WordPress is the most well-known website platform. When talking about Content management systems alone, WordPress owns 60.8% of the market share. That is how ubiquitous and gigantic WordPress is.
WordPress powers 14.7% of the top websites in the world. WordPress is the only reason that Time Magazine, Sony Music and The Harvard Gazette, as well as Microsoft News, function. WordPress is a must-have for the internet.
Now WordPress is just a very simple site builder, it takes a lot of work to create a website in the levels of the bigger ones like Microsoft news and Time Magazine. It would be difficult to create a website as functional and elegant without the necessary know-how.
Enter Plug-ins. WordPress plugins can be described as pieces of software you “plug in” to your WordPress website. These plugins will enhance or add functionality to your WordPress site. Through plugins, you can make your website into anything you can imagine.
Plugins are the heartbeat of WordPress. They are essential to maintain and enhance its function. WordPress plugins are so embedded in the WordPress environment, that there are over 55,000 plugins listed on the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Some are free and some are paid. Some of these plug-ins are easy to use, and others take a while of getting used to. Elementor, a page builder plug-in, is a notable one.
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review of Pink1472’s Youtube channel. You can still read our article to get an overview of Elementor.
A Quick Look on Elementor Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
Elementor, a drag-and drop page builder plugin for WordPress, is the first. As the name suggests, page builders help users build their websites from the ground up.
Elementor is not new, however. It has been available in the WordPress Plugin Library since it was released in mid-2016. It has quickly become one of the most popular, visual page builders in WordPress. It has not slowed down since then.
Elementor continues to evolve and grow at an incredible pace, keeping up the latest technologies.
It is easy to use, as it uses drag-and-drop technology. Elementor is easy to use, even for people just starting to build websites. Most of the process will involve dragging and dropping website elements on your workspace.
Most drag and drop builders operate on the “what you see is what you get” model. That means whatever you see while editing or building your website. It is easy to visualize how your website will look when you build it.
Furthermore, Elementor allows you to do a lot of things. It gives you the ability to create posts and pages that are unique and more eye-oppoing than the standard post or page templates from a regular WordPress theme.
Elementor will take you to a different interface when you create your page. This is where you get to work on your posts and pages. You don’t need to use the standard editor WordPress offers.
This interface also does not require you to have any HTML, CSS, PHP, or any coding skills. As stated above, everything is drag and drop and done through a handy user-facing interface.
Elementor is a flexible plugin. It can be used with any current WordPress theme. You can make and generate any content layout or page layout you can imagine with it.
Elementor works with all types of WordPress themes. Elementor is compatible with all themes, so there’s no reason to be concerned if your theme isn’t compatible.
Elementor’s Features
At first glance, Elementor is what it says it is, a drag and drop page builder for WordPress User to make their pages without using a code.
However, we wouldn’t be discussing Elementor if it is all that Elementor can do.
Aside from being one of the most used and well reviewed page builder plugin in WordPress, Elementor also has the following features:
Content Elements Galore
Elementor, as a web page creator, is quite a strange name. It is not page building. Instead, it creates images of a monster that uses the elements to defeat the heroes.
However, nothing is further from the truth and Elementor was not named after a mythical creature or a scary monster to be vanquished. It is named after the building blocks users use to build out the page. These blocks are the so-called elements that form the web page.
These are the items that users “drag-and drop” to create eye-popping designs. And through them, the Elementor name is apropos.
Responsive Design
The smart phones were first. Then came internet of things. The internet can now be accessed by almost any device. Still, the most common way to browse the Internet would be a debate between the personal computer or laptop versus the smartphones and tablets.
If you’re the owner of a website and want to get “hits”, you shouldn’t be allowed to pick on any cockfight. You would want both to visit your website. As such, you would want your site to look the best it can no matter the device being used.
Elementor allows you to do just that. With its responsive design that is turned on by default, your website will look optimized no matter which gadget your viewer is using.
You can also customize the look and function of your browser to suit your needs.
Templates
Elementor is a drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy to create a WordPress page. It will also be no surprise to find people who have no idea where to begin when building a webpage.
These poor souls can be helped by templates. Templates can be used to avoid the “blank page syndrome” that many beginners experience. Elementor offers hundreds of professionally designed templates.
These templates will be a good place to start whenever you are starting out for a new web page. Or they can be used as an inspiration to create your own eye popping websites.
Style options
Elementor offers style as well as templates. Elementor offers many options for customizing your design to make it pixel perfect. You don’t need to know any coding or custom CSS.
Convenience
With its multiple tools, Elementor makes it a lot easier to build your web pages. You can access right-click support to get assistance with just a mouse click. There is also a quick find tool to aid you in finding what you need to build your website with the Theme Builder.
The Pro version (paid version) even allows users to design entire WordPress themes.
