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As an entrepreneur or innovator, you know that great ideas are rare and time-sensitive. Which is why you likely don’t have the time to wait weeks or even months to launch your campaign or businesses’ website. Luckily, some of the great technical minds have engineered WordPress website builders that take even the most novice internet user to website building pro in days or even hours.
Much like WordPress themes, builders are in great abundance and vary even more so in quality. Which is why this article aims to dissect the five best WordPress website builders and outline how you can use them to build an elegant, custom, and fully functioning website fast.
1. Divi
Divi is arguably the most popular WordPress builder on the market right now. With their attractive design and impressive range of features, it is no surprise it has made the list. But at its core what makes it so attractive?
- The theme is meticulously updated and new features are released very regularly.
- It’s a front-end developer tool meaning whatever you build is what your visitor sees.
- It utilizes a drag-and-drop builder, making it perfect for non-technical site developers.
Some WordPress builders are plugin-based and others are theme-based. Divi is theme based meaning you get a theme for your WordPress site and a builder for the price of one.
Divi comes with a multitude of layouts and as such can range from being an eCommerce store, an agency website, a photography portfolio, a blog, a news site, and more. It can be just about anything you can dream up.
The Divi Builder has a great UX which makes it easy to navigate and straightforward to use. You would create a page like you normally do, but instead of opening the editor to start messing with HTML and CSS you would click the big purple button aptly labeled “Use The Divi Builder”.
You get the option to create different sections of your site that visitors will scroll through to view your content in the modules you desire. These modules are drag and drop and fully customizable down to size and unique color palette.
The modules have simple titles to make the build process straightforward and customizing a breeze. Just drag-and-drop a Blurb to add customer testimonials or grab Call To Action to create compelling buttons and sections for newsletter signups or buy now buttons.
The end result is a beautiful, completely custom, and responsive website that looks like an ad agency designed it for thousands of dollars. To preview sites built with Divi (like the one below) or try it for free visit Divi’s gallery on the Elegant Themes website.
Website built with Divi Builder
2. Layers
Layers is another plugin based WordPress builder that employs drag-and-drop functionality making it ideal for maximum customization and a user-friendly experience. The creators of Layers sought to create a builder so intuitive that you would be a “pro” the first time you used it. Beyond the obvious, why does Layers stand out in the crowded WordPress builder space?
- Behind the scenes of the Layers theme, you get an intelligent HTML structure that optimizes your site for the high search ranking results
- Layers is ideal for shopping sites because it comes prefabbed to play well with WooCommerce, the most popular eCommerce platform on the market.
- It has a point-and-click interface, much like its top tier competition which makes it incredibly simple for a novice to build bold and beautiful websites.
- It’s free to download and use on your WordPress theme
Layers Builder in action
Layers makes it easy and affordable to get up and running quickly with their low-cost themes. Combine one of their themes with their free builder and you have the recipe for a truly great website. To gain even further functionality, you have to spend roughly twice the price for their Layers Pro package which gives you premium options like resizing your logo, sticky headers, greater color customization, and more (see below).
Website built with Layers Builder
If you’re ready for alluring (like the site above), highly customizable, and arguably the most user-friendly theme on the market then check out the Layers theme.
3. Beaver Builder
Beaver Builder is a standalone WordPress plugin that gives you the versatility of working with any theme you choose. You don’t have to waste any time wrestling with your WordPress editor or tweaking lines of HTML to build mobile friendly websites that look great.
The plugin allows you to edit existing pages of your site or build them from scratch using its Page Builder feature. You can create modules ranging from headers, text modules, photos, and even videos. All the page building is performed on the front end of your website meaning what you build is what your customers see. No more tweaking code to look great on the back end only to find it looks horrid on the customer’s side.
You can download Beaver Builder or learn more about all its features and functionality by watching it’s explainer video.
4. Page Builder by SiteOrigin
Page Builder by SiteOrigin is another crowd favorite for WordPress page builders and rightfully so. It is a plugin-based builder and for a free option in the market, it boasts a wide variety of widgets you can drag-and-drop to customize your website to the fullest.
The work area in Page Builder isn’t the most visually appealing of the options outlined in this article, but that is by design. The plugin itself utilizes an SEO friendly code that is lightweight and won’t weigh down your site’s speed or search engine rankings with unnecessary visual effects in the builder itself.
You can use Page Builder with any WordPress theme and only uses fully responsive elements when building your page. All this is accomplished without ever writing a single line of code.
You simply drag-and-drop the elements you desire where you want them and Page Builder creates the clean coding structure behind it (outlined below).
All in all, the Page Builder by SiteOrigin is an impressive plugin builder that serves its purpose very well. If you want clean code and seemingly infinite customization options, then check out the Page Builder by SiteOrigin plugin.
5. Visual Composer
Last, but certainly not least, we have Visual Composer, the best-selling WordPress page builder on the market. They boast over two million downloads and have a seriously impressive list of accomplishments and features to boot. So what’s the big deal with Visual Composer?
- They offer a front-end and back-end page builder that is intuitive and requires no programming knowledge to build stunning WordPress sites.
- It works on literally any WordPress theme.
- A Skin Builder comes standard so you can match all your sites colors with your brand.
- An extensive library of content elements, add-ons, and templates to make customization fast and straightforward.
When creating or editing any page, you can choose the classic mode which opens the back-end editor or choose the front-end editor to see changes as your visitors would see them on your live site.
Visual Composer has modular like elements that can be dragged and dropped into the sections you engineered for truly custom designs. Once you’ve built out your skeleton with these rows and modules, you can drag-and-drop any of several dozen elements into these modules to build out your site to your specifications. Embed video players, FAQ elements, social media share buttons, and much more.
Being the #1 WordPress builder plugin is no easy feat and as we have seen in this article Visual Composer has some stiff competition. If you’re tired of spending a premium on premium themes, then Visual Composer might be your savior. Watch a demo or try Visual Composer for free.
If you need reliable hosting with an integrated site building solution, check out our partner SiteGround. They provide managed WordPress hosting with a free drag and drop site builder, and their plans are now up to 65% off for SitePoint users.
Which page builder are you going to try? Tell us in the comments below.
Jacob McMillenJacob McMillen is a marketing copywriter and content strategist. His blog Digital Careerist helps businesses grow and freelancers make bank. Head on over to grab his free guide: 2 Fail-Proof Marketing Strategies For Businesses On A Budget.
