– Hi, I'm Nick from Design School. I was asked the other day whether businesses still need websites when you can easily set
up a social media account in a few minutes. It's a good question. And the answer is simple. Yes. Social platforms are amazing and incredibly convenient for getting out your current messaging. But I think of them more as bridges. And bridges need to lead somewhere. Ideally, they lead to a brand's true home in the vast online world, their website. Creating a website can
feel like a daunting task but Canva is making it easier than ever. It's not under a minute but it really doesn't take too long. Let me show you how. (upbeat music) Firstly, before we go any
further, what is a website? Well, in its simplest description, it's a collection of webpages located under a single domain
name, like canva.com.
If you wanna get a little more detailed, then it's a 24/7 online presence that can be used to
communicate with people, sell products, describe your services, even provide entertainment
and showcase portfolios. Having one establishes credibility. It builds trust and helps your business
look more professional. The easiest way to get
started is with a template. On the Canva homepage
search bar, type website. Browse the available templates. Anything with a crown
on it is for pro users. Anything without is available to anyone. Let's look at a real estate template.
Yeah, this one's perfect. Click on it and it will open in a new tab. Feel free to get more specific with the search terms as well. Search for fashion sites, portfolio sites, even education websites, and you'll get a much
more targeted selection to search through. Everything here is editable. Change the text by double clicking on it. Drag in photos from the
elements tab or upload your own. I like the layout of most pages but I'm not sure about that first one. Click on the template tab and type in real estate and I can see other options. I like this header section much more, so I'm gonna drag this over here, and you'll see it replaces
the one that I already had.
Now I can go through and
delete any pages I don't need. And since this is a scrolling website, I can actually resize some of the pages where there's extra unneeded space. Now I'll get rid of that generic logo and add in my brand identity. Let's resize it. Okay, looking good. Now I can adjust the font
to suit the new brand and change the colors so they suit to. Finally, I need to find an image that better suits the types of properties that this agent deals with. I'm just gonna jump to the elements tab and put in some search terms. Yep, this one's perfect.
Let's drag it over and it will replace the
background image like this. Nice. This is looking pretty good, but I want to give the
audience a call to action on this first page. A call to action or a CTA, as they're commonly called, is a direction to the audience to engage or do something. On websites, this often takes the form of a button or a link. So let's bring this down here so there's a natural flow
from the text over to the CTA. Select the text box that you wanna link. Go to the chain icon in
the upper right corner of the screen.
Here, you can enter an external link or choose one of the
other pages on the site. At the top right, there
is a preview button. Click on this to see how it's looking and test out the links. There are options to see what it looks like on other screens too. Like a tablet or a smartphone. This will automatically resize your design for the different aspect ratios. It's worth checking for any
responsiveness issues now. Okay, looking good so far. And that's really how simple it is. Obviously, it's not live at the moment. But it's at a stage where we could easily share
it with key stakeholders or maybe our client to get
some feedback and suggestions. Let's look at the next
stage and how we publish it. In the top right corner, you'll see a button that
says, "Publish Website".
You'll be given two options here. A free domain or the chance
to use an existing domain. Let's choose free. Here, Canva will give you a URL. You can edit it like this. In the site's description, you can describe your website
in 160 characters or less. Create a concise and compelling
summary of the page here. Including a target keyword
will help search engines index and rank the page. You can click this checkbox to hide your site from search engines.
This is great if you just wanna share it with some specific people via a link. Good for getting feedback or suggestions from your team or client. You can give it even more security here by restricting access via password. When you're happy, hit that
big purple publish button. Now, if you want your
own custom domain name, you can do that here as well. Click this and then purchase domain. Start searching for available domains and then claim your domain like this. You'll need to fill in a registration form and then review the settings before proceeding to the payment page. It normally takes 24 to 48 hours for the website to go live. And it's really as easy as that. You now have a fully functioning and great looking website you can continue to build upon and improve. What's even better, your customers and your audience
now have a trusted place where they can find you
at any time, day or night. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you found this useful. And I'll see you in the next video. Hey, did you learn something? Why don't you hit subscribe.
Maybe even a like. Thanks for watching and I'll
see you in the next one..