Dynamic Content
Dynamic content refers to any digital or online content which changes and updates based upon data, user behavior, and preferences.
Elementor allows you to add dynamic content from custom fields and plugins like ACF, Pods and Toolset. This allows the added benefit of having your pages constantly up to date with any relevant changes you want to be reflected.
Popup Builder
The popup builder is another feature that only Pro users can access with Elementor. Popups are small web pages that can be used into whatever you like. More often than not, they are used for lead conversion.
Elementor’s popup builder allows you to create your popup with the same tools as your webpage builder. This includes the same visual, drag and drop interface as well as the what you see is what you get interface.
Elementor’s Popup Builder will allow you to create popups as striking as your pages.
WooCommerce Builder
WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce plugin for WordPress. WooCommerce’s target is usually small to large online merchants. Its main draw is for its simplicity to integrate on your website and its customizability.
This customizability extends even to Elementor which allows users to create an eCommerce store using the WooCommerce plugin. Through Elementor you can design your WooCommerce shop using Lementors. You can even include products and integrate it in your design.
The Users for Elementor
Anyone can use Elementor. Digital marketers, students and everyone in between. Anyone who has plans in creating a web page through WordPress, can spice up their pages through the different functions and styles available in Elementor.
Casual User
Casual users looking for a way to add pizazz and personality in their personal websites or blogs can use Elementor. In fact Elementor is the perfect tool for such a job.
Using the visual interface, it would be very easy for casual users to create groundbreaking or eye-opening designs even without using technical knowledge like coding, custom CSS or whatever programming language available.
For casual users, even the free version is already good to go.
Digital Marketer
Elementor is also great for digital marketers and teams because it allows for lots of marketing opportunities.
It can be used as a drag-and-drop page builder to create sales pages or landing pages if you know how to do that. To really increase your sales, you could combine the plugin with Landing Page friendly plugins.
You can use the Elementor Pro features to create lead forms if you’re serious. These forms are not far from those plugins that focus more on lead conversion or landing pages.
These lead forms can be connected to popular email marketing tools. Zapier is one of the most popular integration and automation tools on the internet.
The Popup builder was mentioned earlier. This popup builder allows you to create opt-in, popups. You can place these pop ups anywhere on your site and target them to specific things.
Even the WooCommerce Builder can be used to sell products and services and design your sales pages.
Site Builders
Elementor is the best choice for those who work on websites for clients.
Elementor has plenty of features to make website building an easier and more streamlined process. Drag and drop allows builders to quickly create a website. Combine this with the website preview, and you can almost instantly see the results of your work.
There are even themes to make the website building process easier. Or these very same themes can be used as an inspiration for the next websites they will be making. To create the perfect website, they can combine the functionality and aesthetics of all three.
Elementor users can even use the plugin in conjunction with flexible themes to build 100% custom client sites without even touching code.
But if you want to code, Elementor still allows you to do that.
Elementor: The Case
We know about Elementor’s features, and we also know who can benefit from the plugin. But we need to understand why Elementor is so important.
Elementor is a page builder that creates websites.
Making websites is not an easy task. Sure, you might know the basics. It is possible that you even know what elements are needed to create a functional website.
It is still a fact websites must be unique to make their place in the internet. Although this may sound simple, there are many factors that must be considered when creating a website.
Then there is the website navigation, the overall aesthetic, not to mention, the security of your website. Each of these must be maintained in a pristine condition to keep users and visitors satisfied with your website’s overall performance.
Doing so will take a lot of work. Now, put yourself in the shoes of a freelancer or a website designer and you will have these problems multiplied tenfold.
For each new client or new website you build, you will need to create and generate newer ideas to make it unique.
These people will find plugins and page builders apps a blessing. There are many features that make website building easier and more intuitive. Work will take less time to consume.
From the multiple features such as dynamic content, version features, and drag and drop builders, Website designers will have to spend less time fine tuning websites depending on their client’s preferences.
Even starting from scratch can be a thing of the past. Many professional-grade templates are available.
This is the core of website builders and webpage builders. They allow the users to have an easier and more accessible time in carving their space in the Internet. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
The Examination of Elementor
The Interface
Of course, using the Elementor plugin requires installation and activation before using it. This can be done through the WordPress Repository.
With that done, you can choose to customize Elementor’s settings or immediately begin creating and designing a website.
For people who are just starting out, the default starting settings should not be changed. We can now go to the pages and edit any that we want.
