WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application into a tool being used to design all types of pages – marketing pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, someone is bound to be already building it using WordPress!
This article will help you discover how to create beautiful web page layouts with drag & drop ease in WordPress sites.
Drag And Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The Default WordPress WYSIWYG Editor Meet All Of Your Web Design Needs?
With all the rapid improvements that WordPress has undergone in recent years, many WordPress users and developers believe that using the built-in WordPress content editor to build or edit more complex content elements can be difficult.
(The built-in WordPress visual content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing “linear” text and media, but adding complex content elements can be challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the layout shown below …
To create the above boxes with text and buttons, users would normally have to add shortcodes to the content for every single element they want to display to visitors …
Generally, this is not really an issue … until you have to change your layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or replace the button inside box 2 from dark green to yellow. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with code.
The WordPress visual editor is supposed to provide non-technical users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, when working with more complex page elements, often what you see on your editor screen is not what you are getting when your web page goes live …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some instances, users could be better off working directly with the source html itself instead of the visual editor when trying to create non-linear layouts …
Even though WordPress is very user-friendly, this makes it hard for users without coding skills to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental problem of using HTML and shortcodes to create content in the default WordPress WYSIWYG editor can be summarized by asking the following questions:
1) Speed – How long does it take to create a web page using the 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 image, what you see in the editor looks nothing like what you see in the front end. This means that you need to abstract 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 progressing, which can interrupt the creative process, as you wait for the page to refresh.
Many WordPress developers have come up with a range of solutions with the goal of making content editing easier. These range from stand alone plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to themes that offer built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make creating complex content easier!)
Some solutions end up requiring so many page design features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these alternative editors work fine, but they fail to address the fundamental challenge of using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. Creating, 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 content to look ”perfect” quickly, this can become really frustrating.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your web content?
Now that you’ve asked this question, visualize this …
- You look at your content and if you see something that needs to be corrected, just click on the content and start changing it. Your content is then instantly changed.
- You simply drag and drop items around the page, and see them exactly as they will display on the front end without having to mentally abstract from code.
- You have an idea for a specific item of content you would like to create, so you immediately start typing, and you build your page as you go, with no delays, with no tab switching, and without having to wait for edits to resave and reload.
Would that not be the perfect way to build content for your web site? A true visual content editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your posts and pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex web page layouts ”on the fly” for your web content without 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 Plugin – Create Beautiful Web Page Layouts With Drag & Drop Ease In WordPress Websites
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a ground-breaking plugin for WordPress that gives you total control over every aspect of your content pages using a powerful click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
Thrive Content Builder provides WordPress users with a new and incredibly easy way to speed up the process of adding great content to WordPress websites.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor and a sidebar menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content builder to WordPress)
Thrive Content And Page 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’ll take an in-depth look at each of the above and how all of this functionality works seamlessly together to help you transform and improve your website and create awesome marketing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder – WordPress Click-To-Edit Drag And Drop Content Building Plugin
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily add complex design layouts to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your web page can be created and changed with ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” ease …
Once you have positioned elements on the page, you can then further edit them without going through additional steps or opening new configuration screens …
You can also work inside stunning landing pages and easily edit these …
Thrive Content and Page Builder is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, working on content with the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin installed is so amazingly simple, that the developers guarantee that you’ll never look at the process of creating and adding content the same way once you start using it
More info: Thrive Content Builder
The integrated Thrive Content and Page Builder plugin was created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin that we have previously written about on this site.
To read about this plugin, go here:
Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up content creation:
Fast And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Minutes.
Thrive Content Builder installs like any regular plugin. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate.
Add & Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is is not only very simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you edit content in real-time.
What You See Is Exactly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the content editor – typefaces, visual elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see on the front end of your site.
Some additional benefits include:
- Eye-Catching Web Page Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag and drop ease.
- Design Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get a visually exciting drag and drop WordPress content builder, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of customizable design elements that you can use on your layouts without using short codes, like content toggle, table of contents builder, section dividers, custom HTML and CSS, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to wait for your updates to refresh frees up your attention and allows you to build the web pages your business needs, quickly and without having to deal with code or click through multiple layers of menus to get what you want done.
(Easily insert, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, columns, styled lists, buttons, credit card icons, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder offers a number of unique features to web site owners. Here are just a few:
- All WordPress Content Functionality Is Preserved: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold formatting, paragraph formatting, font sizes, 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 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 guarantee forms. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Web Element Design: Add mobile-friendly columns, guarantee boxes, section dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on different screens.
- Add Animation Events To Pages: Thrive Content Builder’s Event Manager feature lets you add animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Web Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Landing Page Templates
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 gives you conversion-optimized web page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money building landing pages for your web site
- 100% conversion-optimized page templates
- No tech skills needed
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages not only can be used to create beautiful-looking 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 sets that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language)
There are 30+ templates available, with more templates scheduled for future release. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new page templates for email lead generation, sales pages, training pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customize Your Landing Page Template Sets
Typically, to be able to have fully customizable landing page templates, you would need to either pay a web site developer 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 building conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you beautiful pre-built page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that lets you change or edit any aspect of your page …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Change text in all bullet points, buttons, headlines, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of your landing page
- Change any background images and background colour
- Change the color of buttons, links, text, etc.
- Use your own fonts
- Select your own images
- Change content area size
- Change the order of web page elements
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add custom content anywhere in your pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change and customize any aspect of the page template)
Transform Your Site Into A Powerful Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive plugin package also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully customizable 2-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your website …
(Add opt-in forms and events to your web pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox 2-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-step opt-in process can increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on an image or button, 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 opt-in forms 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 attention-getting elements on your web pages, using a range of animation effects (e.g. zoom in from the page center, slide in from bottom to top, roll out, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over all events, triggers and design.
User Feedback
Below are a few of the testimonials plugin users have written about the Thrive Content Builder plugin:
”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 – 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 that was not created with the plugin installed.
You can add WordPress short codes inside Thrive Content Builder or Thrive Landing Pages and they will display correctly on your website.
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 Thrive team is constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive software is well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, complete refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product 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 lets you configure the plugin on a single website. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This allows you to activate the plugin on all domains that you personally own. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency License Edition – This enables you to activate the plugin on all of your own domains and any client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: The price of the Thrive Content Builder product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. When we last checked, the product is selling for the pricing shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software 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 Plugin Information
The Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin developers emphatically 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 beautiful, pre-designed templates that help make designing your pages faster, and on the other hand, you have 100% control over your design process and the freedom to change 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 ”how to” videos of the plugin in action, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the plugin website.
The Bottom Line …
If you want to edit something, you just 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 complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your site and create amazing marketing pages and content, this plugin delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For complete details, check out the plugin here:
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