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Can Canva Websites Stand up to the Competition?

Canva has come quite a long way from a cool graphics designer to now a website development platform. For many churches, Canva is the go to for creating social media posts, communications graphics, presentations or anything else that requires a creative flair. Now, its website building feature may be a flat out game changer. Earlier versions of the website option limited you to one long page (think landing page), with no menu navigation and no options for SEO. Early in 2022 they have since released a beta version that overcomes many of these prior limitations. 

Click here for the video version of this blog!

We are seeing the Pros list becoming much longer and the Cons list getting much shorter.

In a recent poll of our email subscribers we asked which website platform they would be most interested in learning about. 

To our surprise, Canva was #1 – in a list that included Squarespace, Wix and WordPress (Elementor)!

Yes, we are listening, and we are researching Canva to uncover the good, the bad, the…well you get the idea.

So, watch this space for more Canva creativity in the coming weeks!

Pros

  1. Both the free and Pro versions of Canva allow you to build websites. Pro version gives you more templates to choose from.
  2. When using Canva as the hosting provider, you can develop and publish a website at completely no cost. 
  3. Multiple templates to choose from; filters; slides to build pages,  landing, call-to-action, contact.
  4. Great way to quickly make a mobile ready website with premade templates if most of your audience is viewing on mobile phones
  5. Great option when you need a creative and professional looking landing page
  6. Easily customizable with all the features you would expect in Canva – can change colors, fonts, text, sizing; add links to buttons
  7. Can easily embed your Canva images and videos on the templates
  8. Newer features now allow you to make multi page websites with a menu bar
  9. Contact form is also possible using an integration with Typeform
    1. Extra Pro tip – Google Forms and Microsoft Forms can be linked too!

Cons

  1. The URL link created with the free Canva domain has “canva” as part of the name, commnityname.my.canva.site. In some circles, this is bad form and not exactly professional, however you can mask this with a bit.ly link. 
  2. Limited to 5 free complete websites on Canva domain.
  3. You can purchase a domain right through Canva but it is a little pricier than standard domain providers.  You could make the argument that this cost would balance out because you don’t need a hosting provider.  
  4. Buttons do not allow for any animation when you hover over them, so it’s not always obvious that it’s a clickable button.

What do you think? 

Sound intriguing? Ready to dive in?

Or would you rather wait for the full version and let others work out the kinks?

Drop us an email and let us know if you’re using Canva for websites or plan to in the future.