WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging tool to a tool that is now being used to design all types of pages – direct sales pages, portfolio pages, local business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, someone is probably already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover the fastest and most intuitive WYSIWYG content builder for WordPress sites.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Is The WordPress Visual Editor Meeting All Of Your Page Design Needs?
Using the default WordPress WYSIWYG editor to build or edit complex page layouts can be quite difficult.
(The WordPress editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional content, but adding complex page elements can be quite challenging!)
For example, if you look at the image below …
To create the above layout, users would normally need to add short codes to the content for each page element they would like to display …
Generally, this is not really an issue … unless you need to change your layout (for example, move part of the content from box 3 into box 2, or change the button in box 1 from dark green to gold. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code or html.
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 more complex content elements, often what you see on your editor screen is not the same as what you get …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some instances, some people argue that users could even be better off working directly with the html source itself instead of the WYSIWYG editor when trying to add something other than simple page elements …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it hard for WordPress site owners without knowledge of HTML or CSS to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental problem about using shortcodes and HTML to create content in WordPress can be summarized as follows:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a page using the editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the editor match 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 doesn’t look even remotely similar to what you see in the front end. This means that users need to translate mentally what the content will look like when working with sophisticated 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 coming along, which interrupts the creative process, as you wait for your updated content to refresh.
Many WordPress developers have come up with different solutions aiming to make content editing more intuitive. These range from stand alone WP plugins you can install on 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 include 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, but they don’t really address the fundamental issue of using shortcodes and HTML as described earlier. Adding and editing non-linear content 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 layouts quickly, this can become quite frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like your page builder to function?
Now, imagine this …
- You spot something in your content that needs fixing so you, simply click on the content and start writing. Your content is instantly fixed.
- 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 translate any shortcodes or HTML.
- You have an idea for an item of content that you’d like to create, so you simply begin typing, and your page gets built on the fly, without delays, without switching of tab browsers, and without waiting for new pages to reload.
Would that not be the perfect way to build content for your web site? Just click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your pages?
(Imagine being able to create complex web pages quickly 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 Most Easy-To-Use Way To Build Stunning Content In WordPress
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a unique WordPress plugin that gives you total control over every aspect of your web page with a click-to-edit and drag and drop content editor.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin provides WordPress users with a new and incredibly easy way to set up conversion-focused pages on any WordPress web site.
Once installed, Thrive Content Builder adds a visual content editor and a menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new content editor to your WordPress site)
Thrive Landing Pages And Content Builder is actually a combination of the Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages plugins merged into one, plus an additional plugin feature called Thrive Lightbox.
We will 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 website and create awesome sales pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder lets you easily build complex web page design layouts using drag and drop elements …
Everything on your page can be configured by ”clicking-to-edit” and “dragging and dropping” things around the page …
Once you have placed elements on the page, you can continue to further edit them without going through additional steps or complicated option screens …
The built-in functionality of the plugin also lets you create beautiful landing pages that can just as easily be edited or customized …
Thrive Content and Page Builder 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 amazingly simple, that the developers warn that once you start using it, it’ll ruin the experience of using all other content editors forever, and you will never look back!
For more details, visit the plugin site here: Thrive Content Builder
Thrive Content Builder and Thrive Landing Pages were created by the same team that developed Thrive Leads, another excellent plugin for WordPress we’ve previously recommended on this site.
For more information about using this plugin, see this article:
Benefits Of Using Thrive Content Builder And Landing Pages
Here we have listed just some of the many benefits of using Thrive Content Builder to speed up content creation:
Quick And Simple To Install And Use. Be Up And Running In No Time.
Thrive Content Builder installs like any regular WordPress plugin. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin user login and activate.
Real-Time Content Building And Editing
Thrive Content Builder is very simple and intuitive to use and lets you edit content in real-time.
A Truly Visual Content Editor
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see on the “backend” as you work within the content editor – typefaces, visual elements, page layouts, etc. is exactly what you get on the front end of your site.
Additional benefits include:
- Beautiful Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any layout you can imagine with intuitive drag-and-drop functionality.
