Launched in 2016, Elementor Pro is the most popular page builder you will find in WordPress. Elementor is a web page builder plugin with drag and drops features. This makes it easy for users with no coding experience at all.
As of May 2020, it has found over 5 million uses on WordPress sites. The free version is pretty generous and powerful so that it may be enough for your needs. The premium version has additional features, and one can optionally upgrade to it.
Our Elementor Review will help you understand its working features and answer questions about whether the hype is justified or not?
- How Elementor Pro Works
- Elementor Page Builder Interface
- Elementor Review – Premium Features
- Elementor Pro Templates or Theme Builder
- Elementor Pro Review – Popup Builder
- Elementor Pro Review – Conclusion
How Elementor Pro Works
Elementor is all visual and point-and-click; in easy words, it follows the system of what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG). To start working, you have to add the Elementor plugin to WordPress, and this is super easy. Note that the Elementor Pro version is an add-on of the free version, this means that the free version has to be installed for the premium version to work.
On the Elementor interface launch, you will come across a live preview of your design covering most of the page, placed to the right. And to the left, you will see the sidebar containing the features to beautify your web page design.
This Elementor Review identifies the primary ways of creating a design:
● Dragging and dropping widgets from the sidebar to the live preview, manipulating and
rearranging them as they seem fit.
● Inserting text if required, by clicking and typing.
● Use “sections” and “columns” for design and layout.
● Use the sidebar to change or optimize style and content of an individual section, column
or widgets.
● Right-click to edit, delete, duplicate or perform other manipulative functions. As for the free version, it provides a lot of content widgets such as:
● Inner Section
● Heading
● Image
● Text Editor
● Video
● Button
● Divider
● Spacer
● Google Maps
● Icons
Elementor Page Builder Interface
The swift experience in this page builder is way faster than any other WordPress plugin you will encounter. As mentioned earlier, a variety of elements offered are available in the sidebar.
By default the sidebar is open, but it may be collapsible. Start working on building your page by clicking on the plus button. You have the option of choosing a layout or template to work on. The button of the page builder has the following options:
● Settings: set your intended preferences or modify the title, status, and layout, among others.
● Navigator: as per this Elementor Review it allows users to see the hierarchy of the page and reorder or rename blocks as per their requirements.
● History: here, you will be able to see your previous actions and have the option to redo or undo certain actions. It also comprises of a revision section which saves all revisions you have made.
● Responsive mode: allow users to toggle between desktop, tablet or mobile mode of page building.
● Preview: have a preview of your work in a new tab.
● Update: this provides you with the option to publish, update, or save a page as a template.
Elementor Review – Premium Features
Elementor Pro is a paid add-on plugin to its free plugin version. With the same interface as its free counterpart, you get new features, widgets, content and styling options. Two of its most powerful features are:
● Theme builder: design personalized templates with the help of built-in ones for header, footer, or blog posts. Further, you have the option of using them on your WooCommerce store.
● Popup builder: design custom welcome popups using the interface and dynamic content features to greet users by their name anywhere on your site.
You get a section of new widgets. This Elementor Review believes these can replace many other premium plugins. They are:
● Forms (in integration with some email marketing services)
● Posts
● Portfolio
● Slides
● Login
● New menu
● Animated headline
● Price list
● Price table
● Testimonial carousel
● Countdown
● Share button
● Facebook embed
● Facebook Page
● Flip box
● Blockquote
● Facebook comments
● Gallery
● Call to action
● Reviews
● Media Carousel
● Facebook button
● Table of contents
Finally, you have access to lots of design options such as animating effects, add custom CSS to your page.
There are yearly subscriptions and no unlimited subscription to access the Pro version. $49 for use in a single site, $99 for use in 3 sites, and $199 for use in 1000 sites.
Elementor Pro Templates or Theme Builder
Elementor comes with hundreds of templates for landing pages for front end as well as for popups. You can make the necessary changes to the template and save it for your use later. This can be done by right-clicking the template and selecting “Save as template” to “My
Templates”.
The best thing about this is that once you create a template, you will automatically apply to some or all of your sites.
Elements
There is a wide range of elements with Elementor as found from this Elementor Review. For each element, you can make changes according to:
● Content: select a template to add a link, change alignment, add an icon, and change the size.
● Style: make changes in font style, font type, font size, background colour, create hover effects, etc.
● Advanced: these are about a minute and finished details such as margin, border, z index, opacity, motion effects, custom CSS etc.
Dynamic content
Dynamic content is a coming of age feature of web design. This refers to the change of web content based on the user’s behaviour, interests, and preferences. This, in particular, is generated at the moment a user requests a page. Elementor comes with such dynamic content features. From all the major elements, you can use dynamic content functionality. And a few of them can be pulled to the front-end.
Response to mobile and tablets
The digital environment is getting shifted to the fast and portable devices such as mobile and tablets. And similar is the trend with web design practises. Elementor offers responsive editing features for both mobile and tablets.
You need to select either the “Mobile” or “Tablet” option from the Elementor page builder. Tablet has a preview of 768 pixels and mobile has a show of 360 pixels. This Elementor Review has found that your design’s necessary changes will be replicated in the preview applicable to mobile or tablet devices with the corresponding icon next to them.
Elementor Pro Review – Popup Builder
The popup feature in Elementor is a very powerful one. You can create a popup from the full selection of widgets, be it social sharing popups, registration popups, or opt-in popups using the form widget.
A designer has full control over the popup size and animations of popups. So they can make centred popups, notification bars, sliders, fillers and various other types of the popup. Once the design process is complete, you may go through the publish settings to choose your target and define certain rules.
The publish setting contains the following tabs:
● Conditions: this lets the popup be applied to certain content of your website or where you want to display the template in your site. You can achieve this by clicking on the “ADD CONDITION.”
● Triggers: here, the designer forms a set of rules and defines certain actions to be completed by the user for the popup to open. These include setting up certain rules that include “on page load,” “on a scroll,” “on click,” “after inactivity,” and finally “on page exit intent.” This Elementor Review applauds these simple yet striking regulations.
● Advanced rules: these are requirements that have to be met for the popup to open—for example, setting the popup to open after x number of page views or sessions. This gives you the option of targetting your popup in a sequential well-designed manner.
Elementor Pro Review – Conclusion
The popularity and a whopping 4.8-star rating in WordPress.org speak volumes about its effectivity. Even though it is pricey, it is worth every penny. Elementor is a single plugin with no requirements of multiple additional plugins here and there unless you are going for Elementor Pro version (but that is required only once). It has a lot to offer with a sea of features and is certainly encouraging for your web designing dreams.