All right, Canva templates. What are they and what is all the rage about selling them? How do you actually create a template on Canva and what are the rules for offering them online?
In today's video, I'm going to be answering all your burning questions about Canva templates and walk you through step-by-step how to actually create a Canva template and how to sell it online. Coming up. Welcome back to the channel, friends. If we haven't met yet, I'm Kate.
I'm a wife, mom, Etsy seller, and business coach, and I'm here to help you start and scale your online business so that you can make a full-time income doing what you love. So you may be wondering what a Canva template even is? Well, Canva is a really easy to use design program that's really great for beginners and you can make templates on there to sell online, which is like a digital product that can eventually make you passive income. The great thing about using Canva to make templates to sell online is that Canva will actually generate a unique link for each of your templates that you can deliver to your buyer and it's completely editable by the buyer. So you create the template and then the buyer, once they purchase from you, can go on using the link that you give them and edit it any way they like and make it their own.
People make all kinds of templates to sell on Canva. Anything from party invitations to business materials like brochures and flyers and media kits to thank you cards to PDF work. and ebooks and checklists and cheat sheets.
There are really so many options for what you can create. So today I'm going to walk you through step by step how to create the template and then how to list it for sale and actually deliver it to your customer. We're about to hop on the computer and get started, but first I want to let you know about our free digital product starter guide. It's a PDF guide that you can download for free if you're wanting to offer digital products online, but you're a little bit overwhelmed and confused by all the tech that goes into it. This is a free starter guide that outlines all of the basic information that you need to know to get started, including what programs you can use to start creating digital products, what the different file types and extensions for digital products are, resolution, and a lot more to get you going.
So make sure after you watch this video to click that link in the description box below and get your free guide. Now before we start designing, I wanna make sure you know two really important things about working on Canva. Number one is that you do need Canva Pro in order to get that editable link that I mentioned to deliver to your buyers.
So there's a free version of Canva and a paid version of Canva, which is Canva Pro. It's still very affordable in my opinion and really easy to use. really worth what you get working on Canva Pro, but you won't be able to generate that link that I mentioned and that we're gonna see in just a minute unless you have the Pro version of Canva. I do have a link for a free 30-day trial of Canva Pro. If you're interested, that'll be in the description box below.
Now, the second thing to know about working with Canva templates is that Canva's policy very clearly states that you're not allowed to just edit and resell their pre-made templates that you see on Canva. You have to actually create your own from scratch. So this means when you go on Canva and you see that big template section, you can use those for personal use and sometimes for business commercial use, but you cannot resell the templates that they offer already on the website. Anything that you're planning on selling, you need to be creating from scratch.
So I'm going to show you in just a minute when we hop on the computer how to look for inspiration and ideas to do it from scratch. Okay, enough talk, let's design. Okay, so like I mentioned, you can make a lot of different kinds of templates on Canva and for the sake of today's video, we're going to make a business thank you card template. So here we are on Canva, but before we ever even start designing, we're gonna look for some inspiration for our thank you card just to get some ideas of what kind of designs and colors and fonts and things are selling well. So I like to go over to Etsy and search on Etsy.
I'm just gonna type. in business thank you card and I'm going to look at what some of the top sellers are to get some inspiration. Of course I'm not going to copy any of these exactly but I'm just looking to get some ideas and something to make my design from scratch. So I'm just getting an idea of what people are offering and which styles I like the best.
So I think I want to look at some of these that are a little more simple. I like these ones that have the little brush stroke at the top and it's just some simple color on there. They have a spot for the logo. They have a social media section where the buyer can input their social media handles and email.
I also like to look on these listings to see what size of the design people are offering. So we see this one is 4.25 inches by 5.5 inches. Let's go back and look at this other one. And we see they're offering the same size. So that must be a pretty popular size for this type of product.
And we see again, a place for the buyer to upload their logo. We see a little thank you at the top. So this is just giving some ideas for us to go ahead and start to make our own from scratch. So let's go back.
Over to Canva, we're going to come up here to create a design. We're going to go to custom size. Go ahead and change this to inches and it's going to be five and a half inches by 4.25. Create new design and this is our canvas that we're going to be working off of. We can come down here.
Sometimes I like to zoom it out. little bit to make it smaller it's a little easier to see and then if you've never worked on Canva before you're gonna be working over here on the left these are the different tabs you can click on to access the different elements so the first thing I would suggest that we do is look at our text now when we click on this text button we can see that Canva offers these pre-made text pairings. These are font pairings that work well together in different styles, so you can totally use any of these. Now I will point out that if you see this little crown symbol, that means that is a pro element, so you do have to have Canva Pro to use that.
And in general, when you're making templates to sell online, you want to make sure that you're using the free elements, because if you use a pro element in your design, even if you have a pro account, your buyer is going to have to pay to get the watermark removed. from that element if it's pro. So I would suggest when you're creating your template you just look for the ones without this little crown symbol.
