How to Use Canva to Create Compelling Visual Content

Strong visuals are vital to your content marketing strategy.

At :Delmain, we’re a big fan of Canva. This online graphic design tool is incredibly intuitive and allows anyone to easily produce fantastic visual content—no artistic background or special skills needed.

The case for visual content

Take advantage of every chance to clearly communicate your message and attract visitors to your website. Companies incorporating visual content into their digital marketing efforts see conversion rates 7 times higher than other sites! And a study of 100 million articles found those with images had twice as many social shares as posts without images.

One of the biggest challenges of creating effective visuals is the lack of time and resources.

With everything else on your plate, becoming an expert at Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator or investing in graphics and images just may not be possible.

Enter Canva.

What is Canva?

Canva is a free graphic design tool featuring a simple drag and drop interface. The ability to produce professional images quickly and efficiently is this program’s bread and butter. Even those with minimal graphic design experience will find it easy to create beautiful designs.

Since launching in 2012, Canva has accumulated over 10 million users and it’s easy to understand why. Users can create almost every type of visual content, including:

• Blog post images
• Social posts, ads, cover photos, banners, and icons
• Pinterest graphics
• Email marketing visuals
• Infographics
• Docs

Signing up for an account gives you immediate access to pre-made templates, images, and icons (thousands are completely free and others cost $1/each), and hundreds of fonts.

Everything you need to create great visuals for your small business is right at your fingertips.

Getting started with Canva

If you’re wondering how to use Canva, we’ve got you covered. This program is easy to use and takes just 23 seconds to learn the basics. Even so, there are a few must-know tips to keep your learning curve to a minimum.

When you start a new project, you’ll either:

Choose a design

Create your own using custom dimensions

Important: In the free version of the program, you can’t edit the dimensions of your document after-the-fact, so make sure you start with the size you need.

Explore endless customization options

This free tool also provides multiple design elements to choose from, including:

• Grids – Grids help you develop creative compositions. They can be used to stretch images across your entire design or place multiple images together in one design.
• Frames – Frames can be used to decorate your photos with bevels and borders.
• Shapes – Think squares, triangles, circles, and more! These can be used for borders around your page and text.
• Lines – Lines come in various designs—from solid to dashed or even chevron. Lines are great for emphasizing your text.
• Icons – Icons are graphic images to help spice up your design. From common signage to popular symbols, you have many options to choose from.
• Charts – Use the charts element to display bar graphs, pie charts, comparison charts, and more in your design.

Share your design from within your account

You can share your design with up to 10 members of your team and give them permission to either view or edit the design from within the site. You can also share your design to your Facebook or Twitter accounts directly from Canva.

Free vs. paid account

You heard us mention the “free” version of the program, so you might be wondering what you’re missing out on with the paid plan.

The biggest difference in the paid version of the program is the ability to:

• Resize your designs
• Upload custom fonts
• Organize your photos with folders
• Access additional photos, illustrations, and templates

Our advice: Since the free plan has so many features, you’ll probably never feel the need to upgrade!

Best practices for creating compelling images in Canva

Here at :Delmain, our content team lives by the rule “show, don’t tell.” Just like your written content, your visuals should aim to follow this rule by finding the balance between sensory details and quick messages.

Keep our best practices top of mind every time you create a design.

Consider your brand

• Use company colors in the design (use your company style guide for reference!)
• Consistently use a certain style of image or use an image filter to tie together multiple photos from different sources
• Choose fonts reflecting your brand identity (ex: bold, traditional, elegant, playful)
• Place your logo consistently (same location and size)

Use eye-catching images

Our Tip: If you’re using stock images, always give necessary credit to the photographer. Or choose photos that can be used for free (without accreditation) from sites like Pexels, Unsplash, or Pixabay.

Take advantage of layouts

As much as possible, avoid starting from scratch on a design. One of the benefits of this tool is the many design layouts to choose from. Using a premade layout to inspire your design will not only save you time, but it will also help ensure you create an effective and beautiful graphic.

Don’t forget about readability

• Change the color of your text to help it stand out– on dark backgrounds, use light text; on light backgrounds, use dark text
• Use colored shapes behind your text
• Adjust the transparency or add filters to your background
• Change the letter spacing or line height of your text
• Don’t overdo it with too much text or too many icons, backgrounds, or elements
• If you’ll be promoting the graphic on Facebook, ensure the proportion of text to image isn’t above 20%.

6 Canva tools to make your designs better

Try the grid tool shortcut

The grid tool helps perfectly align your text, icons, or other elements on your design. To show the grid, hit “command/control” plus “;” on your keyboard.

Add a box around your text

If you need your text to stand out a bit more, try adding a box. Use the keyboard shortcut “option” plus “shift” plus “b”.

Use font and color pairing tools

• Font-Pairing Tool
• Color Combination Chart

Crop your images

Enroll in the free design school

If you’re looking for inspiration or just want to continue learning how to use the program more efficiently and effectively, check out their Design School. This school offers a growing collection of articles, tutorials, and tips and is free to access. There’s even a library of design courses for you to choose from.

Try the app!

If you need to create a quick graphic on-the-go, download the app. You have all the same design features on the Canva app that you do on the desktop version. You can create awesome designs whenever (and wherever) works with your schedule.

Leverage your content through an effective digital strategy

Compelling visuals are an important part of a strategic and holistic approach to digital marketing. This type of approach is key to getting the website traffic and sales your small business needs.

At :Delmain, we’re committed to our clients’ success. Our team of digital marketing experts is dedicated to providing personal service, delivering data-driven results, and helping small businesses exceed their digital marketing goals.

If you’re ready to expand your online reach and get the new customers, leads, and sales you need, contact us. We would love to hear from you.