WordPress has evolved from being just a simple blogging application to a tool that is now being used to design all types of web pages – marketing pages, portfolio pages, business pages, etc.
Whatever you can think of, someone is probably already building it using WordPress!
In this article you will discover the simplest and easiest to use WYSIWYG content editor for your WordPress website.
Drag & Drop Content Editors For WordPress
Does The Default WordPress WYSIWYG Editor Meet All Of Your Content Creation Needs?
With so many advancements that WordPress has gone through in recent years, many WordPress developers believe that using the default WordPress editor to build or edit more complex content elements can be challenging.
(The default WordPress content editor is great for adding, formatting and editing conventional text and media, but adding complex page elements can be challenging!)
For example, if you look at the image below …
Creating the above page elements in a page would require inserting something like this into the default WordPress editor …
Normally, this is not an issue … unless you choose to change an element of the layout (for example, move some of the content from box 3 into box 2, or change the background color inside a box from bright red to gold. Then, you’re stuck having to mess around with page code.
The WordPress visual content editor is supposed to provide non-technical users with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor, but as you can see, if you are working with complex content elements, what you see in the visual editor may not be the same as what you are getting when the content is published …
(“What You See” isn’t always “What You Get” … unless you can visualize code!)
In some instances, users may even be better off working inside the html editor tab instead of the WordPress visual editor when trying to add complex layouts …
Even though WordPress is extremely easy to use, this makes it hard for WordPress users without coding skills to have full control of their own content.
The fundamental issue about using shortcodes and HTML to create content in WordPress can be summarized by asking the following questions:
1) Speed – How long does it take to build a web page using this editor?
2) Abstraction – How closely does the content in the ”back end” match the content in the “front end” when you are creating or editing a page?
As you can see from the above screenshot, what you see when working in the back end looks nothing like what you see in the front end. This means that you have to mentally translate what the content will look like when working with sophisticated layouts. Other solutions require several steps before you can begin configuring your page layout, or endlessly switching tabs and performing tweaks and updates to see how your content is progressing, which can impact how fast you can create your content, as you wait for your new content to load.
Many WordPress developers have come up with a range of solutions to try and address this issue. Some of these alternative solutions range from plugins you can add to your site that add new functionality to the editor, to WP themes that offer built-in features like drag and drop editing …
(WordPress “drag and drop” editors aim to make content creation easier!)
Some solutions combine so many complex page design features, that users end up with complicated-looking front end content editors …
Many of these alternative solutions work fine, but they don’t address the fundamental issue of using shortcodes and HTML 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 your page content to look “just right” quickly, this can start to become really frustrating after a while.
Ask yourself this …
If there were no technical constraints, how would you like to build and edit your content?
Now that you’ve asked this question, visualize the following …
- You look at your content and if you spot something that needs fixing, just click on the content and start changing it. Your content is then instantly fixed.
- You can just drag and drop elements around the page, and see them exactly as they will display on the front end without having to mentally visualize any HTML or shortcodes.
- You have an idea for a specific piece of content that you would like to create, so you just start typing, and your web page gets built on the fly, without delays, with no switching of tab browsers, and no waiting for new pages to resave and reload.
Would this not be the perfect way to build content for your WordPress web site? A true WYSIWYG editor where all you have to do is click-to-edit and drag and drop elements around your pages and posts?
(Imagine being able to create complex web page layouts 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 And Landing Pages
Plugin Description
Thrive Content Builder is a ground-breaking plugin for WordPress that gives you complete control over every aspect of your content pages using true click-to-edit and drag and drop simplicity.
The Thrive Content Builder plugin provides WordPress users with a new and exciting way to speed up the process of adding amazing content to WordPress web sites.
Once installed, the plugin adds a visual content editor with an item menu that lets you select, then drag and drop elements to your web page …
(Thrive Content Builder adds a new visual content editor to your WordPress site)
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 will discuss 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 marketing pages, streamlined landing pages and engaging content.
Thrive Content Builder
You can easily add content to your web pages using drag and drop elements …
Every element of your web page can be designed by ”clicking-to-edit” and “dragging and dropping” things around the page …
Once you have placed your elements on the page, you can continue to further edit or customize them without having to go through multiple steps or switching tabs …
You can also create highly attractive landing pages and easily edit these …
Thrive Landing Pages and Content 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 easy, 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
Go here to learn more about this 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 we’ve previously written about on this site.
Go here to read more about the plugin:
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 your page design and content creation process:
Quick And Easy To Install And Set Up. Be Up And Running In Very Little Time.
Thrive Content Builder installs like any plugin. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate.
Real-Time Content Content Editing
Thrive Content Builder is really simple and intuitive to use and lets you edit and add content to your web pages in real-time.
What You See Is Truly What You Get
With Thrive Content Builder installed, what you see as you work within the content editor – fonts, elements, layouts, etc. is exactly what your visitors will see on the front end of your site.
Additional benefits and advantages include the following:
- Add Eye-Catching Layouts With Drag-And-Drop Ease: Create any type of layout you can imagine with drag-and-drop ease.
- Design Elements Included: With Thrive Content Builder you not only get an exciting and an easy-to-use click-to-edit content builder, but the plugin also includes a jaw-dropping collection of design elements that you can customizable and add to your pages without using short codes, like content toggle, content boxes, buttons, credit card icons, etc.
