- So I have my blog but you know
I'm starting to develop my own personal branding
and I wanna incorporate that into my blog
but you know, on a budget but by myself.
- Yeah, 'cause we're ballin' on a budget.
- Of course.
- So I'm going to show you how to actually make
different blog elements using Canva here on The Journey.
- So when building your brand and building
whether it's for personal or for business
and designing these elements,
it's important to be consistent with it
because if you start throwing out one design
and then in a week later you have another design
People don't know really who you are or what to follow.
So it's important keep that on track.
- Yeah.
So let me go ahead and show you a quick demo
of how to actually make those blog elements
using Canva, absolutely free.
- Sounds good.
- Cool
- All right, so you told me you wanna really like
elevate your brand
and start creating your own branded content.
So we're gonna use Canva for that.
I love Canva just because of its ease of use.
Anyone can go in and edit it.
I mean, I know Photoshop and all these advanced things
but Canva just makes it that much easier and faster
to actually create this content.
So what we're actually gonna create today
is basically your featured images,
we're going to make them a little bit more branded,
and a little bit more elevated,
make them stand out a little bit.
We might have a little extra bonuses at the end too
- Perfect.
- But I see these burgers like Whataburger review
the In-n-out review, Hopdddy, all these different things.
We wanna go ahead, get in Canva and check this out.
You can get there by just by going to Canva.com
but right in the top there where it says, design anything
we're just gonna type, blog, and see what pops up.
We have blog banner and blog graphic.
So I'm probably going to use just the blog banner.
So it's not as big or this image right here,
they're not that big we want them kind of small
and choose blog banner.
And what's cool about this especially if you don't have
that design eye is it gives you
tons of templates to start from.
So earlier you were telling me some of your colors
are those green colors, right?
- [Alex] Right.
- [Nealey] So you can see here there's not a lot of green
and that's okay.
You're gonna be able edit all of this content.
So I'm gonna let you kind of go ahead
and tell me which style you wanna use?
- Let's choose, The Art Exhibit one.
- [Nealey] All right, so you chose the art exhibit template
I like it.
We're gonna go ahead and edit it
and make it kind of your own.
So we obviously, don't want the art exhibit.
Let's check out,
let's do one of your most recent reviews
which is WHATABURGER review
and then, "All about their burgers and fries."
A little bit there.
- [Alex] Yeah.
- [Nealey] So what's cool about this is this font
might not be your font.
In the upper left,
you can actually go ahead and change that
and it's linked up with Google fonts.
So anything on google fonts which is usually
what most websites use
what your brand uses, you can add here.
So let's scroll through and find your brand.
So I know you liked Poppins, so we're gonna go ahead
and use Poppins right here.
So Poppins' bold.
So we've got that Whataburger review
and maybe we don't want this whatever this background is
it's kind of blurry.
Let's go ahead and add in a burger.
So we're just gonna pick a burger
'cause I don't want to go to your website
I'm a little lazy.
I'm gonna go ahead and search photos
and just type, burgers.
I wanna keep it free and then search.
So all these burgers are absolutely free,
I can go ahead add it on here just like that.
And wallah!
We've got a Whataburger review,
all about their burgers.
All right, so that's just the basics of Canva
using the templates, adding the background image,
adding some text, change the font.
Were there any other elements you really
wanna add to this image?
- I'm not really sure. What kind of options am I looking at?
- All right, so let's just check it out.
So on the left hand side,
we've got different options
and we're gonna go to elements.
Elements are just different images, ingredients
and all these other things
inside of Canva that you can use.
So I wanna talk about grids for a second.
Grids are basically--
Let me just throw that on there.
They looks like a little cloud
and some grass and stuff right.
But this is really for if you wanna add an image here
without having to style it yourself.
It's really great for templates.
So if I had that post there and then I wanted to add
another picture of a burger right here
it throws it in just like that.
So then if I have another image,
I could just put it right on top
and then the template changes with that image.
Super helpful when you're making your blog post,
you don't have to always going to edit it
and style it, move it around
those little things help out tremendously.
So let's move on.
We've got different shapes,
could add different shapes on your website,
style however you want,
move it around just like, (beat box music)
But you go ahead and change the colors right at the top left
You said your colors are greens, so I make that green,
green again.
Maybe we want this kind of,
I don't know, just randomly up here.
Why not, we're just going with it.
And then if you don't want it there, like I don't
You can just hit delete and it's gone.
So there's all sorts of different icons
and different elements you can have.
If I search burger, for example,
I can probably find a lot of different burgers.
Remember you wanna click on that free icon
we're try to do this for free.
- [Alex] Absolutely.
- [Nealey] I really like this little guy right here.
That is only works you can't see the content.
Cool, maybe that works.
But yeah, there's lots of different things you can do.
You just search in the top left under elements
if you wanna add your text, you can do so there.
You wanna add a different background
you can go through all your uploads.
I'm not gonna go through uploads
and you'll see all my randomness.
And then you can categorize your stuff
by folders and things like that.
So then when you're done,
you would just choose, download.
So let's download this bad guy
and then go over to your website
go to your Whataburger review.
Let's edit that post.
Let's change this image, upload ours.
So once it's uploaded,
remember that all text is super important.
WHATABURGER REVIEW.
