Design Packs: Bulk Import-Export Custom Site Designs Across WordPress Websites

Author
Tony Lewis   41

Updated on August 3, 2022

The frustration of having to painstakingly migrate or rebuild content from one WordPress website to another is finally over.

With the Design Packs feature now available in Thrive Architect and Thrive Theme Builder, you can bulk import-export your most important site templates and content in a matter of clicks.

Watch the video or keep reading to learn more…

More...

What’s a Design Pack?

Design Packs is a new feature available in your Thrive Dashboard when either Thrive Architect (our WordPress page builder plugin) or Thrive Theme Builder (our 100% customizable WordPress theme) is installed and activated on your website.

Design Packs are now available in the Thrive Dashboard with either Thrive Architect or Thrive Theme Builder installed and activated.

It allows you to bulk import-export your theme templates as well as your Thrive Architect built content — between different WordPress websites — with a single zip file, including:
  • Custom Thrive Theme Builder Themes
  • Custom Landing Page Designs built with Thrive Architect
  • WordPress Page Content built with Thrive Architect
  • Blog Post Content built with Thrive Architect

Design Packs is a Design Migration Tool that consolidates all of our import-export features across Thrive Theme Builder and Thrive Architect into a single super-easy-to-use tool!

So make sure to think about Design Packs like a Design Migration Tool — NOT a site migration tool. It consolidates all of our import-export features across Thrive Theme Builder and Thrive Architect into a single super-easy-to-use tool!

If you want to wholesale migrate entire websites between different domains, there’s plenty of existing tools out there you should probably use instead.

However, if you want to make your own custom Thrive Theme Builder or Thrive Architect designs and make them available for use by customers, clients and colleagues via a simple zip file…

… then this is the import-export feature you’ve been waiting for.

The Big Picture for Designers, Agencies, Et al.

Yup, you read that right. 

You can now sell custom site designs via a single zip file. 

Design Packs let you import-export your own custom Thrive Theme Builder or Thrive Architect designs with a single zip file!

This makes it easy for designers, agencies and Thrive power users to share or sell their site designs — while also giving their clients and customers everything they need to implement it on their own site — in just a few clicks.

When you think about it, there’s nothing stopping you from selling your own custom Design Packs on a theme marketplace. We’ll even go so far as to say we encourage you to do so!

What You Can and Can't Import-Export with Design Packs

Let’s take a closer look at the types of content and templates you can include in a Design Pack export, as well as how to properly import such content and templates on to a new website…

Custom Thrive Theme Builder Themes

Have you ever customized a Thrive Theme Builder theme to the point where it looks totally unique compared to one of the original companion themes it started out as?

Well, Design Packs now mean you can quickly import-export all those customizations as a self-contained theme design to any other website using Thrive Theme Builder. This includes your theme’s:
  • Typography Settings
  • Brand Color Settings
  • Homepage
  • Theme Page Templates (e.g. Post templates, Archive templates, Page templates, etc.)
  • Global Designs (e.g. Headers, Footers, Sidebars, Top Sections, Bottom Sections, etc.)

Once imported onto a new website, simply activate the imported theme in the Thrive Theme Builder Dashboard to see your theme templates and settings populate across the import site.

Thrive Architect Landing Pages

As you may already know, importing and exporting Thrive Architect Landing Page Templates has been possible for quite some time. But Design Packs makes doing so much quicker and easier.

If you have any custom landing page designs built with Thrive Architect that you’d like to transfer from WordPress site to another, just include them in your Design Pack. Once imported, they’ll then be available to select as a Saved Landing Page option when browsing through your Pre-Built Landing Page designs.

WordPress Page Content

Design Packs also allow you to easily move your WordPress Page Content (as built in Thrive Architect) from one website to another. This could include such theme controlled pages as your About Page, Contact Page, or Pricing Page. 

Just be aware that this particular Design Packs function DOES NOT include any Page metadata in the export-import (e.g. featured images, authors, titles, URLs, etc.). 

But once imported, any WordPress Page Content included in a Design Pack bundle does become available to select as a saved Template inside your Thrive Architect Templates & Symbols element library.

To replicate a Page design after importing a Design Pack zip file, simply:
  1. 1
    Create a new Page in your WordPress dashboard (remember that Page metadata is not import-exportable so you’ll need to re-enter this info in the backend Page editor)
  2. 2
    Open the Thrive Architect visual editor
  3. 3
    Select Normal Page from the page type option lightbox that appears
  4. 4
    Drag and drop a Templates & Symbols element into the content area
  5. 5
    And select the appropriate imported Page content

Et vóila!

The Page content should appear exactly as it did on the export site!. Replicating standard WordPress page content from one website to another is as simple as that.

Blog Post Content

Much like the import-export steps described above for WordPress Page Content, you can also replicate your Blog Post Content on different WordPress websites with Design Packs too.

And also like the WordPress Page Content import-export function, be aware that Design Packs DO NOT include any Post metadata either (e.g. featured images, categories, tags, authors, titles, URLs, etc.). 

To do rebuild a blog post (after importing a Design Pack zip file onto a new website), simply:
  1. 1
    Create a new Post in your WordPress dashboard (remember that Post metadata is not import-exportable so you’ll need to re-enter this info in the backend Post editor)
  2. 2
    Open the Thrive Architect visual editor
  3. 3
    Drag and drop a Templates & Symbols element into the content area
  4. 4
    And select the appropriate imported Blog Post content

From there, the import site blog post content should appear just as it did on the export site.

Repeat the process for any other Posts you’d like to feature on the new site and it will soon be flush with blog content!

We’re Just Getting Started

Many of the import-export functions available in Design Packs — such as the ability to import-export individual landing page designs — were already available to Thrive Architect and Thrive Theme Builder users. 

