In case you have missed it, the overwhelming demand for plugin products that can perform just about everything is one of the dominant trends in the world of WordPress. There has been an explosion of page builders for WordPress in recent months, so many actually that it is hard to know where to begin. If you want a simple way to create and customize your WordPress blog or site, then drag-and-drop page builder plugins will come in handy. A page builder allows you to build, edit, and customize your website layout without the need to write any code. In this article, we’ll delve deep into the top drag-and-drop page builders and compare and review the best.
What is a WordPress page builder?
A page builder for WordPress allows you to control how your site pages look through simply moving elements in a visual interface. They have become so popular partly because they require no technical understanding to use. Even a novice is able to create professional-looking pages within seconds using a drag and drop page builder.
How a WordPress page builder works
WordPress page builder plugins give users a simple way to build custom website layouts, and pack loads of powerful functionalities and features into one place. They allow the user to customize every component on their website without them having to write a single line of code. These components could be anything like adding many columns, full width images, content slider, parallax backgrounds, etc. Users can use such components as blocks for building their own layouts within their themes for WordPress. These make our lives simpler, and the WordPress community cannot seem to get enough of them. There are many of the highest-ranking page builders dominating the sales charts.
The developers of WordPress page builders recognize the weight of testing their products prior to buying. This is why they offer demos of their plugins. If one wants to find the solution suitable for your project, they need to carry out the necessary research and spend quality time building a webpage using the plugin in question. This help one see first-hand what the plugin can do.
Why Use a WordPress Page Builder?
Many WordPress beginners do find it difficult to customize or change page layouts on their website. Although premium themes for WordPress come with different page layouts, these are extremely difficult to customize for someone who doesn’t know code (HTML / CSS). There are also beginners who opt out of WordPress and go for solutions like Wix and Weebly because of simpler design functionality. To solve this, there are loads of great drag and drop WordPress page builder plugins available.
Real Life Examples of WordPress page builders
Now since there’re different types of drag-and-drop page builders for WordPress, some which are part of theme-frameworks while others are plugins. There are plenty of great WordPress page builders out there. Having said that, some of the best WordPress page builders in the market include: Thrive Themes, Visual Composer, Divi Builder, MotoPress, Beaver Builder, Themify Builder and VelocityPage. The criteria for picking these page builders are: ease of use, the design output and flexibility. My favorite of all the options and the one that I personally use is Thrive Themes but you are free to make your own decision based on your own research.
Pros Of Page WordPress Builder Plugins
We will start with the positives. The following are reasons why you need a quality WordPress page builder installed on your WordPress site.
1. All-in-one Functionality
For the most part, a page builder plugin is a one stop shop for all the cool on page functionality that truly sets a site or blog apart. These include image carousels, content grids, pie charts, pricing tables, social sharing buttons, call to action buttons, and more. To attain these results without a Wordpress page builder, you would have to install multiple dedicated, single-feature plugins.
2. Beautiful, Custom Layouts
Those of who don’t know how to code can rely on WordPress themes in designing their websites. Even though there really are some awesome themes out there, there may be few of them that meet your needs down to a tee. With a WordPress page builder installed, one can flex his or her creative muscles and build a website as they had always envisioned it. In essence page builder plugins offer you a blank canvas on which you can build.
3. No Coding Required
Another of the main benefit of page builder plugins is that one doesn’t need to know a single line of code in order to use one. This has been a major draw for any non-developers out there. Most WordPress page builders include a user friendly interface, typically with drag and drop support. That makes it super easy for one to add modules to your webpage, and afterward rearrange and resize them.
Cons Of Page Builder plugins
It is not all plain sailing with WordPress page builders, sadly. Let’s take a quick look at the main drawbacks of using them.
1. The LockIn Effect
These plugins use shortcodes and shortcodes are plugin specific. The moment one deactivates their page builder plugin, they essentially make all those shortcodes redundant. Fortunately, some Wordpress page builder plugin developers such as VelocityPage are catching on to this issue and building their plugins without an over-dependence on shortcodes.
2. Sluggish Loading
All those fancy functionalities and features come at a cost – website speed and file size. With the fancy modules already at our fingertips, there’s real potential for website performance issues and a slow site is bad news for SEO, as well.
Final Thoughts on WordPress Page Builders
It appears that WordPress users can’t seem to get enough of the all in one page builder plugins as well as multi-purpose themes. There is so much demand out there, and it’s little surprise that there are a number of fantastic plugin products released by top developers to meet our needs. The benefits of WordPress page builder plugins are many: plenty of awesome functionalities, cool designs, in addition to a shallow learning curve. Even with there being some drawbacks, it is worth pointing out that several developers are working to address such known problems. Going forward, this means that we will have a better quality of plugin. Therefore, installing a WordPress page builder will be an even more attractive proposition. Everyone should be using WordPress page builder plugins, simply because they not only improve your productivity, but also save you money in the long run. My visual page builder of choice is Thrive Themes because the Thrive Themes team constantly updates and improve the page builder. It's like having a 24/7 developer team working for your own business when you subscribe to Thrive Themes. So now I hope you have some ideas of the various WordPress page builders available to you and what they do. Now, you can make an informed decision for your own business.