UPDATE: I have removed Elementor from this site since this article was originally published.
There’s a new plugin at the WordPress Inn. It’s called Elementor Pro.
It’s the one I mentioned a few days ago. I didn’t upgrade my subscription. I just moved my existing instance of the plugin from one site to another, since I hadn’t really started using it at the other site yet anyway.
Elementor vs Elementor Pro
As you should expect, you can do a lot more with the paid version of Elementor Pro (or any paid version of an otherwise free item) than you can with just the basic Elementor.
According to the Elementor help desk, you do need both versions of the plugin for the Pro version to work properly. So if you decide to “upgrade”, keep the original in your WordPress installation too.
Elementor by itself is called a Page Builder. Mostly what you can do is design pages with it.
Elementor Pro’s biggest benefit (to my knowledge so far) is that you can create Templates for your Posts to give your site a unique look and feel.
Without something like Elementor (Pro), you can look all you want for a theme that you like and are pretty sure you’ve never seen before, but you know deep down that at least a few hundred other sites are probably based on the same one.
The only other way to get a truly unique theme is to have a programmer/designer create one for you. That will cost a whole lot more than Elementor Pro.
The Problem with Designing Your Own Site
While having such fine control over the look of your site can be great and can give that uniqueness everyone wants, there is a downside.
You have to design the thing yourself.
What’s wrong with that?
Most of us are crappy designers.
You might know a good look when you see it, but actually creating that look takes a lot of creativity and hard work. On top of that, you want your site to look good on multiple device types – mobile, tablet, and desktop – these days. What you is on one device (probably a desktop/laptop) as you’re making that page or template, is probably not going to look like what you think it will on your (friend’s) iPhone.
Elementor (as does WordPress itself) lets you check the look of your design on other devices. The trick is getting it too look decent on all of them at the same time.
Good luck with that. I’ll let you know if I succeed with my own designs. Maybe.
