Not sure if Elementor WordPress page builder is the right choice for you? Then read this article below. In short, Elementor is a free, intuitive and user-friendly plugin for creating visual (web) pages in WordPress. It works accurately with every possible WordPress theme. You can simply leave the supplied page builder on your website and let it run alongside elementor. You edit the pages directly from the front-end. You can also choose to use the hello theme from elementor. With elementor you simply get more options and more extensive functions than with most page builders and you also do not need any HTML / CSS / PHP / coding skills. If you want to upgrade your website with more advanced functions and possibilities than the regular page builders offer, Elementor is a good alternative. Below is a more extensive explanation why this is the case.
WordPress drag and drop page builders
A WordPress drag drop page builder is often included with a WordPress theme. Due to the drag and drop feature, these page builders make it easier to build pages and other elements of your website. Examples of popular page builders are Visual composer, divi page builder, WPBakery Page Builder, themify builder and beaver builder.
Elementor is a relatively new standalone plugin that is free to download and use. It can be used with any WordPress website and WordPress Theme. Despite all this competition, elementor has become very popular in a relatively short period of time.
Front-end page developer
With Elementor’s front-end page designer, what you see is what you get. That means the version you see in the Elementor interface is exactly what your visitors will see. The visual interface enables many smart actions such as:
- Faster operations;
- Drag and drop elements;
- Control over content positioning;
- Alignment of edges or margins;
- Advanced widgets;
- Ability to bypass the entire site structure within the live space
Blocks and templates
There is an extensive library of fully customizable blocks and templates. Once you have finished formatting a block(s) or page(s), you can easily save it as a template(s) and use it to fill in other pages and blocks as well.
Mobile friendliness
It is easy to make the pages and other elements of the website fit for mobile. In the Elementor interface, go to the desktop icon and click on it. This can be found next to the Publish button. Here, among other things, the mobile editing mode will appear, and then click on it to adjust the mobile elements. Here you can adjust almost everything to make the pages mobile-friendly. It does not affect your changes in the desktop mode, by the way. This function ensures that your website is 100% responsive for mobile visitors, regardless of which smartphone they use.
Inline text editing
The Elementor plugin offers endless possibilities for customization of your WordPress sites. One of the useful possibilities is the inline text editing. Namely, you can write the texts directly in the frontend of the page preview area.
This makes writing or editing content extra fast and easy for things like landing pages and blog posts. You can also customize your font in this interface, use the available Google fonts, add shadow, enable drop cap, add custom Typekit and much more.
The inline text editor is very useful for the following tasks.
- Correct spelling errors or change wording in current content
- Creating long blog posts
- Landing page optimization
Theme Flexibility
You are not bound to continue working with the supplied page builder of your WordPress theme. Most users are used to the interface of themes such as Astra, Hestia, Ocean WP and Generate Press and are happy to continue working with them. The flexibility of the plugin ensures that Elementor works with any WordPress theme without any errors. So you can continue using your favorite theme without any worries.
Hello WordPress theme from elementor
Elementor also provides its own theme called Hello. This theme is ideal for users who are not bound to a fixed theme and want to build a template from scratch. This is a theme with a free blank canvas that does not require coding and works well. With hello you can build a website in its entirety, including your own header and footer.
Full revision history
You can always go back to any of the previous versions of your web building process, should you decide to undo some changes. The plugin allows you to save all input/changes, so you can quickly revert to an older version when needed.
Pricing
Elementor is free and open-source, and in fact 90% of all features are available in the free plan. It is free to install from the WordPress plugin repository or the official Elementor site. The Pro plan gives you a number of extras that are necessary for most professional web designers.
Elementor's pricing structure is as follows:
- Free version (not all options available)
Premium versions
- Personal: US $ 49/year for 1 site
- Plus: US $ 99/year for 3 sites
- Expert: US $ 199 / year for 1,000 sites
If you only have one website to build or maintain, the Personal plan is fine. But if you are a professional website builder, the Expert plan would be a great fit.
Start with the free version
A big advantage is that you don’t have to start with the Pro version, but can simply start with the free version. Once you’re happy and have mastered the features of elementor, you can maximize your workflow by upgrading to the premium version. The premium version also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and attractive renewal discounts. Check out the Elementor website to see which elements you get with each plan.
