One of the features offered by WordPress is the ability to add custom fields. This feature is very useful if you want create a website complex and dynamic that involves many additional meta fields that are not offered by WordPress by default.
Elementor (the pro version) supports dynamic content which allows you to process WordPress custom fields. You can add custom fields to your Elementor designs (pages or templates).
But how do you add custom fields themselves? Read on to find out more.
What Are WordPress Custom Fields?
Before moving on to the how to section, let's cover that first. Custom fields are a set of metadata that stores additional information about blog posts, pages, custom post types, or taxonomies.
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Information may vary depending on your purpose. For example, if you want create a website bike rental, you can add information such as hourly rate, pick up location, drop off location, pick up date, drop off date etc….
Or, if you wish create a website of movie review, you can add information such as score, genre and review summary.
In the example above, the score, genre and the summary of criticism are called custom fields.
You may be wondering why not just add the score, genre and review summary on the WordPress editor?
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Of course you can. But, imagine if you want to create a list of “greatest movies of all time” and want your users to be able to sort the movie by score, title or genre.
How could you achieve this?
That's where custom fields come in. Custom fields provide more flexibility to sort and manage content on your WordPress website.
Custom fields are especially crucial for complex websites such as real estate listing websites or travel agency websites, as you will be able to offer better user experiences, such as the ability to sort the item by price, review, installation, etc…
In order to get the most out of custom fields, you can also create a custom post type.
Un custom post type allows you to create a new content type on your WordPress website other than the default content types offered by WordPress such as blog posts and pages.
If you are using WooCommerce, this is a perfect example of implementing custom fields and a custom post type.
How to add custom fields in Elementor
There are two WordPress plugins which we recommend if you want to add custom fields in Elementor or WordPress in general:
- Advanced Custom Fields aka ACF (freemium).
- JetEngine (premium. $26/year).
ACF is a great solution if you are looking for a free plugin to add custom fields in Elementor, but Elementor Pro is required. ACF has native integration support with Elementor Pro.
Being a paid plugin, JetEngine offers more features than ACF. Besides creating custom fields, you can also use it to create custom post types, custom taxonomies, custom forms, and list items.
Adding custom fields in Elementor using ACF
Before you can add custom fields using ACF, make sure you have installed and activated the ACF plugin on your WordPress website. The free version of this plugin is available on the WordPress plugin directory. Also, make sure you have upgraded your Elementor to the pro version in case you haven't.
Once everything is ready, go to ACF -> Add to add a new custom field group.
Give a name to your group of fields and click on the button Add a field to add a custom field.
The custom field form opens after you click add a field above. Add required parameters such as field label, name, type, etc.
You can click the button Add a field to add more custom fields. You can set the order of custom fields by dragging them up and down.
When finished adding custom fields, switch to the section Location below the custom field form. Set the post type on which you want to display the custom field group. Whether on blog posts, pages, custom post types or taxonomies.
Then go to the section Settings to set the custom field group location, style, label placement, and statement placement. Once done, click the button Publish to apply the custom fields to the selected content type.
If there are fields you missed or settings you want to change, you can edit your custom field group by going to ACF -> Field Groups. Hover your mouse over the custom field group you want to edit and click the link Edit.
Adding custom field types created with ACF to an Elementor design
You can use the custom fields you created with ACF above on your Elementor designs. Be it pages or templates from the theme builder. To do so, edit a page/template where you want to add your custom fields with Elementor.
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Add a new widget (i.e. Title widget). Once the widget is added, go to the left panel to set content, click the database icon and select ACF Field.
Click the wrench icon and select the field you want to add from the option drop-down menu Key.
There you go, you have just created your custom field with the ACF plugin.
You can achieve the same result by using the WordPress Plugin from Elementor JetEngine.
Ultimately
Custom fields are crucial to unleashing the power of WordPress. Thanks to them, you can create a dynamic and complex website for e-Commerce, real estate advertising, etc.
The ability to manage custom fields is one of the things that makes Elementor so special as a WordPress Plugin page creation. You can add custom dynamic content to your designs by taking advantage of custom fields.
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Conclusion
So ! That's it for this article which shows you how to add custom fields in Elementor. If you have any concerns on how to get there flet us know in the Comments.
However, you can also consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation or the one on Divi: the best WordPress theme of all time.
But meanwhile, share this article on your different social networks.
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