You can do plenty with the WordPress Block Editor, especially when designing new pages and revamping your website. It uses content blocks to help you create attractive pages that improves the User Experience (UX) for all your website’s visitors. However, the Block Editor has limitations that our ZoloBlocks review could break through.
Although the native WordPress editor gives you the core, fundamental Blocks you need to create pages, it lacks some features that can make your pages outstanding. That’s where ZoloBlocks steps in. As we’ll demonstrate, it has the toolset that can take your site design scope to a new level.
Let’s dive deep into this ZoloBlocks review and explore its features, benefits, and how it could potentially fit into your WordPress workflow and projects.
A Primer on ZoloBlocks: Extensive Functionality for the Block Editor
ZoloBlocks is a WordPress plugin that enhances your ability to design websites using the Block Editor. It integrates into the familiar (and native) Block Editor interface, which keeps the learning curve to a minimum – especially for new users.
The plugin offers a package of over 40 unique Blocks that can take your design capabilities to new levels. For instance, you can integrate site functionality that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access.
ZoloBlocks lets you add accordions, your business hours, a Call To Action (CTA), and more. In addition, the plugin provides enhancements to some of the core WordPress Blocks, and gives them a unique spin. Its own Heading, Image, and Button Blocks provide more customization than the default ones, for example.
Speaking of which, all of the Blocks on offer have multiple customization options available. So, if you don’t like the way a particular Block presents your content, you can select from multiple other layouts, change certain facets of the design, and more.
These design tweaks can also come in the form of Block Patterns: layouts for page sections to help speed up your development time. There are around 1,000 page and element layouts within ZoloBlocks, depending on your needs.
There’s much more on offer, and we’ll get into the details later on. Before that, we should discuss why a plugin such as ZoloBlocks is near essential for many WordPress websites.
Why You’d Want to Use ZoloBlocks to Extend the Native WordPress Editors
Any time you can enhance the core functionality of WordPress, you should consider whether it will bring a positive impact to your site. The good news is ZoloBlocks does offer a lot in the way of a better experience for building page layouts.
While the plugin has lots of good points, there are a few areas where we think the plugin excels:
- ZoloBlocks is easy to install and use. Every aspect of the plugin lives in familiar areas within the WordPress dashboard and editing screens.
- You don’t have to learn new admin screens, nor work with drag-and-drop interfaces that fight the native experience of WordPress. The Block Editor can deliver when it comes to building websites, and ZoloBlocks turns it into an advanced toolset for web design.
- The performance of the plugin is fantastic, which means a more efficient and optimal workflow for you.
In a nutshell, ZoloBlocks gives you functionality that you would otherwise need coding experience to achieve in WordPress. Let’s now get into using the plugin over the next few sections.
ZoloBlocks Review: Beginning Your Site’s Design Journey
ZoloBlocks is pretty straightforward to set up. The download, installation, and activation process is just the same as other WordPress plugins. From here, you can begin to use ZoloBlocks. Let’s start with setting up the plugin.
Setting Up ZoloBlocks
To begin, head to the ZoloBlocks screen within WordPress to see the settings and options at your disposal. ZoloBlocks gives you full control over the Blocks you access while editing. You can activate or deactivate them from the Blocks section within the plugin’s setting screen:
You’ll spot that there are bulk activation options, and that the Blocks split into sections, which makes finding the right one easier.
You can also make changes to other critical ZoloBlocks settings. For instance, the API Settings tab lets you add and manage Google Maps, Mailchimp, and Google reCAPTCHA API keys.
Finally, the Settings screen gives you some crucial editor options that you may want to alter:
For instance, you can adjust the width of the Container Block within the editor, and activate Pattern import and export. You’re also able to enable SVG image uploads here too. This could be a way to display a crisp, clear, dynamic and responsive brand logo, for example.
Once you save your changes here, your next stop is to head to a Block Editor page and begin to cast your eye over what ZoloBlocks can do.
