Normally, you have to pay for Elementor Pro to edit templates for your site.
Yes, the simplest solution is pay a little money for Elementor Pro. You will likely find that Elementor Pro is worth the money.
What if you Don’t Want Elementor Pro?
If you don’t want to purchase Elementor Pro, then the Ultimate Addons for Elementor Lite by Brainstorm Force is a free plugin.
All of Brainstorm Force’s plugins that I’ve tried focus on minimal overhead for your site, and your PageSpeed scores. Using the Block Editor with Spectra (another free plugin by Brainstorm Force, Spectra – WordPress Gutenberg Blocks ) is faster than Elementor will ever be; using UAE and Elementor will be faster than using Elementor and Elementor Pro, without some of the features of Elementor Pro.
How Do you Make a New Header or Footer?
One thing Ultimate Addons for Elementor Lite has is an “Elementor Header & Footer Builder”. In UAE in the WordPress left menu, you pick “Header & Footer Builder”. Click “Add New”, then select the type of template you want, either “Header” or “Footer”.
It opens up for you to edit in Elementor. Make it look how you want, and Publish.
Apply This Header and Footer to your Site Templates
In Site Editor, Templates there is one template named Index, “Used as a fallback template for all pages when a more specific template is not defined.”
In that fallback template for the Block Editor, edit the Header element to include a Shortcode Block with the Shortcode from UAE. Most likely you will only have that shortcode (do all editing in Elementor). Do the equivalent for the footer.
If Index is set to “All Pages”, the Home Page Template should Not have anything in its Header or Footer section.
You probably want that. If you want the Home page to have a different header or footer, exclude it from the Index template.
Single Posts Template: nothing in header or footer areas, let Index take care of that.
All Archives: nothing in header or footer areas, let Index take care of that.
etc.
Tip: You want the theme to control all layouts for all pages and posts and WooCommerce, etc. You can make exceptions, but set the defaults that way.
Have Elementor Use the Theme’s Templates
In Elementor’s Settings, set “Page Layout: Default” to use the theme’s layout.