Click on the “Edit with Elementor” button in the upper right corner of the page to begin editing
This will bring about the dashboard that has the following parts:
- The Main Canvas where most of the action will take place. This is where you will edit and redesign most of your websites look
- The Elementor widgets area where most of the “apps” and functions for your website can be dragged from before putting it in the main working area of our website
- Elementor Settings
- Open Elementor Widgets
- Global Settings
- Revision History
- Switch View. where you can switch between views on how your website will look like on different gadgets (desktop, tablet, or mobile)
- Preview the Changes
- Publish
From this interface, you can choose what to do with your website. You can either start from scratch. You can edit a pre-existing webpage. You can even use a template to get you started with your work. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
Elementor Structure Hierarchy
Understanding how Elementor works is essential before you can create websites. In this case, you need to get a grip of how the website elements in Elementor work as well as how they work with each other.
Sure, Elementor might offer a drag and drop builder, which at first glance can make it a chaotic and free builder. However, there is actually a structure to this “madness”. This structure is essential for effective website building, and not just copying a template.
Every page built with Elementor contains sections and columns
Sections are essentially rows. Each section is the basis of the page. You can add a background in a section, change its sizing, and do more customizations. Sections hold widgets and columns. They basically hold all the elements together.
Columns meanwhile divide the sections. Each column can be customized and controlled individually, just like the sections. Each column can be home to multiple widgets or content. You can also make each section’s columns different.
As for the content and widgets, these are the smallest elements in a website. These are the main elements of your website’s toppers. The function of your website will depend on the widgets and its personality will depend on the content. Of course, you can still customize and style these two.
Pre-made Templates
While they are not necessary in creating web pages (you can always make them from scratch) , having pre-made templates is always a godsend. Not only do they make your work easier and faster, they are also a source of lots and lots of inspiration.
Elementor offers professionally designed templates that you can use on your website. Each template can be used as-is or modified to fit your needs.
So how many templates do Elementor provide its users? Free users are given 150 and more templates available to use. Pro users have three hundred more templates available to them.
There are also the Elementor Kits. These “design kits” consist of a variety of templates. These templates have a common design or are generally uniform. These templates are great for creating websites with a single design theme.
Both the pre-made templates and the Elementor kits are available on Elementor’s template library. This library holds most of all common page templates for different purposes. Think of a web page, and you might find what you need there. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
There are pages for contact pages, about pages, landing pages, and niches. restaurants, hotels, resorts etc.) Portfolios and teampages are also available.
The library not only gives, but it also receives. If you created a web page that you think you really are satisfied with, you can export them as a template and you will be able to reuse them at the drop of a hat.
This makes it easy to choose a design when you are building another page that shares design or function elements from your previous pages. You can even share them to the greater community online.
Elementor allows you to design a page from scratch
Elementor lets you create and design your website from scratch or with a pre-existing template. While it is easier to build one from a template, it is still worthwhile to learn how to build one from scratch.
We can see the effectiveness of the Elementor plugin’s functions by looking at it.
To begin:
- Click “Edit with Elementor” to open a blank page
- There will be a “+” button. Click on it to add a new section
- A page will appear with a variety of sections. Choose the one that best suits your needs. Preferably the one with enough columns for your needs.
- Now that you have your sections, you can start picking your widgets in the Elementor drag and drop them to your columns where you want to place them.
- When you are satisfied with where you placed your elements, you can customize them in the Content, Style, and Advanced Sections. It is a good idea to experiment with the different options until you find the style that suits you best. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
Editing an Existing Page in Elementor To Suit Your Design
After learning how to create web pages with Elementor from scratch, we can now look at editing instead of building one from an existing page. You can find pre-existing pages from many sources.
These templates can be taken from your saved pages. Some can come front he dozens of templates available from Elementor’s library. Or they can be other templates that you have imported into Elementor.
No matter the source, one thing is true: Editing a webpage from a pre-built page is a lot easier than building one from scratch.
Let’s move on.
- It is easy to add a new widget. Simply drag the widget that you wish to use from your Elementor Panel to the place you want it to be on the page.
- Rearranging widgets on the visual preview is also done by dragging the said widget and dropping it to the new location of where you want to place it.
- It is easy to edit text in content boxes. You just need to click on the box and then type the new text you want on the visual preview.
- You can always add sections or columns. This is particularly useful if you need to create new layouts of your widgets.
- By clicking on the widgets, you can modify them in the same way as text. In the case of widgets, it will open the appropriate setting in the sidebar. This section is broken down into three tabs: Style, Content, and Advanced. Play with these settings until you find something you fancy. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
The Price of Elementor
It seems unbelievable that elementor is a free plugin when you consider all of the features it offers. You heard it correctly. Elementor is completely free
That said, you might have noticed that there is a mention of a Pro version. And it’s true there is a pro version. However, you don’t really need to go pro to enjoy almost all of Elementor’s benefits and features.
You can get Elementor’s main plugin via the official WordPress repository. It is entirely free and no hidden costs or signups and registrations are needed. You will also need this main plugin if you want to go Pro.
Speaking of the Pro edition. There are currently four plans. Each plan has more features and benefits. You will get a different amount of Pro Website Activation depending on the plan you choose.