Get more out of the pro version of elementor
Elementor stands out for its feature-rich free version, which is more than sufficient for personal and business WordPress websites. The free version of Elementor offers features that are more than enough for anyone to create a decently functional site. But the Pro version goes a step further and offers extensive customization options especially useful for a professional designer.
Theme customization
The Theme Builder gives you more control over your site's design. Here are some of the elements you can expect with the premium version
- Create unique headers and footers;
- Create dynamic and custom templates;
- Using dynamic widgets;
- Using custom layouts;
- Creating search results or 404 pages
- Bypass templates for each message.
Additional modules
The 90+ additional modules help you create essential elements of your website, including blog posts, forms, headings, pricing lists, WooCommerce, progress bars, share buttons, reviews and more.
Pro Templates
Included is a selection of high-quality and professional premium templates. You can easily import multiple of them and even customize the core elements as you wish.
Handy widgets
It is the professional widgets that make your website building process extremely fast and powerful. You can use the standard or premium widget to enhance the functionality of your site. Elementor Pro widgets give you more authority and accessibility to build professional WordPress/WooCommerce sites. For example, Global Widgets are a great way to customize a specific widget that will be displayed in multiple places of the site.
Restrict user access
It is not very professional and very annoying when customers or employees take matters into their own hands by changing modules/elements of the website or placing them somewhere else. Other authors can also accidentally delete the site elements and thus increase the workload of the developer. You can easily change this with the user access. As an admin you can grant other authors or users on the site rights to what they can or cannot change, for example. This prevents elements from being moved without your permission.
Pro Updates & Support
The Elementor team regularly adds fixes and features that are only available to the Pro subscribers. This is in addition to the 24/7 support from the elementor team if you ever get stuck somewhere in elementor. You will get support via ticket-based emails. How-to guides and YouTube tutorials are other perks that will help you find answers to issues in Elementor.
Pro Integrations
Various integration options are available with third-party marketing apps such as MailChimp, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Drip and Zapier.
Elementor Licenses
If your Pro license expires after 1 year and you haven't renewed, you will lose access to most Pro features, support, and future updates. However, you will still be able to use regular Elementor modules, theme builder features, popup features, etc. It is therefore recommended to renew your pro license in time, so you don't lose these pro features.
Elementor: What's good about it?
- Live example
- No limitations for WP block editor
- Intuitive drag and drop interface
- No technical know-how required
- High quality templates
- Helpful video guides
- Powerful pop-up builder
- Decent selection of elements
- Enhanced mobile responsiveness
- Theme Builder for advanced customization
- Regular updates
- The system is not slowed down by it
Elementor: What's wrong with it?
- Unable to filter free and paid templates
- Does not detect incompatible functions
- Some useful features are missing
- Third party add-ons causing problems
Be patient with elementor
It might be a bit challenging to get the hang of working with elementor at first. Once you practice patience and master the features, you will definitely be excited about the possibilities that elementor offers.
Target audience
However, Elementor won't be a suitable choice for everyone, so who is it essentially for?
The free version is great for bloggers and content managers. It is also great for beginning designers, because you get the most flexibility of all page builders. And the pro version is great for the professional web designer.
Most advanced page builder on the market
Elementor is the most advanced and free page builder on the market today. It allows you to optimize and customize the look and feel of your WordPress site more than any other page builder. And you don’t need any knowledge of CSS or PHP to do it.
Want to know more about Elementor?
Rickid webdesign is a web designer who specializes in building webshops in WordPress and WooCommerce combined with the Elementor pagebuilder. Do you want to start a website with elementor but you don't know how? Contact Rickid Webdesign! Rickid gives you practical information about Elementor plugin. Finally, Rickid can give you a complete inventory of the tools you need for your project. Do you still want to outsource the project? Rickid can help you and also give you a quote and time estimate for building your new website with Elementor. Contact Rickid today!
Download elementor
You can download the free elementor plugin from the elementor website or via the wordpress repositoryYou can also purchase the pro version directly via the Elementor website.