That means they're a free element and anyone can use them. So you can either use these or you can click to add your own text. So I'm just going to click to add a heading. So this is going to be our main large heading and it's going to say thank you for your purchase. Now of course we can drag if we want to make it smaller to edit the size and we can move it around wherever we want it.
We want to center it. We can also highlight and change the font to whatever font we like over here. So I'm going to choose a really cute scripty font and I'm going to make it a little bit smaller.
Now when I put it on the second line there it looks a little bunched up so to change the line spacing we can actually highlight and go to line spacing and make it a little larger to space out the lines more. You can also space out the letters more if you want. So that looks a little better to me.
Let's make sure that that's centered and then we're going to look for an element for like a brush stroke or a watercolor to go behind it. So let's just type in brush stroke and we can click on graphics. and we're just going to look for something we like again that doesn't have the little crown symbol.
Keep in mind that most of these you'll be able to change the color of as well. So let's just try this one. We can come up here to change the color, and of course we're going to want to think about what colors we're using and make sure that they're going with the aesthetic that we want. You want to make sure that whatever colors you use work well together and are complementing, and if you're putting text on top of the text, of a graphic like this, you just want to make sure that there's a good contrast. So you don't want to have dark colored font on top of dark colored element.
You want a light colored element in the background with dark font on top or vice versa. So let's resize this little brush stroke. and move it to where we want it. I'm gonna make this font a little more of a gray color.
I'm still gonna keep it dark. Now let's say this is coming from a handmade shop, so we're gonna add another little text section here where the buyer can edit it and just say something like, your order was handmade with love. We hope you enjoy. and then we want to make this the font we like. And now we want to add a little spot for their logo because a lot of times if this isn't being used by a business they'll want a place to upload their logo.
So first we're going to come over to elements. We're going to X out our brush stroke here and come down where it says frames. We're add a circle frame.
Now a frame in Canva when you add it is a place where the buyer will actually be able to drag and drop a file or a photo or anything they want here and it will make it fit automatically inside this frame making it whatever shape the frame is. So for the logo we're going to use a circle frame and then we're going to come to elements and we're going to put a circle on top so this is where we're going to put our text so the buyer knows but this is going to stay underneath as a layer underneath almost as a placeholder for the buyer to put their logo. Now we want to make sure that our circle that we're creating here is the same size as the frame so we can see the size of the frame if we're dragging it to resize so let's see that's one and a half by one and a half let's make sure this one is also one and a half by one and a half and then we're going to drag that right right on top of our frame. And we wanna make sure that this is the right color that we want. Now we're gonna add some text to put on top of our circle that just says something like your logo here.
So the buyer knows that's where they're supposed to put their logo. And of course, again, drag this to where you want it, center it in the middle of the circle here. We're gonna make this a little bit smaller and change the color. to make it contrast more and we're also going to change the font. Okay so when the buyer downloads this they're going to be able to delete these elements that are on top and the frame will still be underneath which they can drag their logo into the frame and it'll make it fit there.
So that's the logo spot now let's create on this side I'm going to put a little section for their social media. So if you go to elements you can actually type in let's say Instagram logo you can actually use any of these that are not the pro elements. Just click and resize to drag it down.
We're gonna make this a different color to fit with our color scheme here. We're gonna make this small because we're gonna put a couple of these here. So we want Instagram. Let's come back to elements.
Let's say you want a Facebook icon. Okay we're gonna change the color of that to match. And we want to make sure that these are ending up at the same size.
So let's see what size we have this at. This is at 0.3 by 0.3. We're going to change that to be the same size.
We're going to drag it down here. And let's say we want also an icon for email. Email icon. All right, let's drag this one. Now one really cool feature that Canva has is when you have different icons or text that you want to kind of straighten up and make sure that there's the same distance between them all, you can just highlight them all, come to position, and down here under space evenly you're going to hit tidy up.
That just make sure that they're in line and they have an equal distance in between each. I would also suggest that we make these into one group. So we're going to highlight again and come up to group that way.
When we move them around, they're going to move together and the spacing stays the same. So I'm going to put these right about here, and now I'm going to add some texts here beside them just as placeholder texts. So the buyer knows what to do here. Now I can highlight this. I'm going to make this the font that I like again and the right color.
And then I can actually duplicate this if I want you know the same style for this and this. I can click on it. I come up here where you see this little plus symbol.
It says duplicate. I'm going to duplicate it twice and then drag and drop where I want it. Of course this one says Instagram so I'm going to change this to say Facebook and email.
Okay I think that looks nice. So now we're going to group all of this together now that we have our spacing correct so we can drag this whole section around together. So I'm going to put that right about there.
You can also, once they're grouped, you can make the whole thing larger or smaller. really nice. Now I want to put a little line in between these two so I'm going to come back to elements and I'm going to just search line. I'm just going to choose this simple line and I'm going to rotate it so it's vertical.