- Ideal For Non-Technical Users: Not having to deal with technical stuff, or having to wait for your page to refresh 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.
(Add, edit and customize page elements like testimonials, pricing tables, feature grids, buttons, Google Map embeds, etc.)
Thrive Content Builder Features
Thrive Content Builder provides a number of powerful features to website owners. Here are just some:
- Built-In Editor Functionality Is Preserved: You have all of the regular WordPress text editing options that you are used to (e.g. underlines, centering text, 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 editing content.
- Conversion-Boosting Elements: The plugin provides you with a range of attention-grabbing and customizable elements that will help you increase the effectiveness of your sales pages, including buttons and call-to-action elements, testimonials, and guarantees. In addition to being customizable, multiple design options are also available for various elements.
- Responsive Element Design: Add responsive elements like column layouts, boxes, dividers, e.g. which will display correctly on different screens.
- Add Animation Events To Pages: The plugin’s Event Manager feature lets you create animated page content, trigger lightboxes and more!
(Add Animated Elements To Your Pages)
Thrive Landing Pages Plugin – Landing Page Template Sets
Landing page template sets are web page 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 provides you with conversion-optimized page templates)
Thrive Landing Pages – Benefits
- Everything is hosted on your own WordPress site
- Save time and money creating and customizing pages for your WordPress web site
- 100% conversion-optimized web page templates
- No tech skills needed
- Works with any WordPress theme
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages 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 page templates and fully customizable …
(Thrive Landing Pages provides sets of templates that work together logically and use the same conversion-optimized design language)
There are currently over thirty templates available, with more templates being worked on. In addition to the available templates, expect to see new templates in the future for email lead generation, sales pages, training pages, personal branding pages, webinar pages and more.
Completely Customizable And Flexible Landing Page Template Sets
Normally, in order to fully customize 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 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 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 great-looking pre-designed web page templates 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 template sets included with this plugin, you are able to:
- Modify text in all headlines, bullet points, buttons, etc.
- Remove text, images or any other component of the landing page
- Replace the background image or background colors
- Edit the color of text, buttons, links, etc.
- Choose your own fonts
- Use your own images and graphics
- Modify the size of the content area
- Change the order of elements on the page
- Translate everything on the page into a different language
- Add custom content inside your pages
- Start with a blank web page and create your own templates, or even build a custom landing pages library.
(Change and customize any aspect of the page templates)
Transform Your WordPress Site Into A Powerful Marketing Machine With Thrive Lightbox Plugin
The Thrive package includes Thrive Lightbox, which lets you add fully configurable two-step opt-in forms and animated elements to your content pages …
(Add lead capture forms and animated elements to your WordPress web site with the Thrive Lightbox plugin)
2-Step Opt-in Forms
A two-step opt-in process can help increase your conversion rates. Visitors click on an image or button, and then they are presented with your opt-in form …
(Opt-in forms can increase your conversion rates.)
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 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 various animation effects (e.g. zoom in from the page center, slide in from left to right, roll in, etc.
(Set up and manage events on your marketing pages with Thrive Lightbox)
Lightboxes and events are created automatically for your landing pages, but you also have complete control over the events, triggers and design.
Feedback From Users
Here are a few of the testimonials and feedback that plugin users have provided for 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 the Thrive Landing Pages plugin. Note, however, that you cannot use Thrive Content Builder to edit content on pages or posts that were not created with the plugin installed.
You can add WordPress short codes inside the Content Builder or Landing Pages plugin and they will display correctly when published.
Thrive Lightbox works with any content built with Thrive Content Builder.
Support
Thrive Content Builder and Landing Pages 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 upgrades, and 1 year unlimited support with their purchase, backed by a risk-free, 30 day, complete refund guarantee.
This is an exciting product for WordPress users that just keeps getting better.
Product 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 Edition – This lets you run the plugin on one web site only. Price includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Price = $59.00.
- Unlimited Sites License – This lets you run the plugin on all web sites that you personally own. Includes full feature set, unlimited updates and one year of unlimited support. Cost = $87.00.
- Agency Licensing – Use on all your sites & on all your client websites. Includes access to Thrive Content Builder, plus all Thrive Themes & Thrive Plugins. Cost = $247.00 per year.
Please Note: Current pricing for Thrive Content Builder depends on whether there are any promotions or limited-time specials being offered. Currently, the plugin is being retailed for the amounts shown above. This may not be the actual pricing charged by the software seller when you visit the website and you may be shown additional upsells or one-time offers after purchasing.
Check the plugin’s website for current pricing details:
Additional Plugin Info
The developers of the Thrive Landing Pages and Content Builder 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 web page elements and beautiful, conversion-optimized templates that help make designing your content faster, and on the other hand, you also have 100% control over the design process and the freedom to edit anything and everything on your page, using the plugin’s click-to-edit and drag and drop features, that lets you get things done without having to open multiple dialog boxes.
For a demo video showing how the software works, including help documentation and tutorials, FAQs, customer helpdesk, contact details and more, visit the Thrive Content Builder website.
Our Recommendation …
If you want to edit something, you click on the element and start editing. If you want to change something, do it, and you will see the change happen immediately. If you want to move something, simply drag it and drop it into its new location. There are no unnecessary steps involved.
If you want to transform and improve your site and create awesome 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.
For full details, check out the plugin here:
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