I hate web development!
There you go! I said it finally!
Writing HTML script and then writing the CSS stylesheets is the most tedious work I had to do.
And if you want to add some more functionality then write some JavaScript too.
I come from an Engineering background, where I was doing micro-controller programming. I used to write small and straightforward codes. But when I switched to web development, I had to write big fricking blocks of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Barring JavaScript, logic wasn’t involved in writing HTML or CSS. It was merely a labour work. I had to write the same code blocks again and again.
I detested it dearly.
Then I started using WordPress
Now, WordPress took care of most of the things. Writing HTML for menus and image galleries and stuff like that was not required anymore.
But still, to design the body of the page, I had to use the non-intuitive text editor of WordPress.
At least, before WordPress, when I used to write HTML in an editor like Atom, it did some work automatically, like closing a tag.
But the WordPress text editor is a total dud. You can make it more intuitive, but then you have to install a plugin. And, I hate installing plugins unless they are needed.
So, again the time to develop the complete website didn’t improve much.
The other option was to get a ready-made theme.
I have used my fair share of ready-to-use themes. These themes come with all the bells and whistles. While they seem like an excellent alternative to coding, they actually increase the workload and are not a great option, generally speaking.
I have spoken extensively about them in this blog post.
No doubt they are an improvement over the vanilla WordPress but the disadvantages, in the long run, outweigh the advantages.
Page Builders
Most of the themes I purchased from ThemeForest came with a page builder called Visual Composer. So, I wasn’t entirely oblivious to the realm of the page builders.
Visual Composer is a great plugin, and it comes with a lot of pre-made widgets. And many people like it. But I somehow never connected with the plugin. I felt it slowed down my website, included a lot of bloated code and the UI isn’t that friendly.
I always felt it was not something for me. If I am going to use the page builders anyway, then I want them to be easy to use.
After using so many page builders, I stumbled upon Elementor in a discussion board. There were so many people talking about all the great things in Elementor.
I decided to give it a spin. And to my delight, the free version of the plugin was available. So, I downloaded the plugin and straightaway started using it on a project itself.
I wanted to check how it works in a live project environment.
And it worked perfectly. I created pages in five minutes with the free version of the plugin. Forget paid version where you get many more widgets and pre-made templates.
Here is the video where I create a page in WordPress using Elementor.
Once I was happy with the free version, I immediately went for the paid version. I purchased the highest version. The costing starts from USD 49 for one site and caps at USD 199 for unlimited sites.
A page that required at least an hour of coding started taking around 10 minutes to complete.
In my agency, we carry out on an average seven web development projects per month with each containing six pages on an average.
Without page builder that would have taken me six websites x 7 pages/website x 4 hours/page equal to 168 hours. That is a lot of time to design the pages because you have other work too, like writing a copy, developing images, optimising the performance etc.
With Elementor, the time required reduces to 6 websites x 7 pages/website x 30 minutes/page equal to 1260 minutes, that is 21 hours.
That is a time saving of 147 hours or 87.5% reduction.
That is a huge time saver.
Since we charge our customers per hour, this resulted in a massive decrease in the cost to the customer. And we were able to deliver the projects at a lower price and with the time saved, we took more projects, more significant projects.
The most significant advantage of Elementor
A website that tells about your products or services is a marketing tool. And when it comes to marketing tools, marketers should be able to use it.
And that was the most significant advantage of using Elementor. The marketing teams in my client’s companies were now able to make modifications to the website.
This was a big deal for my clients. They didn’t have to run to me for small things, and their marketing team was happy that they were able to make the changes quickly.
When should you opt for a page builder?
If your website is primarily for marketing, then your marketing team should be able to handle the site. And often marketers are not tech-savvy, so they love working with something like Elementor.
If you hate coding, then you should go for Elementor. It will save you a lot of headaches.
You will be able to quickly build a website, change page designs, save standard templates that can be used later on.
All in all, it is a great tool to have in your armoury.
