WordPress Page Builder Tutorial: Getting Started with Elementor

What Are WordPress Page Builders?

Page builders have been part of the WordPress ecosystem for years, but only recently have they evolved into true what-you-see-is-what-you-get editors with inline editing and drag-and-drop functionality. Older tools like WPBakery and SiteOrigin were revolutionary in their time, but they feel cumbersome compared to the modern generation of builders.

Elementor sits firmly in that modern camp. With over 4 million active installations, it's one of the most popular page builders available for WordPress. It gives you full visual control over your page layout, letting you place elements exactly where you want them and see the results in real time — no switching between a backend editor and a frontend preview.

This guide isn't meant to make you an Elementor expert overnight. Instead, it covers the fundamentals of how page builders work in general, so you'll know what to expect when you fire one up for the first time.

Installing Elementor on Your WordPress Site

Getting Elementor up and running takes about 30 seconds. From your WordPress dashboard, head to Plugins → Add New, search for "Elementor," and you'll see it right at the top of the results. Hit Install Now, then Activate, and you're done.

Once activated, you'll notice a new Elementor icon in your sidebar. The plugin doesn't replace your normal WordPress workflow — you still create pages and posts the same way you always have. The difference is that each page now has an "Edit with Elementor" button that launches the visual editor.

Clicking that button opens a completely different editing experience. Instead of working with the standard WordPress block editor, you get a full-width canvas on the right and a widget panel on the left. Everything you do from this point is rendered in real time, so there's no guesswork about how your page will look when published.

Building Your First Page: Text, Images, and Styling

The core workflow in Elementor is straightforward: drag a widget from the left panel, drop it onto your canvas, and then customize it. Headings, text blocks, images, and buttons are all available as basic widgets, and each one comes with three tabs — Content, Style, and Advanced — that control what it says, how it looks, and how it behaves.

For text, you can change fonts (all of Google Fonts are loaded by default), adjust sizes, set colors, and control alignment. The styling happens inline, meaning you click directly on the text element and tweak it right there on the page. Images work the same way: drop in the image widget, upload or select a photo from your media library, and then resize or add borders directly in the editor.

One important detail worth noting — if you use Elementor's width slider to visually shrink an image, the full-size file still loads in the browser. For better performance, it's smarter to select a smaller image size (like Medium) from the dropdown rather than just making a large image appear smaller. This keeps your page speed in check.

When you publish an Elementor page, the page builder overrides your theme's default styling. That's by design. Your theme handles the overall site structure, but Elementor takes full control of the individual page layout. This is why pairing Elementor with a lightweight, page-builder-friendly theme like Astra works so well.

Free vs. Pro: What You Get with Each Version

The free version of Elementor is genuinely useful. You get 10 basic widgets — headings, text, images, buttons, and a handful of others — which is enough to build simple pages. But scroll past those in the widget panel and you'll see a long list of pro-only widgets, each marked with a padlock icon.

Elementor Pro unlocks features that matter most for business sites and marketing pages. Pricing tables let you lay out tiered plans in a polished multi-column format. A countdown timer widget adds urgency to promotions and launches. And the form builder is a standout — you can collect names, emails, and custom fields, then route submissions to your inbox or directly to email marketing platforms like MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, or ConvertKit.

At $49 per year for a single site, the Pro license is competitively priced. There are bulk options too, going up to 1,000 sites for $200 annually. Elementor offers a 30-day refund window, so you can try Pro risk-free and decide whether the extra widgets and features justify the cost for your projects.

Responsive Design Made Simple

Every page you build in Elementor is mobile responsive out of the box, but the real power is in the per-device controls. At the bottom of the editor, you can switch between Desktop, Tablet, and Phone views to see exactly how your layout will render on each screen size.

Here's where it gets useful: styling changes you make in one view don't automatically carry over to the others. If you center-align a headline on tablet but leave it left-aligned on desktop, both settings are preserved independently. The same goes for font sizes, padding, and element visibility — you can hide a widget on mobile entirely or shrink typography so it fits comfortably on a smaller screen.

This per-device control means you're not stuck with a one-size-fits-all layout. You can fine-tune spacing, resize elements, and adjust column widths for each breakpoint. It's the kind of granular control that would normally require writing custom CSS media queries, but Elementor puts it all behind a visual interface that anyone can use.

Pre-Built Templates for Non-Designers

Not everyone has a design background, and Elementor addresses that head-on with its template library. When you create a new page and open the Elementor editor, clicking the folder icon reveals a collection of professionally designed page templates — landing pages, about pages, service pages, and more.

The free version includes a selection of templates, but Pro unlocks the full library. These aren't bare-bones wireframes; they come with polished layouts, placeholder images, parallax scrolling effects, and thoughtfully arranged sections like testimonials and feature grids. You insert a template with one click and the entire page populates instantly.

The real value is that every element remains fully editable. Swap out the placeholder text with your own copy, replace stock photos with your brand imagery, adjust colors to match your palette, and tweak typography — all using the same inline editing you'd use on any other Elementor page. Templates give you a professional starting point without the blank-canvas anxiety, and you can customize them until they feel entirely your own.

What's Next: Theme Builder and Beyond

Page-level design is just one piece of what Elementor can do. The real game-changer — especially with the Pro version — is the theme builder, which lets you design custom headers, footers, and global templates that apply across your entire site. Instead of being locked into your theme's default header layout, you can build exactly the navigation and branding you want.

For anyone just getting started, the key takeaway is this: a modern page builder like Elementor removes the technical barriers between your ideas and a finished website. You don't need to learn HTML, CSS, or any code to produce professional-looking pages. Pair it with a lightweight theme like Astra, keep your images optimized, and you've got a solid foundation for building out any kind of WordPress site — whether it's a blog, a business page, or a full marketing funnel.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.