These are the details of the plan:
Essential Plan | Expert Plan | Studio Plan | Agency Plan |
$49 per Year | $199 per Year | $299 per Year (1st year only)
$499 |
$999 per Year |
1 Pro Website Activation
100+ Basic and Pro Widgets
More than 300+ Pro and Basic Templates
60+ Pro Website Kits
Theme Builder
WooCommerce Store Builder
Landing Page Builder
Premium Support |
25 Pro Website Activations
More than 100+ basic and pro widgets
More than 300+ Pro and Basic Templates
60+ Pro Website Kits
Theme Builder
WooCommerce Store Builder
Landing Page Builder
Premium Support
Elementor Expert Profile |
100 Pro Website Activations
More than 100+ basic and pro widgets
More than 300+ Pro and Basic Templates
60+ Pro Website Kits
Theme Builder
WooCommerce Store Builder
Landing Page Builder
VIP Support
Elementor Expert Profile |
1000 Pro Website Activations
100+ Basic and Pro Widgets
300+ Basic and Pro Templates
60+ Pro Website Kits
Theme Builder
WooCommerce Store Builder
Landing Page Builder
VIP Support
Elementor Expert Profile |
The case for going pro
When it comes to Elementor Pro, there is much debate. Many people struggle to pay for a service that offers 90% of the benefits it could offer for free. To be honest, this actually boils down to what Elementor Pro offers.
Elementor Pro offers many other benefits, in addition to the ones mentioned above. These include: Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
- 50+ Additional content elements or modules
- 300+ additional page templates
- You can create a theme using the theme builder.
- WooCommerce Builder allows you to rebuild WooCommerce Product Pages
- Popup Builder (which allows you create popups and then integrate them with an on-opt-in form, some offers or discounts).
- Visual form builder (which can be integrated with multiple and popular marketing tools)
- Global widgets can be used on the website, even if they are not on the same page.
- For further customization, add custom CSS to any Elementor Blocks
- Deploying Elementor elements in sidebars and widgets
You can choose Elementor Pro Version if you don’t think these extra features are sufficient or you require some of these features on your website. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
Elementor: The Pros and Con of Elementor
Pros
- The core product for Elementor is entirely free. Elementor is free to use, unlike many plugins.
- There are plenty of features to use for creating your webpage. They are even very easy to use.
- It allows users to build custom web pages and page layouts with eye-popping design that may not be accessible in your basic theme or on WordPress’ basic builder.
- The drag and drop builder removes the need for HTML, CSS, or PHP skills. Elementor is your friend!
- The “What you see, is what you get” approach makes it simple to build your website. This can save a lot of time.
- All pages made with Elementor are responsive. You can even see how your pages would look on mobile, tablet, and desktop while you build your website.
- This plugin allows you to adjust all alignments, margins and padding values. All details can be fine tuned.
Cons
- Sometimes, the custom styling to links does not always go as intended.
- Sometimes you may need to stick with Elementor’s default typography or color settings.
- It is difficult to fix misaligned elements, especially talking about their margin values. This is because most blocks, columns, and content elements have their own margin settings.
- Elementor can slow down your website’s overall speed, according to some users. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
The Verdict on Elementor
Elementor is an excellent page builder. It has all the features you want and need for a basic page builder and more. It caters to both beginners and veteran page builder alike. What’s more is that you get all of its features for the low low price of free.
So if you are looking for a drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress, you will never go wrong with Elementor.
I’d even say that Elementor’s developers have made a fortune and have not stopped trying since. Given Elementors age, it is amazing that they are still among the top choices today.
Common Questions about Elementor
Is Elementor compatible with WordPress themes?
Elementor Works with all themes as long as they follow the coding standards of WordPress set by its Codex.
Can Elementor be used with other WordPress plugins?
Elementor can be used with nearly all WordPress plugins.
There might be some incompatibility issue here and there, but you can report these incidents to Elementor’s support for them to locate and find a solution about the issue.
What is Elementor Pro?
Elementor Pro is the more advanced version of Elementor.
It is not free, unlike regular Elementor. It adds many features and completes the tools web designers need to create a professional website. Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
Why is the Studio subscription to Elementor Pro discounted?
Elementor simply wants to offer a lower entry price point for their studio plan.
At 40% discount, this is a fantastic deal. This discount is only valid for one year. During renewal, Studio plan users will be required to pay the full price.
How can I pay for Elementor Pro
The folks at Elementor access Stripe, PayPal, or any credit card to pay for Elementor Pro.
Is there a Demo Version for Elementor Pro? Elementor Image Gallery Masonry
There is no Demo version for Elementor Pro.
They do have a 30-day refund policy which allows you to cancel your pro plan and get a full refund. So if you want to try the Pro version, the best thing to do would be pay for Elementor Pro, try it for a month, then decide if you want to keep it or not.