Visual Composer is one of the original WordPress page builders, it is used to create beautiful, stylish and effective websites. By using a page builder such as Visual Composer, you can add numerous different elements to each page of your website and make it truly stand out from the millions of websites that exist.
PROS
- Clean, modern interface
- Ability to save element presets
- Ability to save rows/sections as template
- Over 200 premium, third-party addons available
- Affordable for personal, one-site use
CONS
- Complex/confusing design
- No undo button
- No global elements, sections or templates
- A lot of redundant elements in it’s library
- Lack of customization options
- Rigid layout and column options
- Limited page templates
- No real-time editing
- Virtually no pre-sales support
- Expensive for multiple sites or client work
Visual Composer is both a back end and front end page builder for WordPress, boasting over 1.5 million installs.
Visual Composer was actually one of original WordPress page builders, and it started it’s life as a very simple back end builder that came preinstalled with dozens of popular themes.
Pricing for 2020
First of all we will look at the pricing for Visual Composer. There are 3 options but we are only going to focus on 2. The Single website option and the Developers or Agency option.
The first one is where you can buy the plugin for use on a single website. This is the cheapest plan and will only cost you $59 per year.The final pricing option is meant for professional website developers and you can use the plugin on an unlimited number of websites. It currently costs $349 per year. Each of these licenses offer full customer support and plugin support with yearly premium updates.
Single website
$ 59 Year
- 1 site license
- 200+ elements
- 100+ templates
- 5+ add-ons
- Theme builder
- 1-year premium updates
- 1-year support
- 40% renewal discount
Unlimited websites
$ 349 Year
- Unlimited sites
- 200+ elements
- 100+ templates
- 5+ add-ons
- Theme builder
- 1-year premium updates
- 1-year support
- 40% renewal discount
Page builder?
Now, the first thing you may be wondering is why should you even use a page builder in the first place when you can use the WordPress editor. Well, to be frank, the WordPress editor is quite limited and there are only a few ways that you can customise your site with respect to the content and layout.
By using a page builder such as Visual Composer, you can add numerous different elements to each page of your website and make it truly stand out from the millions of websites that exist.
Drag & drop editor
Visual Composer has an extremely easy to use drag and drop editor which makes building out each of your website’s pages a breeze. This drag and drop editor can be used with any WordPress theme, doesn’t require any coding knowledge, you can easily resize any column on your page using the mouse, you can also use your mouse to select specific content blocks from the library and then add them to your page as desired. There are also advanced features such as creating a gradient background, video backgrounds and even parallax effects.
Content elements
One of the best features of Visual Composer is that it has a huge free cloud marketplace that contains dozens of content elements. Some of the basic elements are text block, icon, single image, separator with icon, faq toggle, outline message box etc.
Media elements include the YouTube player, Vimeo player, image gallery and pro features such as phone mockup, image gallery with zoom etc.
visual-composer-elements
Other element categories include buttons, social, compatibility, post grids, social, e-commerce, WordPress & Widgets and advanced. With these content elements, you can create dynamic content on your website that is a far cry from the static content seen on most sites. You also have the ability to edit any element and this can be done intuitively. There is even a smart replace function so you can quickly replace specific elements with others.
Templates
Next, when you purchase the Visual Composer plugin, you will have access to many premium professional templates. These can help you to save a lot of time and energy when you need to build a website asap. The templates come in different themes such as a landing page, restaurant, online store, real estate, business page, service page etc. You can easily select and edit a template and the premium plugin currently has over 200 template options.
Theme builder
With the theme builder, you can create pages that stand out as you can use it to build custom headers, sidebars, page layouts, footers and much more. You can use pre-made block templates or you can even create your own.
Row layouts
This particular feature gives you the freedom to design the rows and columns of each page of your website. This can allow you to create a suitable grid for your page which you can then fill with content or other elements. Each of the rows and columns have auto responsiveness, stretching, easy column and content positioning, advanced layouts and more. You can also control your row and column sizing on both desktop and mobile with a few easy clicks.
Responsiveness
Responsive websites are very important and with the Visual Composer, you can easily create responsive design that will ensure each website you create looks great and does what it is supposed to on mobile devices. There is an auto-responsive feature that is built into the plugin so you don’t have to fix mobile responsiveness manually. However, you can create custom responsiveness if you so desire by controlling the width of each column on your website and how it responds to mobile users.
Designs
The final feature that we will look at are the design options which are available in Visual Composer. You can create parallax backgrounds, background effects, video backgrounds, paddings, borders, margins, box shadows, gradient backgrounds and more. You can easily add CSS animations to various elements and sections on your site, sticky controls, slideshow backgrounds, Instagram type filters etc.
Set up Visual Composer
There are actually many WordPress themes that already have Visual Composer built-in and available. So, if you’ve already installed your theme, be sure to check and see if it is there or not.
If it is not there, then you will need to purchase and download this plugin. Of course, there is a free version but if you want to have access to all of the features and tools, then it is best to install the paid version.
In order to get the paid version of Visual Composer, it is just like buying and downloading any other paid plugin. You can go on the official site, purchase and download it. Then, you can upload and install it on your website as a new WordPress plugin. After you’ve done this, you will need to create a Visual Composer account and then confirm and activate it.
Once this is done, then all of the plugin’s assets will be downloaded which can take some time. Once all the assets have downloaded, you’ve successfully installed the plugin and can access it from your dashboard.
Conclusion
If you’re in the market for a page builder, then Visual Composer is a great option that will help you to design beautiful and effective websites that are truly impressive.
Visual s one of the original WordPress page builders.Visual Composer is one of the original WordPress page builders.
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