So rotate to 90 degrees, drag it down. You can resize it the way that you want and make it the color you want. Now with this line if you want to change the way it looks you can come up here to the left corner and you can change the style of it if you want it to be a dotted line or slashes or any of these different styles and you can also change the weight so you can make it thicker or smaller.
Now as I'm looking at this I think we need to make our title a little bit bigger. I'm just going to make that size a little larger and center it. I'm going to make our brush stroke slightly bigger as well. Now lastly we might want to add a little heart or some kind of cute little element so let's choose this one and we can change our color here.
I did notice that some of the thank you cards had a bottom border so if you want to add a color at the bottom I would suggest you just move all of your elements here up a little bit. and you could even do this from the beginning if you know that you want to have that border so you're not having to readjust everything but the way that you would do the border is come over to elements and search for square you're going to add a square we're going to size it down and drag it down to the bottom and you're going to open it up so it's all the way across to look like a bottom border and then you're going to change it to whatever color you like and there you go okay so now Now that we're done designing, we want to get our shareable link. So we come up here to click share, and then we're going to come down where it says template link. You click that, and this is going to generate a unique template link that you can share with your buyer. So you're going to click copy.
And now what we're going to do is actually create a completely separate PDF design that we're going to put this link on, and that's what your buyer is going to get access to as soon as they purchase. Okay, so we're going to create a new design just for the sole purpose of delivering this link to your buyer, and you can either create it from scratch or you can come to templates and look at what they have under the templates here to work from. This is a template that I found that I'm going to use the second page of just to edit and change into what we want for our PDF download.
Okay, so the first thing I'm going to do is change this background color to match our branding. And then I'm going to change this text to reflect what the actual item is that they just purchased. So in this case, I'm going to say thank you card. And then I'm just going to give this a title that's a little more clear about exactly what it is. I'm going to say business thank you card template.
Okay, here I'm going to say thanks for your purchase. Click the link. below to access your template.
Of course if I want I can change this to a different font to match our branding. I'm going to stick with this main font here because I like that and then here I'm going to change this text to say edit my template. Okay so I'm going to change this kind of gold color because that doesn't really match our branding. I'm going to change that to something else that goes a little better.
and this line as well because that's the same gold color. I'm going to change that. Now here is a place where it's a frame so we can actually delete this picture they have and then we see the frame that's left there. So if we drag a photo into this frame it'll make it fit. So what I suggest is to take a screenshot of the design that you just created that they just purchased.
So on a Mac you can do this by hitting shift command 4 and you'll just take the screenshot right here of the design. and then you're going to come over to your new document that you're creating and come over on Canva to uploads. You're going to upload media and you're going to click on the screenshot you just took to upload that. I'm going to drag it and drop it here in the screen, and you can always double click this to move it around to show a certain part.
I think I'm okay with it right here in the middle. Okay, so now it's time to actually add the link. So what we're going to do is click on this text in this box down here, and we're going to come up to the right where we see the little link symbol, and we're going to paste that link that we copied from before. This is the link that we got. the shareable link from your design that you made.
So you're going to paste that link in there and it's going to automatically set this as a link. So this design is actually what we're going to upload to Etsy next when your buyer purchases. This is what they will get as their instant download. and they'll be able to click this, and it'll take them right over to the editable template on Canva. So let's go ahead and download this.
We're gonna come up here and click Share, Download, and we wanna choose the file type as a PDF print. And now remember, the template we were working off of was actually two pages. So see, we have our first page here that we didn't even use on the template, so we don't need that. We just need the second page that we created. So when we come to Share, Download PDF, we're going to choose only the second page.
So we're going to unclick this. We only want the second page selected, done, and we're going to hit download. Okay. So I want to show you real quick, if you're selling these on Etsy, how to create a listing and upload that to your digital product listing.
So this is what you would see if you're adding. a new listing, you would select under type digital. Okay, so we're going to come down here to where it says digital files and we can click to upload a file.
So you're going to upload that file of the PDF that you just downloaded. Okay, so you see right here it has added that file. Now one note I will make is that when I downloaded, I didn't actually change the name that it was saved under. So you definitely want to put your own file name in there when you're saving it so that your buyer sees it as what you want them to see it as.
now when you publish this listing and your buyer purchases it they will get automatic access to this pdf download so i'm just going to show you what it would look like when they pull it up okay so this is what it'll look like when they pull it up and they can click here edit my template and it will take them right over to what they purchased so that they can edit this template. They're going to click use template. Now, if they don't have a Canva account, they will have to register for one, but it's totally free.
They can just register for the free account. And then once they do, they can click use template and it'll take them right over to the copy of the template that they can then click on and edit how they want and use it how they want. And that's how you create and sell a Canva template online. I hope that was helpful for you.
I hope it got some ideas going for how you could start your own digital products business. and make some passive income. Remember, I have that free digital product starter guide linked below as well as the link for the free 30-day trial to Canva Pro. And if you've made it this far and found this video valuable and helpful, would you give it a thumbs up for me and also consider subscribing to the channel.
We create new content every week to help you on your business journey. See you next time, friends.