Thrive Content Builder – Update, [VIDEOS] & PDF Download
I discovered the Thrive Content Builder a couple months ago and immediately fell in love with it.
They’ve made a TON of updates to the plugin and I thought it was time to do an updated post and new videos using the builder.
This is one of the things that is SO exciting to me about WordPress. As it continues to evolve not only are there more tools being created to make it easier for the everyday user, but there are businesses that are thriving (no pun intended) because of WordPress. They’ve built a business using WordPress, creating products that support, teach or add to the experience of WordPress. And I think it’s simply brilliant. Even though WordPress is open source it’s pretty amazing that it’s created an income and lifestyle for so many people.
I’m excited to see where this next year takes us with WordPress. With 4.0 being released soon I have a feeling 2015 is going to bring more tools like the Thrive Content Builder that put control back into the users hands without needing someone else to manage their sites. There are a handful of drag and drop content builders available for WordPress. I may do another review (I have a couple more) but we’ll start with this one. 🙂
O.K., enough of my predictions for the upcoming year (because clairvoyant I’m not). Let’s move on to the Content Builder.
[divider top=”no”]First, I’m going to explain what the basics are in terms of a content builder so we’re all on the same page (you know what they say about assuming).
Most content builders are ‘visual builders’, meaning, you can see what it is you’re creating while you create it (this will make more sense in the video). I’m a HUGE fan of shortcodes, but the use of shortcodes doesn’t allow you to see what your page looks like as you create it. You insert the shortcode into your editor and you see the shortcode, not the button (as an example).
So it would look like this in your editor:
[your shortcode would be here]
Which is fine when you view the page (because on the page it looks like it should. The divider line you see above was created with a shortcode, so you can see that it looks like a divider on the actual page). Here’s a screenshot of this post as I was creating it.
Which is why visual content builders make it so much easier to create your post or page. You can actually see how things look (as opposed to hitting save & then preview a zillion times. Yep, totally my process, but it’s all good).
What can you use a Visual Content Builder for?
It’s really more like “what can you NOT use the Thrive visual content builder for?”
I think they’re ideal for squeeze pages, landing pages and sales pages. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use them for everyday posts and pages either. The 3 videos below give you an overview of what the Thrive Content Builder is, me setting up a squeeze page and then a quick run through of each of the different elements.
In case you’re not familiar with the visual content builder, here are some of the elements you can ‘drag & drop’:
[list icon=”icon: hand-o-right”]- Images
- Buttons
- Custom HTML
- Credit Card Icons
- Columns
- Testimonials
- Guarantee Box
- Video
- Lead Generation
- Pricing Tables
- Star Rating
- Tabbed Content
- Call to Action
- Content Boxes
I’ve also created a downloadable PDF below that shows you what each element is (since the only way you can view some of them is to actually insert them into the page, which I’m not complaining about- not sure what the work around would be for this).
Enjoy the videos and download the PDF.
[button url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/wpc-downloads/Thrive-Content-Builder-Cheat-sheet.pdf” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#2f90a1″ size=”5″ center=”yes” radius=”5″ icon=”icon: arrow-down”]Download the Thrive Content Builder Cheat Sheet[/button] [divider top=”no”]
Thanks for discussing this in such great detail Kim. It certainly looks like a very interesting tool.
Glad you like it Kostas. It’s a fantastic tool! Such a great option for people! I’m sure I’ll have more videos on the way.
Hi Kim,
Love your site—thanks so much for your post and download! Absolutely LOVE the Thrive Content Builder, as well as the Thrive themes! They are a great way to go for building a platform on WordPress. Plus, the guys over there give very good support and always put out quality stuff.
All the best,
David Coleman
Thanks so much David!
I absolutely LOVE the builder… and will have to upgrade to the theme club too (as soon as I have time to dig into them! 🙂 ). I absolutely LOVE the new landing page option in the builder! I think it’s a brilliant alternative for people who don’t want to invest in a monthly option with someone else (Leadpages or Clickfunnels) or use Optimize Press (which, as much as I love it, it’s still a little heavy and isn’t as easy to use as the builder).
Thanks again David.
Well, I just went and bought the full boat of Thrive Themes. I am truly hoping I have found the resource that I will build my WordPress business with. It really looks like quality work and such fine design. Along with enough options to keep a team busy 🙂
I am going to do a full redesign re-concept of my own site to show off what Thrive can do. At least that is my plan.
Thanks as always Kim. I had known about Thrive in a back burner sort of way, and I was leaning towards another excellent plugin Beaver Builder. But I just had a feeling and I went with it. The fact that the Thrive folks crank out upgrade/updates so fast really helped. I can FEEL a WooCommerce element coming very soon!
