Canva has exploded in popularity over the last few years, having quadrupled its user base from 30 million in 2019 to over 135 million in 2023. Canva is an incredible tool for novice and expert designers alike, with a streamlined UI that anyone with a computer can get used to with very little training. But with all that said, is Canva actually a good tool for web design? Let’s find out why Canva’s simplicity is its biggest weakness when it comes to building your website.
Where Does Canva Shine?
It’s important to note that Canva can be a great tool for general design uses, and there are many areas in which Canva does excel:
Lots of Ways to Make It Yours
Canva has many different starting designs you can use. This makes it simple to create pages that look special and different. You can also choose your own colors and fonts to make your website unique.
Simple to Use
Canva is made for people who might not know much about design. Even if you're not an expert, you can make things look good on Canva.
Helpful for Small Teams: The website builder in Canva is great for small groups of people. It helps them create websites that look professional and nice, even if they don't have lots of design skills.
What Makes Canva a Bad Website Building Tool?
Now that we’ve gotten the good out of the way, let’s talk about the real reasons that using canva to build your website is a bad idea.
Messy Template Organization
Canva has many ready-made designs for web pages, but they're not organized neatly. This can make it a bit tricky to find the exact type of design you're looking for. You might need to search around quite a bit to find the options that suit you.
Imagine you have a box of different toys, but they're all mixed up and not in their right places. It can be a bit confusing to find the toy you want to play with, right? Canva is similar. It has lots of templates that are like designs for websites, but they're not put in an easy order. So, when you're looking for a specific design that matches what you have in mind, it might take some time to find it. You might need to look around quite a bit to find the one that fits what you need.
The templates that Canva provides can be great, but at the same time, those same templates might not be exactly what you’re looking for, or even suit the website design that you envision.
Not SEO-Optimized
When you want to find something online, like a new restaurant or a recipe, you probably use a search engine like Google. Well, websites need to be set up in a special way so that they show up easily when people search for things. This is called being "SEO-optimized," which is like making your website friendly for search engines.
But here's where the problem lies. Canva websites might look really nice, but they're not designed in a way that makes them easily seen by search engines like Google. Some important things that help websites show up when you search aren't available with Canva. So, when someone is looking for something related to your website online, it might be difficult for them to actually find your website in the search results. This can make it a bit challenging for people to discover your website when they're looking for things on the internet.
No Advanced Features
Canva is great for creating basic designs, but it doesn't have some of the more advanced tools that other website builders provide. For example, it doesn't have features that allow you to set up an online store to sell things, write and manage a blog easily, or create forms for people to fill out. So, if you're looking to do more complex things with your website, Canva might not be the best choice.
Unresponsive Design
When a website is "responsive," it means it can change and fit well on different devices, like phones, tablets, and computers. Unfortunately, Canva websites don't automatically adjust themselves to look good on smaller screens like phones or tablets. This can be a problem because if your website looks weird or is hard to use on a phone, for instance, people might not stay on your site for very long. This could make visitors to your website frustrated and leave quickly because it's not easy for them to use, which is the last thing we want users to do.
Canva is an extremely helpful tool for anyone to use. It’s easy to pick up and jump right into designing and has loads of features that a person who’s new to design will find useful and intriguing, but when it comes to web design, Canva falls short. If you’re interested in creating a website for your business though, be sure to contact K. Cradley & Co. to make your web design dream a reality. If you want to learn more about web design, check out one of our other blogs here!