When it comes to building a website or simply a landing page, the first thing that strikes in our conventional mind is battling with the complex coding.
But with the technological advancement, this complex coding part has been replaced by the mighty drag & drop website builders.
These website builders are so efficient that it makes building websites and their landing pages a cakewalk.
Now, realizing the potential of the new way to develop websites, many drag & drop website builders have surfaced in the digital market. But none could be as productive as Visual Composer website builder.
What Is Visual Composer Website Builder?
The highly experienced team behind WPBakery page builder have put in their efforts to launch a new website builder – Visual Composer.
As said earlier, you can exploit the efficiency of Visual Composer in the form of a Drag & Drop Website builder. But most importantly, the web page designing process is so fluidic that it makes itself a perfect tool for novice website developers.
Also, Visual Composer is also regarded as the WYSIWYG editor. This means that the changes you make in your website template are reflected at the same instance. No saving & separate viewing is required.
Apart from this, there are several factors which make Visual Composer as the top pick among other drag & drop website builder.
Let’s dive in deep to know –
What Makes Visual Composer So Popular?
Your imagination and creativity when works hand in hand with Visual Composer website builder will produce stunning landing pages for your website.
Along with this, there are other ways in which the website builder offers several benefits –
1. Multi-Theme Compatibility –
Visual Composer proudly boasts about being extremely compatible with almost all the WordPress themes.
This means that you would never have to change your already established website. Instead, the Visual Composer builder will help you enhance the overall workflow of your web designing process.
Not just this, with the use of this awesome website building tool, you can also create a new WordPress theme.
2. Responsive Layouts –
The use of smartphones and tablets have increased exponentially. Hence, it would be wise for business owners (like yourself) to cater their services via websites for these smaller devices.
Luckily for you, Visual Composer is perfect to create websites and landing pages which can be viewed on almost any screen sizes.
3. A Hub For All Web Elements –
A website consists of several web pages, which is a combination of many small blocks such as headings, buttons, images carousels, testimonial section, accordion section, contact forms, and many other things.
And, using them in the correct order will result in a highly intuitive and conversion oriented business website.
But individually creating them from scratch (through coding) and then adding them in the web page source is extremely cumbersome.
To save you from all the trouble, Visual Composer is packed with an online free marketplace known as the Visual Composer Hub, capable enough to furnish all your website building needs.
Note: There are two versions of the Hub – free and premium. The premium access to the Hub will offer you the complete access of all the elements with unlimited downloads. While Free access has certain restrictions and limited elements.
4. In-Built Graphics Resource –
“A picture is worth a thousand words“.
We all know that adding relevant images/graphics on the website add more credibility to your brand.
Keeping this in mind, Visual Composer has recently integrated Unsplash – a media library in the Hub as a premium feature.
5. Coder’s Paradise –
If you are a web development wizard with advanced coding skills or a beginner with mediocre coding knowledge, Visual Composer has comprehensive documentation for their API.
Through this step by step guide of Visual Composer API, you can leverage your skills to create new custom add-ons and elements. And, this can be later used to create new business opportunities.
Now that you have enlightened yourself with the supreme usefulness of the Visual Composer website builder, the only question tingling in your mind would be –
How To Get Started With Visual Composer?
Getting started with Visual Composer website builder is quite simple. Since the tool is basically a WordPress plugin, you can commence your website building process by –
Step 1 – Download Visual Composer –
The first step begins with the downloading of the latest version of Visual Composer. The official website will offer you a free download. And, it’s up to you to enter your email address or simply initiate the downloading.
Step 2 – Install Visual Composer as a plugin –
Once you have downloaded the .zip file of the Visual Composer, you have to install it on your WordPress as a plugin.
In order to do so, you have to follow the path – Dashboard → Plugins → Add New → Upload
Lastly, click on Install and activate the plugin.
Step 3 – Choose your Visual Composer access (Free or Premium) –
After installing the website building tool, you will be greeted with a welcome screen which will prompt you to continue with the Free version or upgrade to the Premium version.
As said earlier, Visual Composer Premium offers a wide array of elements and design layouts.
Step 4 – Select & customize a layout –
Now, once you are all set with using the Free/Premium version of the tool, it’s time for you to choose a layout which suits your brand and content style from the Visual Composer dashboard.
In the Visual Composer dashboard, you can access features like –
- Add Element – To add and customize desired elements.
- Add Template – Create new templates along with several customization options.
- Tree View – It will allow you to access your content via tree navigation.
- Undo/Redo Options – These options will help you in reverting any unnecessary changes.
- Responsive View – With the help of this feature, you can make your design responsive.
- Settings – To add any custom CSS or JavaScript.
- Hub – The collection of all the web page elements, ready to download.
- Publish Option – Once you are done with your web page design, Publish option will take it live on the server.
Visual Composer offers a great range of pre-built layouts. So, to use one, you must click the “Add Templates” button on the home screen of Visual Composer.
A new screen will slide open and prompt you to Get More Templates.
This will redirect you to the Visual Composer Hub, where you can get the best layouts.
After finding a decent layout, simply click on the “↓” symbol (while hovering over it) to download it. After this, click on “+” to start the customization process.
While customizing, you will notice that the blocks have been pre-built using the Rows and Columns. And, of course, these rows and columns can be further customized, cloned and added.
Moving forward towards the block properties, you will notice that it offers you an option to add more elements, change styling, or resize the block size using the drag & drop functionality.
Lastly, if you want to dive down to the roots of customization, simply click on the “Pen” symbol. A new screen will appear in front of you with the option to edit the properties of the respective element.
And, once you are done with the editing, you can select the layout style as boxed or full-width.
Step 5 – Add Header & Footer to your page layout –
The most significant point which differs Visual Composer from WPBakery plugin is the ability to add, create and customize Header & Footer section in Visual Composer.
Note: Adding Header & Footer in your page layout is not possible in the Free version of Visual Composer. To get this feature you need to purchase the premium version.
To add a header, simply follow the path – Visual Composer → Hub → Headers. Select the required header layout and click on “+” symbol. Now, the header is available in your project, ready to be added in the page layout.
Similarly, you can add and customize the footer of your web page layout.
That’s it..!!
After a few tweaking and polishing, you would have created a stunning page layout for your website with minimal efforts.
That’s how easy and efficient Visual Composer Website Builder can be.
Conclusion
Now that you are well aware of the benefits and the working of Visual Composer Website builder, it’s time for you to get started.
With the bare minimum skill, you have the liberty to create stunning websites and web pages with the help of Visual Composer. Not just that, professional website developers use this awesome tool too.
So, without any further ado, start your website building endeavors with Visual Composer.