Elementor: The Must-Have Page Creation Plugin for WordPress

WordPress is the most used content management system (CMS) in the world. More than 40 % of websites are created and managed on the platform. However, WordPress suffers from an interface that is a bit difficult to learn and from functionalities that are often not very accessible to beginners.

It is largely because of these initial difficulties that ELEMENTOR, a simple plugin, became the first theme builder on WordPress. Based on a drag-and-drop interface, the plugin is as effective for a small website as it is for a blog with hundreds of pages or a marketing agency administering hundreds of sites.

But is ELEMENTOR that easy to use? How does its interface work? What are the plugin’s strengths and weaknesses? Is it suitable for professional use? Can we be satisfied with the free version?

Our overview of ELEMENTOR will provide the answers. You’ll also know why this plugin is a must-have if you have a WP site.

Check if you can get any special discount with our Elementor coupon code article.

1. ELEMENTOR vs. WordPress: Reasons for Success

Launched in 2016 by the POJO THEME team, ELEMENTOR was born from a simple observation – despite the multiple features and plugins, using WordPress remains complicated and requires technical skills, some knowledge of code, and site creation.

Managing the different parts of a page, the layout of the elements, widgets, etc. on WordPress will require, despite improvements to the native interface, to sometimes get your hands dirty. This is where page builders come in.

The goal of ELEMENTOR is simple – to provide an interface that reduces the need for training, saving you precious time. The success of the plugin relies on its clear interface and two main features: Drag and Drop and WYSIWYG.

• Drag and Drop. This interface offers blocks of content or widgets that you just drag on a section chosen beforehand. You can move and place a title, image, button, video, or text, as well as define a section, add columns, paste your content block and you’re done.
• WYSIWYG. “What You See Is What You Get” is increasingly used in software or design plugins. The principle is simple – no need to go back and forth between a code interface, a preview, and the final page. Everything you put in the user interface will be the final result of your website.

ELEMENTOR’s WYSIWYG has an undeniable advantage – the changes in the module are animated so you can see in real-time the changes in the layout.

This intuitive way of creating pages is both a time saver and an invaluable comfort for novices in site creation. And professionals who manage several dozen sites are also fond of it. Moreover, WordPress developers will be able to access the scripts and code for more professional use and optimization.

In addition, ELEMENTOR provides the following:

• Lots of templates and themes.
• Extensive choice of widgets (ex. a simple title, a Google Map, a CTA).
• New features since the last version of ELEMENTOR allow you to customize the themes.
• Minimalist freemium version but suitable for basic sites.
• Optimized paid PRO versions including theme customization, additional modules, mods, and content blocks, robust support, and third-party marketing application integration.
• Availability in 57 languages.

Now you know the reasons for ELEMENTOR’s success not only among beginners but also among web professionals.

Whether you are creating one or more websites, a blog, an e-commerce site, or simply reworking some pages of your WordPress site (home page, landing page, product page, etc.), ELEMENTOR is a vital touchstone plugin. More so if you have no background in web content creation code languages like HTML, CSS, or PHP.

2. Overview of the ELEMENTOR Interface and its Features

The installation of ELEMENTOR does not require any special handling, it follows that of all WordPress plugins. You will just have two new tabs on the WordPress page: ELEMENTOR and MODELS.

The plugin settings (general, style, and advanced) allow you to choose content types such as posts and/or pages, enable ELEMENTOR colors and fonts, etc. You can push a little further into the plugin settings with the TOOLS tab of your dashboard.

There’s a tab Recirculation Manager that allows you to define who can use the page builder. Click on BEGIN and the plugin displays explanation videos.

Now to the nitty gritty – open the PAGES interface then Add and Edit with ELEMENTOR, and here is the core of the plugin. No frills – the interface presents things in a simple and minimalist way, even for the most tedious tasks.

The plugin page is divided into several parts:

• On left are the available elements or widgets.
• At the top is the header of your site, which you can manage in the PRO versions.
• In the center is the main content, the place where you’ll put the widgets.

The plugin is straightforward to use – you choose a section or block of a page and drag and drop the elements you want into it. You can also select layout templates or block layout templates (structures) under the name PREMADE LAYOUT.

Of course, you can modify and create your block models and fine-tune their placement on the page. The column hosts one or more contents or widgets. All these objects are present in the ELEMENTS tab of the left menu. You just have to drag them to be integrated.

The list is available widgets is long. These include:

• Common widgets such as titles, images, buttons, and text location.
• From WordPress (compatibility with platform plugins gives you even more choices).
• Content widgets like tabs, galleries, carousels, etc.
• Persuasive widgets such as ratings and comments.
• Techniques (ex. when we want to customize the HTML).

If you have a WordPress site with its theme, you can use ELEMENTOR to revitalize its look or bring in new features. It’s hard to list them all but the plugin is brimming with all the little extras – history, resizing, background, responsive, etc.

Like any good application but quite rare among plugins, the right click opens a contextual menu for indispensable actions such as edit, copy, delete, save, duplicate, etc. It can also transform a block or a page into a Module anywhere on the whole site.

Finally, all of this generates a pretty impressive and very quickly addictive WYSIWYG. Forget about going back and forth between the working interface and the overview page, where everything is visible and realized live. Then just click on the button Publish so that the corrections, modifications, or additions, on the page are applied to your website.