- Add Customizable Elements Without Shortcodes: With the Thrive Content Builder plugin you not only get a click-to-edit content editor, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of customizable design elements that you can insert into your content layouts without using short codes, such as tabbed content, content reveal feature, buttons, Google Map embeds, etc.
- Distraction-Free Content Creation: Not having to constantly switch tabs as you edit your content and then wait for for your updated content to load frees up your attention and allows you to be more focused while you work or click through multiple steps to get what you want done.
(Thrive Content Builder lets you easily add, edit and customize web page elements like testimonial boxes, pricing tables, borderless content, buttons, responsive maps, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder offers website owners many features. Here are just a few:
- Built-In WordPress Editor Functionality Is Still Available: You have access to all of the built-in text editing options that you are used to (e.g. underline, paragraph formatting, heading styles, etc.),
- Drag And Drop Multi-Style Elements Menu: The plugin makes a “drag and drop” table of multi-style elements available on 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 conversions, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonial boxes, and guarantee forms. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Web Page Design: Add responsive elements like columns, 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 insert animated page elements, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your 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 from signup to purchase, product download and more.
(Thrive Landing Pages lets you easily add conversion-optimized pages to your site)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Benefits
- Hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time designing and customizing web pages for your website
- 100% conversion-optimized pages
- No web coding skills needed
- Works with any 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 beautifully 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 over 30 templates available, with more templates planned for future release. In addition to the templates that are currently available, the developers plan to release new templates for email lead generation, sales pages, course pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Customize Your Landing Page Template
Typically, to be able to have a fully customizable landing page template, you would need to either hire a web developer to do the work, or learn web coding languages like HTML and CSS 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 complex 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 beautiful pre-designed pages that are fully optimized and ready to go, and complete design freedom that lets you change or edit any element of the page …
With the landing page templates included with this plugin, you are able to:
- Change text in any button, bullet point, headline, etc.
- Delete text, images or any other component of the landing page
- Change the background image or colour
- Edit the color of links, buttons, text, etc.
- Select your own fonts
- Select your own images
- Change the size of the content area
- Rearrange the order of page elements
- Translate everything on the page into different languages
- Add custom content inside the pages
- Use pre-designed, customized pages, or create your own landing pages from scratch and save them as new page templates.
(Change or edit any element of the page)
Transform Your Site Into A Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive plugin combo includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully configurable two-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your pages …
(Add opt-in forms and animated objects to your web pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Thrive Lighbox Two-Step Opt-in Forms
A 2-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 …
(Capture more leads and subscribers with a 2-step opt-in process)
Thrive Lightbox Event Manager
An “event” consists of a trigger and an action. You can make opt-in forms appear when your visitor clicks or hovers over a button or graphic elements, or when someone reaches a certain point on the page. You can also use the Event Manager to animate attention-getting elements on your page, using a range of animation effects (e.g. zoom out, slide in from right to left, rotate, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your WordPress web site with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over the events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Customers
Here are a couple of the testimonials and comments users have written about the Thrive Content Builder plugin:
”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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”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”
Useful Tips
Thrive Content Builder works with any theme in WordPress, not just with Thrive Landing Pages. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on existing pages or posts that were not created with the plugin installed.
You can add WordPress shortcodes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly on your website.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content you build using Thrive Content Builder.
Thrive Content Builder Plugin Support
Thrive Content 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 software is really well-supported, and users get unlimited software updates, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a no-risk, thirty day, full refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product that just keeps getting better.
Software 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 allows you to set up the plugin on one site only. It includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License Edition – This option enables you to install the plugin on all websites that you personally own. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – Use on all your web sites and on all your client web sites. Price includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: Pricing for the Thrive Content Builder software depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. The pricing shown above was correct at the time this content was written. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the product developer when you visit the product 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 developers of the Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages plugin emphatically 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 page elements and template sets 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 change and customize everything on your page, using the plugin’s visual content editor, which allows you to work unhindered by overly complicated options.
For a demo video of the plugin, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, support helpdesk, 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, you’ll see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, you drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no overly complicated steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your site and create amazing marketing pages and content, Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder delivers an incredible conversion-boosting package with a single, inexpensive plugin.
For more details, visit the plugin website here:
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