WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool into a tool being used to create all types of web sites.
Whatever you can think of, somewhere around the world someone is bound to be already building it with WordPress!
This article will help you learn how to create stunning content faster with drag & drop ease in WordPress web sites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
The WordPress Editor – Is There An Easier Way For Creating And Editing Content In WordPress?
Using the default WordPress WYSIWYG content editor to build or edit sophisticated page elements can be quite challenging.
(The WordPress editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional content, but adding complex layouts can be challenging!)
For example, if you look at the screenshot below …
To create the above boxes with text and buttons, you would have to add short codes to your content for each page element you want to display …
Typically, this is not really an issue … until you have to reconfigure the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 1 into box 2, or replace the background color in box 2 from dark green to light blue. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code.
The WordPress content 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 working with complex page elements, what you see is not the same as what you are going to get when your content is published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some instances, some people argue that you could be better off working with the html source itself instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to create fancy layouts …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it hard for non-technical users to fully manage their own content.
The fundamental issue of 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 editor match 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 editor does not look even remotely similar to what you see in the front end. This means that users need to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with complex layouts. Other solutions require taking a number of 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 then affects how fast you can create your content, as you wait for the page to load.
Many WordPress developers have tried to come up with different solutions aiming to address this issue. Some of these alternative solutions range from stand alone WP 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 page layouts easier!)
Some solutions include so many complex page-building features, that users need to learn how to work with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these editors work, but they still don’t address the fundamental issue of using HTML and shortcodes as described earlier. 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 your page content to look ”perfect” quickly, this can become really frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your content editor to work?
Now, visualize this …
- You spot something in the content that needs changing so you, just click on the content and start typing. Your content has been instantly changed.
- You can just drag and drop elements on the page, and the page looks exactly as it will display on the front end without having to mentally visualize any shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content that you would like to add, so you just start typing, and your page gets built as you go, with no delays, with no switching of tab browsers, and without waiting for edits to resave and reload.
Would this not be the perfect way to build content for your WordPress web site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around the pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex page layouts quickly 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 And Landing Pages – Click-To-Edit Drag & Drop Content Creator For WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a truly intuitive click-to-edit drag-and-drop content and page builder plugin for WordPress.
Thrive Content Builder provides WordPress users with a new and incredibly easy way to speed up the process of creating great content on.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor with an item menu that lets you drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content builder to your WordPress site)
The 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 will examine each of the above plugins and how these powerful features work together to help you transform and improve your website and create awesome marketing pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin For WordPress
Thrive Content Builder lets you easily add complex design layouts to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Everything on your page can be configured by dragging and dropping things around the page and then clicking to edit them …
Once elements have been added to your page, you can then further edit or customize them without going through multiple steps or complicated configuration screens …
The built-in functionality of the plugin also lets you work inside 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, designing web pages with the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin installed is so amazingly simple, that the developers warn that you’ll never look at creating and adding content the same way once you start using it
Go here to learn more about the plugin: 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 reviewed on this site.
See this article for more information about using this plugin:
Plugin Benefits
Below are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up your page design and content creation process:
Installation Is Easy And Fast
Thrive Content Builder installs like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Creation
Thrive Content Builder is is not only simple and intuitive to use, it also lets you create content in real-time.
What You See Is Truly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “back end” as you work within the content editor – typefaces, elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see in the front end of your site.
Additional benefits of this plugin include the following:
- Attractive Layouts With Drag & Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
- Design Elements Included: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get an exciting and an easy-to-use drag and drop content builder, but the plugin also includes a collection of functional and eye-catching web design elements that you can add to your pages without using shortcodes, such as columns, borderless content, buttons, HTML code insert boxes, etc.
- More Enjoyable Content Creation: Not having to deal with technical stuff, or having to wait for pages 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 need done.
(Easily insert, edit and customize web page elements like testimonials, pricing tables, content reveal feature, page section dividers, Google Map embeds, etc.)
Plugin Features
Thrive Content Builder provides a number of features to site owners. Here are just a few of these:
- Regular WordPress Content Functionality Is Still Available: You have all of the regular WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. bold, paragraph formatting, font sizes, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements: The plugin adds a “drag and drop” table of multi-style elements to your post or page screen for creating and editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin includes various attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help you increase your sales conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonial boxes, and guarantees. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Mobile-Friendly Design: Add responsive columns, text boxes, dividers, e.g. which will adjust to display correctly on different device screens.
- Add Animation To Your Pages: Thrive Content Builder’s Event Manager feature lets you insert animation in buttons, 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 signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages plugin lets you easily add conversion-optimized web pages to your site)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time building great-looking pages
- 100% conversion-optimized pages
- No technical skills required
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder not only lets you create beautiful-looking content in your WordPress posts and pages, but you can also choose from dozens of beautifully 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 30 templates available, with more templates planned for future release. In addition to the templates shown above, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, training pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Fully 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 developer 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 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-built pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that lets you change and customize any aspect of the page …
The landing page templates included with this plugin let you do the following:
- Modify text in any button, headline, bullet point, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other element of the landing page
- Replace all background images or background colour
- Change the color of links, buttons, text, etc.
- Choose your own fonts
- Use your own images and graphics
- Edit content area size
- Rearrange the order of web page elements
- Translate pages into different languages
- Add custom content anywhere in the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own from scratch and save them as new web page templates.
(Change or customize any aspect of your page templates)
Thrive Lightbox Plugin – Transform Your WordPress Site Into A Marketing Machine
The Thrive plugin combo also includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully editable two-step opt-in forms and events to your web pages …
(Add lead capture forms and animated elements to your WordPress pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-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 …
(Visitors click on a button and 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 your visitor clicks or hovers 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 attention-getting elements on your web pages, using various effects (e.g. zoom in, slide in from right to left, roll out, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your WordPress web site 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.
User Feedback
Here are some of the testimonials that users have provided for 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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”Your stuff is beautifully designed, fast and has great options for marketers that you just don’t see with other themes. Great, great job! Absolutely love Thrive! David Coleman”
Thrive Content Builder – Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any theme in WordPress, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. You cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content that was not created with the plugin installed.
You can add short codes inside Thrive Content Builder or Thrive Landing Pages and they will be displayed correctly on the front end.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built with Thrive Content Builder.
Product Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages provides 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 updates, plus 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.
Product License 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 Licensing – This option allows you to run the plugin on a single domain. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and 1 year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This enables you to install the plugin on unlimited domains that you own. Pricing includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency Edition – Use on your websites and on all your client web sites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Price = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: The cost to purchase Thrive Content Builder depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time special offers. The pricing above was current when this content was written. This may or may not be the actual price charged by the plugin developer 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 Info
The developers of the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages 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 page elements and conversion-optimized templates that help to make designing your content faster, and on the other hand, you also have 100% control over your design process and the freedom to edit and customize everything on your web page, using the plugin’s click-to-edit and drag and drop features, which allows you to see how the content you are working on will appear after being published.
For a demo video showing plugin usage, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive website.
We Highly Recommend This …
If you want to edit something, just click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, you can see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, simply 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 site and create awesome sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content, Thrive Content Builder delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
To learn more, visit the plugin website here:
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