As mentioned earlier, since version 3.0 of the plugin, you can customize your site from A to Z. Named the Design System, this set of functions allows you to define styles or colors that are then displayed on all pages of the site. This also includes typography (font, size, color), images (border, shadows, filters), buttons, forms, etc.

In other words, whether you are a seasoned designer or not, you can easily customize your site and give it a dynamic makeover. While it has a lot of tools and features, no need to worry. ELEMENTOR offers very quality tutorials, a complete help center, and an active community.

3. Paid Version Features and Pricing

Available is a free version of the page builder that can be suitable for launching on WordPress, for a showcase site, or for improving pages on an existing website. You will be limited to a small number of basic widgets and themes.

The main problem with the free version comes from the maintenance and updates of some add-ons that can affect the display of your pages. If you have designed a fairly simple site, the free version can be adequate. It is primarily for getting familiar with the interface before you get started.

The paid or PRO versions include the quintessential ELEMENTOR and its three builders.

• Theme Builder. You get to manage the whole page from the header to the footer, including the famous “Error 404” page. You can completely customize an existing theme or design and create several templates according to your pages. This builder is ideal if you want a particular design or just to customize one or more elements of your pages. The theme editor is very simple but its scope is almost unlimited and the final rendering is often stunning.
• Woocomerce Builder. You can create a WooCommerce store or optimize the one you already have. The essential e-commerce extension on WordPress is not that easy to use and offers few visuals. But with ELEMENTOR, customizing your online store becomes a breeze.
• Pop-up Builder. The ELEMENTOR PRO version offers no less than 150 pop-up templates. Of course, you can define the action triggering the pop-up as well as its purposes such as calls to action, gifts, promotional offers, etc. The pop-up management is also easy to use.

Access Management

The PRO versions of the editor integrate the concept of content management. As a webmaster, you can choose who has the right to edit what. A writer, for example, could integrate or edit the texts without affecting the structure of the site. Your customers will be able to add product pages differently, etc. The rules are finalized beforehand to avoid any untimely changes.

ELEMENTOR Pricing

The WordPress plugin comes in three different price points depending on how many sites you want to manage. All PRO versions give you access to:

More than 50 widgets in addition to those available on the free version, for a total of 90 widgets.

• 300+ templates
• Over 60 PRO site models
• Responsive design – optimized display for smartphones and tablets
• The three builders – Woocommerce, Popup, and Theme
• One-year premium updates and support

Here are the rates for the different plans and versions:

• ESSENTIAL version – $49 per year for a site
• 3 SITES – $99 per year (ex. a showcase site, a blog, and a sales site)
• 25 SITES – $199 per year for 25 sites with 20 Expert site models. You also automatically acquire an ELEMENTOR Expert profile, which can open doors for you on a professional level, allowing you to develop a portfolio of your creations in the community.
• STUDIO version – $499 per year for 100 websites or $5 per site per year. You’ll have access to VIP support, which means a response within thirty minutes.
• AGENCY version – $999 per year for 1000 sites. This proves that ELEMENTOR can handle large marketing and site creation ventures.

These are great deals. The prices are valid for one year. Not re-subscribing to a package means forgoing plugin updates, bug fixes, and new features.

ELEMENTOR also offers website hosting services for $89 per year, including the benefits of the PRO version + 20 GB of hosting with SSL, a CDN secured by CloudFlare, automated backups, etc.
Check Elementor Pro price

4. Drawbacks of ELEMENTOR

So, does this plug-in have any drawbacks? Not quite. No more ELEMENTOR’s services rhetoric, let’s get down to business.

• On the pricey side. the prices of the paid versions are a bit higher than the competition. However, the peace of mind and ease of use come at a cost, not to mention the accomplished design of ELEMENTOR’s themes and models.
• Support issues. Some ELEMENTOR users point to unresponsive help and support. The PRO versions offer responsive VIP support (within half an hour), and the free version support takes a hit.
• Limited free themes. The free version themes are quite a few. A small thumbnail in red PRO identifies and distinguishes the premium themes.
• Browser issues.Slowdowns have been reported on displays using Firefox but have since been fixed when version 3.0 of ELEMENTOR was released.
• Display compatibility. If your site is a little too “customized”, the display compatibility or responsive web design with mobiles and tablets may suffer. Hence, don’t test the display of the pages on these devices.
• Third-party plugins. Add-ons outside of ELEMENTOR can be difficult to manage. The integration of third-party plugins is supported by the interface but can cause display problems. This concern is also true for WordPress. So, use add-ons outside of ELEMENTOR sparingly or turn to the rich community for advice and feedback.
• SEO issues. SEO is promising but not very effective for some. To have a natural SEO push, you’ll need to go through complementary WordPress or other tools and plugins.

5. Conclusion

Whether you have to quickly build a site of a few pages or you are the owner of a hundred sites, the ELEMENTOR editor remains a very good tool or even the ultimate tool in our opinion.

The success of the plugin, which announces itself as the freemium number one builder of WordPress, is not overstated. According to its team, a site is created every ten seconds with ELEMENTOR, which boasts more than 9 million active installations.

ELEMENTOR has changed the way WordPress is learned and its simplified visual process is praised by marketers, developers, content writers, and more. Try ELEMENTOR and experience how simple, fast, fluid, and complete it is.
Check Elementor Pro price