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WordPress Consultant Sallie Goetsch

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WP-Tonic 115: Visual Builders for WordPress The Good, Bad, and Ugly--but Mostly the Ugly

August 7, 2016 by Sallie Goetsch Leave a Comment

This entry is part 8 of 30 in the series WP-Tonic Roundtable
WP-Tonic 115: Visual Builders for WordPress--the good, the bad, and the ugly

On Episode 115 of the WP-Tonic podcast, Jonathan Denwood, John Locke, Bridget Willard, Kim Shivler, and I–with some contributions from Jason Tucker in the chat room–address the contentious issue of visual builders for WordPress. Visual builders, also known as page builders, are plugins (and sometimes theme features) meant to make it easier to create custom layouts. In theory, great. In practice, often a complete mess. And despite the promise of easy awesome, many of them have a considerable learning curve.

Here’s a summary of some of our feelings about different page builder tools:

  • Everyone hates WP Bakery’s Visual Composer, which is bundled into many, many Themeforest themes. (Jason called it “Visual Decomposer.) It’s not really that easy to use, can destroy your content quite easily, and leaves your site an ugly mess of shortcodes if you deactivate or uninstall it. John says a lot of agencies use it for producing sites on the cheap, and there are people who love it (just not on this show).
  • Divi provides WP-Tonic with a lot of work fixing problems it’s caused, but it’s popular with a lot of DIY WordPress users, including Kim’s beginning students. Bridget emphasized the fact that page builders are a key element in accomplishing WordPress’ aim to democratize publishing.
  • Of page-builders they’ve tried, panelists prefer Beaver Builder, because at least it saves the content you enter into it as HTML and doesn’t leave shortcode spaghetti behind.

So Tell Us What You Really Think

In case anyone had the slightest doubt, my attitude toward Visual Composer is “kill it with fire.” It’s likely to cost you a lot of time (and therefore money) to use and make many things harder than they would otherwise be–and that’s even if you don’t care about portability of your content. I haven’t worked with Divi and don’t expect to, but if you’re inclined that way, be sure that you get the Divi plugin and not just the theme, to help with that portability issue. You can read Pippin Williamson’s critical review of WordPress page builders (which we address in another episode) for some suggestions on the options that are (so far) least destructive, least likely to conflict with other plugins, and easy to use.

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What I Write About

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Series

  • Interviews (5)
  • Checking Up on Your Website (4)
  • Client from Hell (5)
  • WordCamps (17)
  • WP-Tonic Roundtable (30)
  • Modern Tribe Tutorials (13)


More in this series:

  • WP-Tonic 103: WordPress & Online Marketing In 2016: What Works!
  • WP-Tonic 105: Speeding Up WordPress From Slow Dog To Young Speed Machine
  • WP-Tonic 109: The Real Difference between Web Copy and Print Copy
  • WP-Tonic 095: How to Pick the Right Premium WordPress Theme
  • WP-Tonic 099: What Plugins Should You Consider for any WordPress Site?
  • WP-Tonic 111: What Makes a WooCommerce Site Successful?
  • WP-Tonic 113: How Do You Write Winning WordPress Proposals?
  • WP-Tonic 115: Visual Builders for WordPress
  • WP-Tonic 117: Email Plugins, Marketing, and Strategy for WordPress
  • WP-Tonic 119: Website Redesigns
  • WP-Tonic 123: What Role Does Social Media Play in Your WordPress-Based Business?
  • WP-Tonic 126: Your Website and Your Overall Online Strategy
  • WP-Tonic 128: Black Hat SEO
  • WP-Tonic 130: Does Content Marketing Really Work?
  • WP-Tonic Live Panel Resumes
  • WP-Tonic 157: Coordinating Complex Site Migrations
  • WP-Tonic 159: WordPress Form Plugins
  • WP-Tonic 161: Pricing Models for Web Design and Web Development
  • 227 WP-Tonic: Setting Up Nameservers and DNS Record Types
  • WP-Tonic 229 Insights On How to Build a Successful Online Community
  • WP-Tonic 231: How To Manage Difficult WordPress Projects
  • 233 WP-Tonic Round Table Show “WordPress Hooks, Actions and Filters”
  • WP Tonic #235: Converting Site Visitors To Subscribers
  • #237 WP-Tonic Round-Table “Basic Design Principles From Color Palette to Layout for Your Website”
  • WP-Tonic #239: The Future of WordPress Page Builders
  • WP-Tonic 241: Advice on Setting up & Using WordPress Multisite
  • WP-Tonic 243: How Do You Write Great Content for Your WordPress Website?
  • WP-Tonic 245: Does the Genesis Framework Have a Future in a World of Theme & Page Builders?
  • 247 WP-Tonic Friday Round-Table Show: Extending WordPress Using ACF (Advanced Custom Fields)
  • WP-Tonic 250: Tips & Tricks On How to Make Your Websites More Mobile Friendly

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