WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool into a tool that can be used to design all types of web pages – marketing pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can imagine, someone is most likely already building it with WordPress!
In this article you will discover the fastest WYSIWYG editor for WordPress.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The Default WordPress Editor Meeting All Of Your Content Creation Needs?
With so many developments that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress developers and users believe that the WordPress editor is not really suitable for creating and editing complex layouts.
(The built-in WordPress visual content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional text and images, but adding more complex layouts can be challenging!)
For example, if you look at the illustration below …
To add the above content to your content would require inserting something like this inside the WordPress visual editor …
Generally, this is not an issue … unless you need to change the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or change the background colour inside box 2 from red to yellow. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
The WordPress editor is supposed to give non-technical users an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but as you can see, if you are trying to create complex page elements, often what you see in the visual editor is not what you get …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some situations, users would probably be better off working directly inside the text editor tab instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to add non-linear page elements …
Even though WordPress is the most user-friendly CMS platform available, this makes it difficult for non-technical users to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental challenge about having to use shortcodes and HTML to create content with WordPress can be summarized by asking two questions:
1) Speed – How long will it take to create a web 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 image, what you see when working in the content editor doesn’t look even remotely similar to what you see in the front end. This means that you have to abstract what your content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require taking several steps before you can start 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 new content to refresh.
Many WordPress developers have tried to come up with a range of solutions aiming to address this issue. Some of these range from standalone WP plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WordPress themes that include built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make creating complex content easier!)
Some solutions require so many page-building features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these solutions work, but they fail to address the fundamental problem with 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 page content to look ”perfect” quickly, this can start to become really frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your web page builder to function?
Now, imagine the following …
- 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 has been instantly changed.
- You just drag and drop elements around the page, and the page looks exactly as it will display on the front end without having to mentally visualize shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content that you’d like to add, so you immediately begin typing, and your web page gets built on the fly, with no delays, with no switching of tab browsers, and no waiting for web pages to resave and reload.
Would this not be the ideal way to build content for your web site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around the posts and pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages ”on the fly” for your web content with no 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 – The Fastest Way To Create Stunning Content In WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a revolutionary plugin for WordPress that allows users to quickly create and edit content on their posts and pages with true click-to-edit and drag and drop simplicity.
Thrive Content Builder provides you with a new and exciting way to speed up the process of adding content to your WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor with an item menu that lets you drag and drop elements on your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new editor to your WordPress site)
The Thrive Content Builder And Landing Pages 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.
We’ll take a look at all of the above and how all of this functionality works seamlessly together to help you transform and improve your web presence and create amazing marketing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin For WordPress
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Everything on your page can be created, changed and rearranged with “drag and drop” and “click-to-edit” ease …
Once you have placed your elements on your page, you can continue to further edit or customize them without having to go through additional steps or complicated settings screens …
You can also create stunning 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 with the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder plugin installed is so amazingly simple, that the developers warn that once you start using it, you’ll never look back!
Learn more here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin we’ve recommended on this site.
To read more about the plugin, see this article:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just some of the many benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up the process of designing pages and creating content for your WordPress website:
Easy To Install
Thrive Content Builder installs like every other WordPress plugin. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator section and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Editing
Thrive Content Builder is is not only really simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you create and edit content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the editor – fonts, elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what you get in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of using the plugin include the following:
- Add Eye-Catching Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag-and-drop ease.
- Design Elements Included: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get an exciting and simple-to-use click-to-edit content editor, but the plugin also includes a collection of functional and eye-catching design elements that you can customizable and add to your content layouts without using short codes, like tabbed content, gradient boxes, call to action buttons, responsive videos, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to wait for your content to load frees up your attention and allows you to build the web pages your business needs, quickly and without having to edit code or click through multiple layers of menus to get what you need done.
(Insert, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, tabbed content, feature grids, buttons, HTML code insert boxes, etc.)
Plugin Features
Thrive Content Builder offers many features to WP users. Here are just a few of these:
- Built-In Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have access to all of the built-in WordPress editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, centering text, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” table of elements to your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin includes 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 customization options, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Page Design: Add responsive elements like columns, guarantee boxes, section dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on devices with differently sized screens.
- Add Animation To Pages: The plugin’s Event Manager feature lets you create animation in buttons, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages – 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 signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages lets you easily add conversion-optimized web pages to your website)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money designing landing pages
- 100% conversion-optimized web pages
- No technical skills required
- Works with all themes
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder not only can be used to create beautiful content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of beautifully designed, landing 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 thirty templates available, with more templates scheduled for future release. In addition to the available templates, expect to see new templates in the future for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Fully Customizable Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, in order to have completely customizable landing page templates, 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 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 creating conversion-optimized web pages.”
Thrive Landing Pages gives you stunning pre-designed web page templates that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that allows you to change or customize any element of your page template …
The landing page template sets included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Edit text in all bullet points, headlines, buttons, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of the landing page
- Change all background images or background color
- Change the color of text, links, buttons, etc.
- Choose your own fonts
- Select your own images and graphics
- Modify the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of web page elements
- Translate pages into a different language
- Add any type of custom content anywhere inside your pages
- Start with a blank page and create your own page templates, or even build your own library of custom landing page templates.
(Change and customize anything on the page template)
Transform Your WordPress Website Into A Powerful Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive plugin package includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable 2-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your content pages …
(Add opt-in forms and animation to your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process helps to increase your conversion rates. When visitors click on a button or image they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Opt-in forms help to increase your conversion rates.)
Thrive Lightbox 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 graphic elements, 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 animation effects (e.g. fade out, slide in from left to right, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over your events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Users
Here are a couple of the testimonials that plugin customers have published about the Thrive Content Builder plugin:
“I have had nothing but the best experience imaginable with this tool since I purchased it. This is by far one of, if not the best plug-in I have purchase to date and it has definitely made working with WordPress a whole new experience. Jim Bond”
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”Great stuff! I am really impressed by all the new additions. You guys have shown a true commitment to making these themes and the Content Builder awesome. Michael Johnson”
Thrive Content Builder – Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any WordPress theme, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content that was not created using the plugin.
You can add WordPress shortcodes 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 Builder Plugin comes with free updates, new landing templates and upcoming features. The plugin developers are constantly working on adding new features and improving existing ones.
Thrive software is well-supported, and users get lifetime software upgrades, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, 100% money-back guarantee.
This is an exciting product that will just keep getting better.
Plugin 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 lets you set up the plugin on a single website. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This option enables you to configure the plugin on all of your personal web sites. It includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – This allows you to use the plugin on all of your own domains and all client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Note: The cost of purchasing this product can vary, depending on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The above reflects the current pricing at the time this article was published. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the software author when you visit the plugin website and there may be additional upsells or one-time offers after your purchase.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
The developers of the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages 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 time-saving features like ready-made page elements and conversion-optimized templates that help to make designing your pages faster, and on the other hand, you have complete control over your design process and the freedom to edit and customize everything on your web page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that lets you see how the content you are working on will look after publishing.
For demo videos of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support help desk, contact details and more, visit the plugin website.
Our Recommendation …
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 immediately. If you want to move something, all you have to do is drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your website and create amazing sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content, Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
To learn more, check out the plugin here:
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