ZoloBlocks Review: How to Use It Within the WordPress Block Editor
This is the main focus of our post, and is (of course) where your time will matter most. ZoloBlocks slots into the existing Block Editor interface, and you’ll spot a dedicated section within the left-hand sidebar for ease of use:
As with all other Blocks you can search from within the editing canvas too:
Adding a Block happens in the same way you’d do so with any other Block. Once you select the Block in question, you’ll have options available in the right-hand sidebar:
Each Block will have its own unique options. Our example showcases the Brand Grid Block. This lets you showcase your business brands, partnerships, and affiliations with ease. It comes with three ways to make customizations. There are Basic settings for alignment and positioning, along with toggles to display labelling for each element.
The Style tab gives you ways to adjust the container’s height, border radius, and padding – all without code. Here, you can also tweak the default and hover statuses backgrounds and box shadows if necessary:
You’ll find plenty of other sections to adjust title, photo, content, and myriad other ‘box model’ elements. The Extra tab also has a bunch of these types of options:
If you need to work backgrounds, borders, visibility, transforming Block elements, and more, this is where you do it. On the whole, there is a lot of power under the hood of ZoloBlocks, yet as we’ll show you in the next section, it won’t break your budget.
ZoloBlocks Review: The Available Pricing and Plans
ZoloBlocks offers a free plugin that comes with core functionality – and there’s plenty to sink your teeth into. However, premium plans give you much more scope, so we’d recommend this option over the free one. With ZoloBlocks, there are three tiers available, depending on your needs:
- Personal. For $49 per year, you have a single site license.
- Business. Ten website licenses cost $69 per year.
- Developer. Agencies and development business will like this plan, and it’s a steal at $149 per year for 1,000 site licenses.
Note that every plan comes with the entire functionality that ZoloBlocks offers, which is astounding given the price. If you prefer to only pay once for ZoloBlocks, there are lifetime plans on offer too, at $199/$249/$599 for the same plans as above.
Looking at ZoloBlocks’ Support and Documentation
The developer of ZoloBlocks, BdThemes, provides a wealth of support options for when you need assistance. Here’s a quick rundown of how you can access support, although this will only be for premium customers:
- ZoloBlocks has phone support, and you can call its customer support department for assistance from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (GMT+6).
- You can contact BdThemes using its website chat feature. The chatbot can help you diagnose and troubleshoot issues or redirect you to other website resources.
- You’re able to fill in a support ticket on the customer support page, outlining your issue in detail and including screenshots where possible.
- ZoloBlocks also features a comprehensive knowledge base and video tutorials that can expedite your learning process and help you troubleshoot any issues that arise.
We love the options available, because many other WordPress businesses limit support access in various ways. In our opinion, offering as many ways as possible to contact support gives you the best experience, and it’s an area BdThemes clearly wants to provide the best in.
ZoloBlocks Review: What Its Customers Say
ZoloBlocks is still a new product in the marketplace. You can see this from the low number of active installs and reviews the free plugin has, and that we only have a first version available at the time of writing. Still, the feature set, price, and support on offer speaks to its initial user base – and the verdict is glowing.
For instance, the free plugin only has a few five-star reviews right now. However, this gives it a five out of five average rating on the WordPress Plugin Directory. The customers all speak on the same topic: this is the best plugin to expand the Block Editor:
Other users love the customer support. As we note, it’s clearly a focus for BdThemes:
…super fast and helpful chat support. My problem has been solved in under 2 minutes. That’s how I wish support teams work…
Fargo van Hope via ZoloBlocks
If you opt for ZoloBlocks, we’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments section at the end of the article!
Closing Thoughts: Why ZoloBlocks Can Bolster the Block Editor’s Scope
With brilliant reviews, astounding price for the functionality you get, and excellent scope for design, ZoloBlocks ticks all the boxes as a potential front-runner for enhancing the Block Editor. We don’t have much in the way of criticism to give either. Every aspect appears as top-notch, and we’d argue this is one of the better Block collection plugins you can find.
Does ZoloBlocks look like a plugin that would find room on your website? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
