2, or change the background colour inside a box from red to yellow. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress editor is supposed to give users an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, when working with complex content elements, what you see may not be the same as what you get …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some situations, you may even be better off working directly with the source html itself instead of the WordPress visual editor when trying to add something other than simple page elements …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it hard for users with no knowledge of HTML or CSS to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental problem with having to use shortcodes and HTML to create content in WordPress can be summarized by asking two questions:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a web page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the ”back end” 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 content 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 sophisticated 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 updates to see how your content is coming along, which then impacts 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 various solutions to try to address this issue. These range from stand alone WordPress plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WP themes that include built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make content creation easier!)
Some solutions end up requiring so many page design features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these editors work, but they still don’t address the fundamental challenge of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Creating and adding 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 content quickly, this can start to become really frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your pages?
Now, visualize this …
- You spot something in the content that needs correction so you, just click on the content and start writing. Your content has been instantly edited.
- You just drag and drop items on the page, and see them exactly as they will display on the front end without having to mentally visualize any HTML or shortcodes.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content you would like to create, so you just begin typing, and your page gets built as you go, without delays, no tab switching, and without having to wait for web pages to refresh and reload.
Would this not be the ideal way to build content for your WordPress web site? A true WYSIWYG editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your page?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages ”on the fly” 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 – The Simplest, Most Intuitive Visual Content Editor For WordPress Web Sites
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a ground-breaking WordPress plugin that gives you total control over every aspect of your content layout using a true WYSIWYG click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
Thrive Content Builder provides you with a new and exciting way to speed up the process of adding great content to your WordPress website.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor and a sidebar menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements to your page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content editor to WordPress)
Thrive Content Builder 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.
We will take an in-depth look at all of the above plugins and how all of this functionality works seamlessly together to help you easily transform and improve your business online and create awesome sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder – Click-To-Edit Drag And Drop Content Creator And Editor For WordPress
Thrive Content Builder lets you easily add content to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every element of your page can be designed with ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” ease …
Once elements have been added to the page, you can continue to further edit or customize these without going through additional steps or opening extra option screens …
You can also build beautiful 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 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 will never look at the process of creating content the same way once you start using it
More info: 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 we’ve written about on this site.
Go here to read about this plugin:
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:
Quick And Easy To Install And Implement. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Thrive Content Builder is quite easy to install. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your admin login and activate.
Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is is not only really simple to use, it also lets you add content to your pages in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Builder
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 include:
- Add Attractive Web Page Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any kind of layout you can imagine with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
- Add Customizable Elements Without Using Shortcodes: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get a click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of functional and eye-catching design elements that you can insert into your pages without using short codes, for e.g.: columns, borderless content, call to action buttons, Google Map embeds, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to constantly switch tabs as you edit content and then wait for your updated content to load frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you build or edit your content or click through multiple layers of menus to get what you need done.
(Add, edit and customize page elements like testimonial boxes, flat design elements, gradient boxes, section dividers, credit card icons, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder provides website owners many features. Here are just some:
- Built-In WordPress Content Functionality Is Preserved: You have access to all of the regular WordPress content editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold formatting, paragraph formatting, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” list of multi-style elements to your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with various eye-catching and customizable elements that will help 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.
- Responsive Web Page Design: Add responsive elements like column layouts, text 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 insert animations, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – Landing Page Template Sets
Landing page sets are web page 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 plugin lets you add conversion-optimized web pages to your site)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time building gorgeous-looking web pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No web coding skills needed
- Works with all WordPress themes
Thrive Content and 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, conversion optimized landing page templates and fully customizable …
(Landing page template 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 release. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Completely Customizable And Flexible Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, in order to have a fully customizable landing page template, you would need to either pay a web 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 great-looking pre-designed web pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that lets you change or edit any aspect of the page …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Change text in all buttons, bullet points, headlines, etc.
- Delete text, images or any other part of the landing page
- Replace the background image and edit colour
- Change the color of links, text, buttons, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Change the size of the content area
- Change the order of elements on the pages
- Translate everything on the page into a different language
- Add any type of custom content anywhere in any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own pages from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change and edit any aspect of the page)
Thrive Lightbox Plugin – Transform Your Web Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin package also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully configurable two-step opt-in forms and events to your web site …
(Add lead capture forms and animation to your sales pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Thrive Lighbox Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process helps to increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on a button or image, and then they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Opt-in forms can help increase your conversion rates.)
Event Manager
An “event” consists of a trigger and an action. You can make opt-in forms appear when when visitors click or hover their mouse 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 images on your page, using various effects (e.g. zoom in from the page center, slide in from top to bottom, rotate, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your marketing pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over all events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Users
Below are a couple of the testimonials plugin users have provided for 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”
Thrive Content Builder Plugin – Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any theme in WordPress, 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 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 you build using Thrive Content Builder.
Product Support
Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder Plugin 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 products are well-supported, and users get unlimited upgrades, and one year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 100% money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users 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 – This license option lets you activate the plugin on 1 web site only. It includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Edition – This enables you to use the plugin on all web sites that you own. Cost includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency License – This edition enables you to set up the plugin on all of your own domains and your client sites. It includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Note: Pricing for the Thrive Content Builder product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the pricing at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual price set by the plugin seller when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for the current price:
Additional Information
The developers of the Thrive Content and Page Builder plugin repeatedly 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 to speed up page design and content creation, and on the other hand, you also have complete control over the design process and the freedom to change and customize anything and everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that allows you to work unhindered by overly complicated options.
For demo videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer help desk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive website.
Install The Plugin …
If you want to edit something, you just click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, you will see the change happen instantly. If you want to move something, all you need to do is drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no overly complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your web presence and create amazing sales pages and 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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