However, Design Packs now makes the bulk import-export of a website's most important design assets a total breeze to complete.

But we’re just getting started…

Keep an eye out for future Design Pack functionality expansions that will include more than just Thrive Architect and Thrive Theme Builder content.

If you have any questions about Design Packs or specific requests for how you’d like to see this bulk import-export feature grow in the near future, just shoot us a comment below.

Additional Resources

Want to dive deeper into how you can start using Design Packs? Check out the following articles on our Thrive Knowledge Base to learn more:

by Tony Lewis  August 3, 2022

41

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Leave a Comment

  • Here’s what we (I) need lol:

    Animated Headlines
    Gradient Color Text
    Skew/warp Images
    Duration and ease control for animations
    Webhooks For Thrive Forms

    Bonus:
    Cookie set audiences based on clicks for conditional display (“Hide buy button of thankyou page visited” or “show the image of man if the visitor selected “man” button” )

    This way we could even cookie Thrive quiz buttons and display/hide results content specifically based on the options they selected in the quiz.

  • Is there going to be a marketplace where we can purchase other developer/designers pages/content?

    Thrive already includes a ton of great templates but would be nice to have more options especially for service based businesses.

    Most stuff is internet marketing focused currently. (Not that it can’t be adaptable)

    • Hi Jeremy,

      When we decided to work on this feature the idea was to be able to offer a marketplace at some point down the road.
      We however did not want to hold back from releasing this feature and already allowing individuals to create themes and landing pages without the need for us to build out a marketplace.

      We still have additional features we want to add before feeling comfortable releasing our own marketplace.

  • Wow can’t believe this is a really smart move, Make Thrive even more different.

    I would like to see Design Packs extend to the other Thrive Suite Plugins, particularly Thrive Apprentice and Thrive Leads. The Thrive Apprentice school designer works exactly like Thrive Theme Builder, and the lessons are put together using Thrive Architect.

    Design Packs could be a great way to export the design of a Thrive Apprentice School homepage as well as the lessons so that any work that went into crafting the lessons doesn’t have to be rebuilt.

    • I’m super happy to see that you like this new feature Hoang! I’ll make sure that our product team sees your comment.

  • If this works as advertised (and I’m sure it does), it’s a game-changer. Major time-saver. Been wanting this feature for a few years. Thank you, Thrive team!!!

  • Once again you guys have excelled yourselves. This will be a big bonus to people who design pages and site templates for sale.

  • Hi, Tony! this sounds amazing but i’m not tech savvy enough to be able to take advantage. I bought the Thrive suite months ago and need
    someone who can build me a new site in Builder using elements from my current site. Can you refer me to such a person? I can’t wait to use all the great tools in the suite to build my meditation mentoring business! Thanks so much!
    MarciaGrace, Modern Meditation Mentor
    http://www.marciagrace.com

  • I got to this page from a teaser email that didn’t tell me anything about the feature. This type of email is very annoying. Usually you TYPE OUT in the email what feature is coming. This just looks like clickbait and obligates me to click and watch a video to see if the new feature is relevant to me and my business. Not serviceful, just manipulative.

    • Hi Tom,

      Our marketing team is always testing different ways to make sure as many people as possible know about the (awesome) new features we release.

      If this involves using some curiosity to get people to click that’s what we’ll do.

      In the end, it’s a new feature we worked hard on to deliver and that we’re offering to our existing customers at absolutely no cost.

      If we notice less people clicking and watching the video we’d change strategy.

  • Hi Tony

    Yet another amazing release! I have one question though about replicating blog content from one WordPress site to another.

    Would this have a negative impact on the first site in terms of SEO rankings? Or is it OK to say ‘first published on sitename’?

    I would love to do this but I am just getting traction with my first site and want to make the right choice with my content.

    Many thanks

    • Hi Amanda! Excellent question…

      Ideally speaking, you do not want to have duplicate content. Google will take this as if you were outright plagiarizing someone else’s content.

      More than hurting the content on the original site – were it was first published – it would hurt the new site in which you are posting the content.

      Two easy fixes for this…

      Option 1 – If you don’t have traffic (or barely any traffic coming into your posts) simply unpublish them so that Google can’t read them.

      Option 2 – If you do have existing traffic coming in to your posts and you still want to migrate the content over to a new site… Use an SEO plugin like Yoast to redirect the traffic to your new post on your new website.

  • Hello,
    I find it exciting and inspiring to see how you continue to develop ThriveThemes. Consistent, to the point and in high frequency. Thanks a lot for this!
    Best regards
    Kay

      • While you send Apprentice feedback: please ask them to add a button to copy and paste Apprentice Products. I really need that, as I have to provide “95% identical, 5% customized” courses to each of my customers. With a copy and paste I could quickly give a copy, then remove what a specific customers does not want.
        Yes, it’s weird to have customers not wanting everything, but they are mostly companies and they don’t want to confuse employees with (work safety) courses the law does not require them to learn.

  • So what you’re saying is if I (or a client) has a WP site built on elementor, for instance, I’ll be able to import that and build on top of it with TT?

    Sounds pretty cool.

    Also – is there a library/portfolio of designs from others already available? Or is that coming later?

    Cheers,

    Jon

    • It’s something we’d like to add in the future but we have other work lined up for Thrive Apprentice at the moment.

  • When will it be possible to transfer also the content templates and symbols from the global elements? That would be more than great! 🙂

      • This is exactly my feature request! I wanted to use the design packs to export templates and symbols from one site to another and found out this is not possible yet. Will definitely use this a lot when it is possible.

  • Is it also possible to move an entire page, built in Architect, to another website, that also uses Architect?

  • What restrictions are there for a designer when or in what theme and templates are created? Should it be from Thrive Theme Builder or can we import from other Theme Builders as well?

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