I also am going on blind faith that it will work with Gravity Forms, my other true love. I hope I am right becasue that was a $199 dollar bet 🙂
Rock on Kim,
Dave
BOOM! Nicely done Dave!
I certainly hope you’re going to blog/document the transition of your site with Thrive themes! 🙂 (hint hint…). I am super impressed with the updates and training that the team at Thrive themes put out! It seems like every week there’s a new update or feature added.
I just saw the Beaver Builder plugin too…
I’ve got an interview I did with Shane Melough of Thrive themes coming out soon too! I think you’ll enjoy the story behind the building of the company too.
Can’t wait to see the new site Dave!
Have an awesome week,
Kim
A great week for you too Kim.
I too was impressed with their updates, features, presentation, training, etc. I look forward to your interview. As far as documentation, I would not hold your breath 🙂 Not really a strong point. It is all I can do just to get it to work.
But one thing about me, I never say never. Except in the previous sentence 🙂
Dave
Haha… I love the honesty Dave! 🙂 I’m a geek about documentation… not that I can keep up with what I want to do, but I love it.
Keep me posted though when you take the new theme live. I’d love to see it.
🙂
Hi Kim,
I’ve built some with Genesis previously. I found it powerful but difficult in getting layouts to be just as wanted. I have looked at DiVi by Elegant Themes and the Thrive Themes membership, also considering the new UpFront plugin integrated into a few WPMUDEV themes. I like the marketing focus and background of Thrive, built ground-up for conversion. I have followed the DiVi Facebook group and it seems that they have a bit more dev to do and UpFront is pretty new yet, but incredibly powerful and design efficient, seemingly. I do believe that the front end editors are the direction that most developers will move and does seem to be a more efficient workflow, especially for eCommerce sites.
I hope this has provided some insight and thought provocation. I know that I have spent many countless hours in review of “What works best, NOW?’
So, with those seeds planted, what say you of this entire movement towards front-side builders for WordPress, oh Internet sages?
If someone wanted to do a blog post comparing and contrasting these contenders, I would think that it would make for quite bit of traffic.
Hey Dan,
Sorry for the belated reply- somehow this ended up in spam.:-(
It’s interesting that you ask about the front-end page builders because I’ve had a lot of discussions about this lately. I interviewed the guys from Beaver Builder as well as Matt Medeiros (The Matt Report and the Conductor Plugin) and love the direction it’s all going in. I think the page builders are here to stay- what you use them for (and which ones you use) depends on your business and content strategy.
I think I should probably do a webinar or something discussing the differences and why I like the ones I use.
Or, like you said, a blog post & video comparing and contrasting the different builders. 🙂
Thanks much!
Kim
Hello Kim, By chance have you figured out if there is a way to use Gravity Forms with Thrive Leads/Thrive Content Builder?
Hi Charlie,
Sorry for the belated reply, I’ve been traveling.
No, not yet. But I’m sure Thrive is working on it. They’re great at adding new features.
Thanks,
Kim
I figured a way to add gravity forms. Make a page or post and use the form toolbar button to add the form you need to the body of the draft. Then copy the short code. Then create a wordpress content element where you want the form on your Thrive page and past the form short code in there and voila, your form is good to go. Then you can style as you desire.
Fantastic TQ! Thanks so much for sharing!!! I’m going to test it and do a video. Thanks!
Hi WP Chick!
How did you add that cool teal Download the pdf button!
I wanna do that!
Did you do that in Thrive themes? I have Thrive but I can’t figure out how you did that.
Best wishes,
Jenny
Hi Jenny,
It was kind of a ninja trick.. haha. Something I tested and it worked brilliantly! I’m working on a post & video, but I used two plugins: The Thrive Leads (for the opt-in) and the Shortcodes Ultimate (free plugin in the WP plugin repository). Hopefully I can explain it here :-).
Create your Thrive Lead box (under Thrive Boxes in the dashboard). Once created you’ll have a shortcode like this: [thrive_2step id=’14291′]Trigger goes here[/thrive_2step]
Where it says ‘trigger goes here’, insert a ‘button’ from the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin (just leave the URL field empty when creating the button).
I’ll have the video done shortly and will show you how it works (will email you the link).
Thanks,
Kim
Love the Thrive content builder. How can I insert a click to open pdf into my page?
HI. How can I insert a click to open pdf into a page?
Hi,
All you need to do is upload the PDF to your site (either media or use something like Amazon S3), get the direct URL to the PDF and hyperlink it to text or a button.
Hope that helps!
Interesting post , I was enlightened by the points , Does someone know where my company could possibly get access to a template a form example to use ?
Hi Jeffrey,
I don’t think there is a demo or sample. If you check the Thrive blog there are a lot of videos and examples.
Thanks,
Kim