Fresh from its website revamp in June, free website builder Elementor introduces its version 3.3 with feature updates designed to make it easier, faster, and more convenient to produce new websites. This latest iteration of the platform brings with it notable upgrades to create professional websites that help businesses achieve a stronger presence online.
The company acknowledges that most users of website builders tend to produce projects with similar features for their businesses or advocacies, Many organizations reuse website configurations for their new branches or operations in different locations.
Reusing website themes, templates, typography, fonts, and color schemes may sound like a shortcut for web design and development. However, the process is not as simple as it seems. “If you wanted to export and reuse existing designs, you had to save each page individually as a ‘flat’ JSON file, with only the content, not including all site settings and functionalities, which had to be redefined from scratch every time,” says Elementor in a statement about the launch of its version 3.3.
Elementor’s 3.3 core release offers new features and functions that significantly improve the process of creating new professional websites by reducing the time and cost required. It also adds a few tools web developers of all levels will find useful.
Reusable full site kits
Elementor 3.3 brings with it the full site kit feature, which is a system designed to contain an entire website’s elements and attributes in a single kit. This kit can be reused to create other websites with similar features, like the sites of newly launched company brands, product lines, or branches in different locations.
“A kit can contain everything you need for building an entire website, which can be used as the ideal starting point for you to launch your next project, or even to create your first ever website,” the Elementor statement adds.
A full site kit typically includes three main components, namely the templates, contents, and website settings. Within the templates, there are footers and headers, 404 error pages, font styles, colors, themes, and landing pages. The contents are texts, images, videos, and other multimedia. The site settings, on the other hand, include security configurations and redirections.
Duplicating the attributes of a previous website project used to be a tedious process. There have been no automatic and shortcut solutions available before the advent of Elementor 3.3. As Elementor conveyed in their statement, web creators can get frustrated “knowing that they need to start completely over every time a new project starts, even though they previously created something very similar, or even certain parts that can be reused in a new website.”
The full site kits provide a convenient solution for anyone who wants to build websites based on previous projects to achieve the coherence and efficiency they need for their web presence.
Updated Import/Export function
Elementor users may not instantly find the reusable full site kit feature after upgrading to version 3.3. To make sure that it is accessible, an activation process may be undertaken. Users can contact Elementor’s support team to have this new feature activated or for assistance on how to get the latest version of the website builder.
The reusable full site kit is part of Elementor’s upgraded Import/Export function. If it is already activated, site creators can select the items they want to include in the exporting process and proceed with the generation of a ZIP file, which is what will be imported into the new project.
If the ZIP file is imported into a blank canvas project, all of the attributes contained in it will be adopted by the new project. Otherwise, the Elementor 3.3 platform will ask users if they want to follow the design and settings in the imported full site kit or they want to keep the current design and settings of the new project.
Professional template library
New Elementor users who prefer to use new designs and templates also have something to look forward to in version 3.3 with the introduction of the Kits Library. This template collection initially offers 87 full site kits that feature a variety of styles and designs to match different needs.
The collection includes templates for restaurant and hospitality businesses, online store or e-commerce sites, nonprofits, portfolios, as well as personal websites and blogs. These are meticulously designed templates that make it easy to create a professional-looking business, government office, advocacy, and even personal websites.
The advantage of these templates is that even those who are new to using Elementor and have no sites built within the platform can choose a template they like and jumpstart their website building from there. Elementor says “the Kits Library will allow users to discover and use designed website kits created by Elementor. The user can search, filter, and sort between different eCommerce, blog, portfolio, restaurant, NGO kits to find the perfect template kit for the website they need.”
Color picker and site performance optimization
In addition to the full site kits and template library, Elementor 3.3 also comes with a handy color picker tool. Referred to as Color Sampler, this feature makes it unnecessary to use third-party or external color pickers, making the web development workflow more streamlined. It reduces design time by easily fetching colors from any image without leaving the Elementor interface.
Additionally, the updated Elementor system boosts page loading time through its new conditional and inline CSS Load function. What this does is separate widgets, so that only the widgets that are necessary for a page get to load the dedicated CSS.
Fast-rising website builder
In a blog post, Elementor highlighted how the redesign of their website reflects the progress of the company’s technology over the past five years. Several new pages have been created using exclusively Elementor’s new features. The company is relatively young, but it already has serious feats under its belt.
Elementor says that its platform powers more than 8 million active websites and is responsible for creating around 5 percent of all websites. The company is the fourth most popular add-on on WordPress, so it is not surprising that it has helped in the creation of millions of websites.
With the introduction of the full website kit, the Kits Library, Color Sampler, and CSS Load, Elementor 3.3 gives website creators more reason to continue using the platform or for non-users to consider giving it a try. The company also takes pride in its support team that has an 88 percent record of first contact resolutions.
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