If you’re looking for a free page builder on your WordPress website, Elementor Page Builder hits the top of Kori’s list. Full written review here:
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Full Transcript
Hey y’all, I’m Kori Ashton and today we’re gonna look at a page builder. If you do not like writing code, if you get intimated by CSS or certainly PHP, but you still wanna have a beautiful website then a page builder is probably the right way to go. Well let’s look at one that is in the budget of free and if you have a little bit of wiggle room in that budget, has some incredible add-ons for you. Let’s look at Elementor.
Elementor Features
Okay I already have it actually installed on this page and I’ll back up for a second and show you how to install it and how to use it. But I want you to get excited about what you can do with it. So see this page, it’s kind of boring, all the content’s in the middle. Well what if we went ahead and had something where we did three columns and let’s put in some pictures in here because I think it would look really nice to have three pictures across the top up here.
So I’m just gonna drag and change the picture. Let’s go in here and just put this one for now, insert media, I don’t want it to load the large one, let’s say at 300, center it in the column please and click update, easy peasy. I’m gonna go do it again, grab another image, drop it in there, choose my image, click select, there you go, insert media. I’m gonna choose again 300 by 300, I think that’ll look good, center it, update. And then we’re gonna come over here as well and I’m gonna add in another image.
Just because I want consistency, I just think it’s really difficult most of the time if you wanna write nerd code to make three columns, it’s very frustrating and very tricky especially if your author of the theme didn’t let you do it easily or quickly. Well Elementor lets you do that. And let’s say I want this balanced out, I want the one that’s a little shorter to come in the middle just to have that consistency. All I did was drag and drop it.
Alright so the columns is kinda cool, but what if I want some extra bells and whistles? Something a little bit cooler than that even, well all of these are options inside of the free mode of Elementor. You’ve got an:
- image gallery
- image carousel
- a counter that will count up
- progress bars
- testimonials
- tabs
I think tabs are pretty cool, tabs or toggles, either one. Out of the box this is what’s working already. You can come in here and change the content easily and quickly. Tab two, you can see that content change.
Let’s say over here on this side I wanted to add a video, that’s easily done. I can drag and drop a video box over here. And of course it’s all gonna be responsive, right? It’s gonna shrink down and show me exactly what it would look like on a cell phone mode, and of course everything stacks beautifully and easily. So really cool options, I’m hoping that y’all get super excited right now.
Installation
I’m gonna show you how to install it and how to use it on your WordPress website, let’s go do it. First thing, it’s pretty simple, just come over to your dashboard area. We’re gonna go into plugins and click add new because that free version of Elementor actually lives here inside the repository. So we’re just gonna do a search for Elementor. And here it is right here, Elementor Page Builder. Install now, and of course, we wanna activate. And there it is, I mean it’s already installed ready to go.
Start Building with Elementor
I just come over here, click add new page and start building out with Elementor. We give it a name and click edit with Elementor. And it takes us all to the front side of the website that allows you to start using their drag and drop environment over here, building out whatever you would like.
So you can just click add plus, choose your structure so whatever layout you need here. Get as creative or as simple as you would like, either one, either option. I’m just gonna go ahead and do a 50 50 for now. And then you just click inside of here and say well, I wanna add something to this left column. What would you like to add? Just a regular text editor is fine. So you put that in there, easily done.
Next thing, I wanna add maybe a call to action button over here on this side. What does that look like? Look how nice that is, I love it. You can change the content here and say subscribe. Add in the link that you’d like it to have, you can align it if you’d like it aligned in the middle, add an icon to it if you’d like to add an icon. I mean just so super cool, all these different options inside of this. Amazing that this is all in the budget of free, remember that as well. So you gotta love that. And you could even change the style of it.
So let’s go in here and change the background color if you wanted to. Make it whatever you’d like it to be to stand out on the page. You can even go into advanced options and change the margin or the padding around the button. You’ve got all sorts of different options that you can tinker and play with here. I’m gonna go ahead and click publish for now.
But let’s say that you know, I want something better over here and maybe we want to move this button over underneath our paragraph and instead add in an image here. I’m making all of these changes on the fly right as you’re watching me. And this is really, truthfully, if I’m being totally honest, this is the first time I’ve really used Elementor. I’m just kinda learning as I go here with you. I’m giving you my opinion of my experience and I’m loving it so far, so great.
I also love the idea that I’m able to see that version in responsive mode because it allows you to make changes. Let’s say that you want this to even be smaller in this responsive mode, you can tell it to shrink down even smaller. And then it’ll go back to that larger picture on the desktop mode if you want it to. Smaller picture on the smaller phone makes it load more quickly. So you’ve gotta love those options inside of this.
Pro Add-Ons
Let’s look at the pro add-ons if you have just a little wiggle room inside of your budget, you can come over here and purchase a personal license that can be applied to one website, $49 and look what all you get. Now I’m gonna come into my Elementor library area over here, look at all of these additional options that I have, oh my word there’s so much to play around with and get creative with.
Flip Boxes
So instead of just standard boring pictures here, I can just say well I don’t really want that, I want to do three columns and I want them to be flip boxes instead. So coming down here I can choose a flip box, how fun is this you guys? A flip box, put this in here and then as I come over here it’ll flip and rotate adding really cool dynamic features or functions to this.
Pricing Table
Let’s do another one. What if you wanted to have a pricing table in here? This is something that you would normally have to go buy a totally different plugin to do. It’s got that option inside of here, we can add in a whole pricing table. Look at this, it’s already customized for you. You change the price, change the fields, make it whatever you want to make it. And it’s gonna look beautiful. That’s why I love this. You really can just get so creative, kinda sky’s the limit with all the different options that you can put inside of this Elementor plugin with the pro version.
History – Back Up Your Versions
I’ll show you another feature that I think is spectacular to have because a lot of times as you’re in here tinkering and playing around you might make a mistake, maybe you move this over here or you accidentally hit an area that you totally oh my gosh I just lost that whole section. What would you do then? Would you have to rebuild that whole darn thing? Well not inside of Elementor, they have this nice little history icon right over here that you can click on and actually back up your versions.
Look at this you guys, back up the version all the way to how you wanted to have it. There it is, back to normal, everything’s in place. Click update, that is a huge safety net as you are building out your website that you always wanna have those revision options. They always live inside of here.
You guys I am barely scratching the surface on this incredible plugin. I hope that you are challenged enough today to go over to your Word Press website, install this plugin and try it, I guarantee it’s not gonna take you long before you decide to go pro and unlock all of its amazing add-ons.
Be sure to tell ’em that Kori Ashton sent you and subscribe to my channel ’cause every Wednesday I’ve got a video just like this to help you improve your online marketing. Have a great one, bye y’all.
