Elementor WordPress Plugin: How Powerful Is It?
Elementor WordPress plugin is not just one of many WordPress page builders – with over 4 million active installations and thousands of 5-star ratings, it has been growing in popularity recently, and for good reasons. Several good reasons, in fact, which we shall explain in detail here.
Let’s start with saying that this drag-and-drop page builder designed to make WordPress easy, especially for users without a strong technological background. What’s more, it is a live builder, allowing you to see what your website will look like even as you are working on it. It also comes with a selection of handy templates, so you don’t have to build a website from scratch if you don’t want to.
But let’s begin with the basics.
What Are Page Builders, Anyway?
A page builder is a WordPress plugin used, unsurprisingly, to create pages for websites. They are, in fact, the very tools which made extensive coding knowledge unnecessary for people building their websites in WordPress. A page builder is an add-on to your WordPress website, and replaces the basic editor entirely with its own page builder editor.
However, while many editors, such as the also very popular WPBakery, only offer a preview function, Elementor is a live page builder: you see what your page will look like even as you are building it, be it from the ground up, creating any layout you want, or editing a provided template to suit your visitors’ needs. All builders have the same purpose: to make building websites easy for everyone. Elementor, in our opinion, does it exceptionally well.
Elementor Page Builder
First of all, Elementor is visual. That means that you can build a web page layout without using any code. Secondly, Elementor uses a drag-and-drop functionality. That means that you can built your layout by selecting and positioning elements from a menu and adjusting them as needed. Thirdly, Elementor is live. That means that you can just set up a layout and immediately see what your website will look like without switching to a special preview mode.
Elementor is made for responsive website design, which means you can use it to create website designs for mobile and other platforms. You can also use Elementor to test the different layouts you’ve created in different resolutions.
You can make your website look however you want it to look, all on your own.
Is Elementor Free?
Short answer? Yes, but not quite.
Elementor does have a free version, though, which comes with several useful elements (website building blocks) and some basic templates. In most cases, however, this is more or less everything you need to make a website look both interesting and professional.
The Pro version, of course, is not free, but the developers have offered three pricing plans: $49 per year for a single site, $99 for 3, and $199 for 1000 websites. It offers more elements, more templates, and more options which might overwhelm a beginner.
You may also find it cost-effective to upgrade your website with an Elementor template. These are not themes, but work similarly, insomuch as they allow you a shortcut towards building a website. As with themes, some are free and some will set you back some.
How to Begin Using Elementor WordPress Plugin
The first step, as with any plugin, is to install and activate the plugin. Simply select Plugins from the dashboard menu, and then Add New. Search for Elementor in the search field, and click Install Now next to the plugin’s name.
You can reach Elementor’s editor through a button on your WordPress page.
The best thing an absolute beginner can do from then on is to create a page for a blank canvas in which to explore the elements Elementor has to offer.
You can then try to introduce elements from Elementor’s element set.
If starting from the ground up seems a little daunting to you, maybe you can choose an Elementor page template and go from there.
In any case, the modules you can drag and drop are on your left, the global page settings tab and widget search field above them, and page settings, redo/undo, device-dependent view and publish/save button below.
To Conclude
Now you should be all set for website-building with Elementor. Even with the free version, the possibilities are broad and numerous, and there’s no reason not to try it. As with any new plugin, Elementor may take some getting used to, but in the end you will be building fully functional websites in no time at all. Elementor is as easy as it gets.
Watch this space for updates, tips, and tutorials.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
