Hey small business owner!
Do you run your business through Instagram DMs and custom Google Forms? You might have been shamed by web designers who argue that “You need a real website.” I’d like to encourage that DMs and Google Forms are totally a solid place to start. You don’t have to invest hundreds (or thousands) of dollars into a professional website if you’re just getting started. You can absolutely thrive on word of mouth, referrals, and simple systems.
That said, Google Forms can feel a little limiting. You only get to customize the main color, the font, and the cover image. If you want something that looks more custom or feels more like your business, kind of like what you see in Canva websites, this blog is for you.
From the Canva home page, click on “Website” and start with a blank page. Then you can design the overall style of your page with pictures, headings, your business info, and maybe a footer with links to your socials or other important pages.
You can be creative with the layout here, but try to keep things mostly in a grid structure (no overlapping elements if you can avoid it) if you want to make your design work better on mobile.
Now head over to Google Forms and create a form with whatever fields you need for custom requests, pickups, online orders. You know best what your form should include.
A few important tips when setting it up:
Back in Canva:
For the best results, make sure to adjust the height of the form and the parent section. You want it tall enough to fit the full form so your customer doesn’t have to scroll within the little embedded window. It looks way more professional if it all fits cleanly in the section.
Before you hit publish, click Preview and check the mobile view.
Canva does a decent job adjusting layouts automatically for mobile, but it struggles with overlapping or oddly spaced elements. Keeping your design clean and structured will help it look way better across devices.
If this all sounds great but you'd rather have someone do it for you, or you’re hoping for a professional web designer’s eye, I offer a $30 Canva landing page service. I’ll design your page (including your embedded form) to match your branding, and I can also add on a custom domain and provide ongoing edits + maintenance for just $7/month.
If that sounds like something you’d benefit from, I’d love to help. Here’s the link to get started.
Custom website design and development for small businesses.