WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool into a tool being used to design all types of web pages – marketing pages, portfolio pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, somewhere around the world someone is probably already building it using WordPress!
This article will help you discover the simplest, most intuitive WYSIWYG content editor for WordPress.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The WordPress Editor Still Meeting All Of Your Content Creation And Editing Needs?
Using the WordPress editor to build or edit sophisticated web pages can sometimes be quite challenging for non-technical website owners.
(The default WordPress editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional content, but adding more complex layouts can be challenging!)
For example, let’s say you want to create something like the content shown below …
To create the above boxes with text and buttons, you would need to insert shortcodes into your content for each page element you want to display on your web page …
Generally, this is not an issue … unless you have to reconfigure the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or change the button in a box from green to light blue. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with code inside the editor.
The WordPress content editor is supposed to be 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 in the visual editor may not be the same as what you are going to get when your page gets published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some cases, some people argue that you would probably be better off working directly inside the WordPress html editor tab instead of the WordPress visual editor when trying to add non-linear page elements …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it hard for non-technical website owners to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental problem about using shortcodes and HTML to create content in the default WordPress visual editor can be summarized by asking the following questions:
1) Speed – How long will it take to build a page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the ”back end” resemble the content in the “front end” when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above, what you see in the content 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 multiple 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 your page to refresh.
A number of WordPress web developers have tried to come up with different solutions to try to address this issue. Some of these range from stand alone plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to 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 end up combining so many complex page-building features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end editors …
Many of these solutions work fine, but they don’t really seem to address the fundamental problem with using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. Creating, adding and editing sophisticated content elements 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 content quickly, this can become quite frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your web content?
Now, visualize this …
- You spot something in your content that needs changing so you, just click on the content and start editing it. Your content is instantly edited.
- You simply drag and drop elements around the page, and the page looks exactly as it will display on the front end without having to mentally translate code.
- You have an idea for an item of content that you would like to add, so you simply begin typing, and your page gets built as you go, with no delays, with no tab switching, and no waiting for new web pages to refresh and reload.
Would this not be the perfect way to create content for your site? A true visual content editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around the pages and posts?
(Imagine being able to create complex pages quickly 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 – The Simplest And Easiest To Use Visual Content Editor For Your WordPress Web Site
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive WordPress click-to-edit drag-and-drop content editor.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin is a new and exciting way to speed up the process of creating amazing content on your WordPress website.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and a sidebar menu that lets you click, then drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual editor to your WordPress site)
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.
In this article we’ll take a look at each of the above plugins and how these powerful features work seamlessly together to help you easily transform and improve your business online and create amazing marketing pages and content.
Thrive Content Builder – WordPress Click-To-Edit Drag And Drop Content Creation Plugin
With the Thrive Content Builder plugin, you can easily add content to your web pages and build complex page layouts using drag and drop elements …
Every aspect of your web page can be built using simple ”click-to-edit” and “drag and drop” …
Once elements have been positioned on your page, you can then continue to customize or edit them without having to go through multiple steps or switching tabs …
The built-in Thrive Landing Pages also lets you build highly attractive landing pages and easily customize these …
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages is simple, easy to use, and ideal for all WordPress users at all levels. In fact, working on content with the plugin installed is so effortlessly simple, that the developers guarantee that once you start using it, it will ruin the experience of using all other content editors forever, and you will never look back!
Go here to learn more about this plugin: Thrive Content Builder
The integrated Thrive Content and Landing Page Builder plugin was created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another amazing plugin we’ve previously reviewed on this site.
See this post to read more about the plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below we have listed just a few of the benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up the process of designing pages and creating content for your site:
Really Easy To Install
Thrive Content Builder is quite easy to install. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate.
Edit Content In Real Time
Thrive Content Builder is really simple and intuitive to use and lets you edit and add content right inside your pages in real-time.
A Truly Visual Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back end” as you work within the content editor – fonts, elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what you get on the front end of your site.
Additional benefits include the following:
- Eye-Catching Layouts With Drag And Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with drag and drop ease.
- Customizable Elements Included: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get a click-to-edit WordPress content editor, but the plugin also includes a very decent collection of professional design elements that you can customizable and insert into your content layouts without using shortcodes, for e.g.: columns, feature grids, dividers, custom HTML and CSS, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to wait for pages to reload frees up your attention and allows you to build the pages your business needs, quickly and without having to mess with code or click through multiple steps to get what you want done.
(Add, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, flat design elements, feature grids, page section dividers, responsive maps, etc.)
Features
Thrive Content Builder offers many features to WordPress users. Here are just some of these features:
- Regular WordPress Content Functionality Is Still Available: You have all of the regular text editing options that you are used to (e.g. underlines, paragraph formatting, font styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Elements: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” table of multi-style elements available on your post or page screen when editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with a range of attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help you increase your sales conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantee forms. In addition to customization options, various elements also offer multiple design options.
- Responsive Element Design: Add mobile-friendly elements like columns, boxes, content dividers, e.g. which will resize and display correctly on different device screens.
- Add Animation Events To Web Pages: The Event Manager feature lets you create animations, 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
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time creating and customizing web pages
- 100% conversion-optimized page templates
- No web coding skills required
- Works with any theme
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, page templates that are conversion-optimized 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 future release. In addition to the existing templates, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customizable Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, to be able to fully customize landing page templates, you would need to either hire 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 creating 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 and customize any element of the page template …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you can:
- Change text in all buttons, bullet points, headlines, etc.
- Delete text, images or any other element of the landing page
- Change all background images and edit colors
- Change the color of links, text, buttons, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images
- Modify the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of page elements
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add any kind of custom content anywhere inside any of the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own landing pages from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change or edit anything on the page template)
Transform Your Site Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox
The Thrive plugin combo also includes the Thrive Lightbox plugin, which lets you add fully editable two-step opt-in forms and animated objects to your website …
(Add opt-in forms and animated elements to your web pages with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
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 …
(When visitors click on the button, they are presented with an opt-in form)
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 attention-getting elements on your pages, using various effects (e.g. fade out, slide in from top to bottom, roll out, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your sales pages with Thrive Lightbox)
A lightbox and event is created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over your events, triggers and design.
Testimonials From Plugin Users
Below are a few of the testimonials customers have published about 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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“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 WordPress theme, not just with the Thrive Landing Pages plugin. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on existing pages or posts that were not created with the plugin.
You can add WordPress shortcodes inside Thrive Content Builder or Thrive Landing Pages and they will display correctly on your website.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built using Thrive Content Builder.
Support
Thrive Content and Page 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 well-supported, and users get lifetime upgrades, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, 30 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 Licensing – This lets you use the plugin on 1 website only. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites Licensing – This license allows you to set up the plugin on all of your personal sites. It includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – This option lets you configure the plugin on all of your own sites and all client web sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Note: The cost to purchase the Thrive Content Builder plugin depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. When we last checked, the plugin sells for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing set by the software author when you visit the site and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after you’ve purchased.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Information
The Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin developers 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 web page elements and template sets that help to speed up your content creation, and on the other hand, you also have complete control over the design process and the ability to edit anything and everything on your page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, that lets you get things done without having to keep switching tabs or going through multiple steps.
For ”how to” videos showing how the plugin works, including installation instructions and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive plugins website.
We Highly Recommend This …
If you want to edit something, simply 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, just drag it and drop it into its new position. There are no complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your business online and create amazing sales pages and engaging 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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