Juicy burger posts for the caption
and then select and update.
So now we can go back to our website.
- [Alex] Looks so much better. - [Nealey] We have that
Whataburger review
is they can see that super quick and easy.
Not everyone likes to read these,
they like flip through the images,
they'll see that image
and they'll also see the Whataburger review.
So now what's super cool when it comes to Canva
if you end up upgrading to their premium license
is the ability to resize
your content you've already created.
So if you say you wanted the same type of template
on social media 'cause branding is super important.
It's super important to be consistent.
You can easily resize this to say an Instagram post.
Click resize at the top,
search Instagram
Instagram post
copy & resize
and then it threw it together and an Instagram post.
You might need to update
some of the different elements if needed
but it makes it super simple
to really have your brand everywhere.
- [Alex] Right.
So that was awesome.
What else can I do in Canva for my blog?
- [Nealey] Yes, so what a lot of people will do in Canva
especially on a blog is create their own custom ads.
So those little things that will end up
on the widget sidebar.
So let's go back to canva's home
and then we're just gonna search, Ads see what pops up.
So we have a Facebook Ad that's a little too wide,
a leaderboard Ad, large rectangle and a medium rectangle.
You should probably just do a medium rectangle,
keep it simple.
And then we have all of this different content.
We kind of wanna keep it consistent
to the look and feel that we had with this.
So let's actually just do this from scratch.
So when you go to elements,
I'm gonna throw in this grid
keep it easy on us, right? - [Alex] Yeah.
- [Nealey] And then you had your recipe book, right?
What was the recipe book about?
- [Alex] Taco Tuesday recipes.
- [Nealey] All right.
So this whole Ad is gonna be about
your Taco Tuesday recipe book.
So I wanna search for a taco image.
Which one looks good to you?
- [Alex] All of them. (laughs)
- [Nealey] You're not wrong.
- [Alex] Let's do the one with the limes, yeah.
- [Nealey] Perfect.
All right, now I want to make this a little darker
just so that the white will contrast on it.
You do so with the adjust at the top.
Now I wanna add some text in,
Taco Tuesday Recipes
and that's obviously way too big
not the font we want and not in the colors.
So we wanted Poppins
'cause it's poppin' (laughs)
I'm real corny guys.
All right, we also wanna change the color
I didn't change all of it.
All right, go back to Poppins.
Poppins Poppins Poppins, there we go.
All right, and then we wanna change the color
make that white,
we wanna change the size.
that's way too big.
That looks good.
And now with this,
I don't really want that extra space there,
it's kind of too much.
You can go over to spacing and then go to line height
and then shrink or expand this as needed.
All right so we got Taco Tuesday recipes.
Let's check on the other posts
so we make this consistent.
All right, we've got these little white lines here
so let's make sure we have that.
It's gonna be over in elements
and then shapes, I hope.
Nope, I hope nope.
Oh, then you go over two elements,
go down to lines.
That makes more sense.
And then also that white,
turn it around.
Got to shrink a little bit.
And then the regular commands like CTRL + C
CTRL + V, things like that work here.
You hit CTRL + D if you're on a windows computer
or Command + D, it'll duplicate it
nice and easy for you.
And what's cool about Canva
is it kind of will make a little bit of a grid
so you can see it,
it shows that it's even with the other one.
So you can throw that in there.
And now we have our Taco Tuesday Recipes.
Now if there's anything else you wanna add
you can always just kind of search
see what other things pop up.
Maybe you wanna add some random little tacos
in the top left or on top.
Cool and now once we have this
we're gonna want to download that
then go over to your website.
Now we're gonna throw it under the widget area.
So we wanna go over to your WordPress dashboard,
appearance and then widgets
and then we wanna actually add an image here.
So there's an image on the left hand column
just drag that right over.
I'm gonna put that above--
Actually let's put it below the recent posts.
We don't really wanna title
and we just wanna upload that Taco Tuesday Recipe image.
Now what's important with some of these images
that you throw on your website in the bottom right,
it'll usually try to make it just the medium size.
Now our medium size is the full size
but for those you're watching
if you have an image you're uploading
make sure you put it on full size
otherwise, it's gonna make it a lot smaller
than it actually is.
Let's go add to widget, save.
If you wanted to link to your landing page
that we created earlier
you can go ahead do so there.
And then let's check it out.
It's gonna go to your website
and then let's check your WHATABURGER REVIEW
and then bam!
We got your Taco Tuesday Recipes.
- [Alex] It looks good. - [Nealey] So if someone
click that it'll go to your landing page
see all about your recipe book
and then you've got it.
So Canva will let you really create almost
anything you're wanting to.
What I would recommend is just going through
all of the designs.
They have it right here, it's like Canva print,
posters, logos, desktop wallpaper, blog banners,
Instagram Stories, literally everything.
But what I would highly highly highly recommend is
always keep your brand consistent.
Now there's lots of templates to use
and it sounds really cool
don't just go and start making
all sorts of different stuff.
It's gonna confuse your audience if you start doing that.
- Perfect, do I think I've got it all?
I'm gonna go home play with Canva
see what I can create.
Let us know in the comments below,
if you've ever used Canva before.
- Yeah, and I really hope this inspired you
to really elevate your brand using Canva
or whatever else you wanna create it with.
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