How to Add Clickable Hyperlinks to Your Canva Designs

As a designer, one of your primary goals is to create digital content that not only informs but engages your audience. Interactivity is key to holding people‘s attention and driving them to take desired actions. One of the easiest yet most effective ways to make your designs more interactive is by adding clickable hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks allow you to expand the functionality of your Canva designs – transforming them from static images to dynamic portals. With just a click, viewers can navigate to external resources, detailed product pages, registration forms, or even other sections within the same design.

According to a study by Demand Metric, interactive content generates 2X more conversions than passive content. And an experiment by Canva itself found that designs with links had a 34% higher click-through rate than those without. Clearly, hyperlinks can have a big impact on the performance of your visual content.

Fortunately, Canva makes it incredibly easy to add clickable links to any element of your design, whether it‘s text, shapes, images, or videos. You can link out to web pages or other Canva designs.

In this guide, we‘ll walk you through the seven simple steps to add a hyperlink in Canva. Plus, you‘ll learn some best practices and creative use cases to take your designs to the next level. Let‘s dive in!

Step 1: Select the Element You Want to Hyperlink

First, decide which part of your design you want to make clickable. It could be a single word or phrase, a button, a logo, a product photo, an infographic section – basically any element that you want to provide a link from.

Click on that element in your canvas to select it. You‘ll see a blue bounding box appear around it.

Step 2: Open the Link Menu

With your element selected, navigate to the toolbar at the top of the Canva editor. Locate the "Link" icon – it looks like a chain link. Click on it to open the hyperlinking menu.

Alternatively, you can right-click (or Ctrl+click on a Mac) the selected element and choose "Link" from the dropdown.

Step 3: Enter Your Destination URL

In the linking menu, you‘ll see a field labeled "Paste or find a link." This is where you‘ll input the destination you want to send people to when they click your hyperlinked element.

If you‘re linking to an external web page, simply paste in the full URL. Make sure to include the "https://" part – otherwise the link may not work correctly.

Need to link to another page within your same Canva design instead? No problem. Click on the "Your designs" option below the URL field. You‘ll be able to select a specific page from the current design to link to. This is great for creating interactive e-books, presentations, and documents.

Step 4: Set Link Options (Optional)

The linking menu also provides a few optional settings for your hyperlink.

• For URL links, you can check the "Open in a new tab" box. This is recommended for most links so that viewers don‘t lose their place in your Canva design.

• For elements like images, shapes, and videos, you‘ll see a "Media" option. This allows you to set the element to open in a lightbox overlay when clicked, rather than navigating to a separate URL. Use this effect to showcase larger versions or additional details.

Step 5: Apply Your Link

Once you‘ve specified your link destination and settings, simply click the "Apply" button. Your element is now officially hyperlinked!

Canva provides a few visual indicators so you can tell which elements are hyperlinked:

• Text that contains a link will be underlined
• Linked elements will display a link icon when you hover over them
• In the layers panel, linked elements will also show a link icon

If you ever need to edit or remove a link, simply re-select the element and open the linking menu again. You can modify the URL/page, change the options, or click "Unlink" to remove it entirely.

Step 6: Preview and Test

Before you publish or share your Canva design, it‘s always a good idea to preview the full experience and test that your hyperlinks work as intended.

Use the "Present" or "Preview" modes to click through your design as a viewer. For multi-page designs, navigate through the pages to ensure any internal links are functioning.

Click on each hyperlinked element to make sure it directs to the correct URL or page. Check that link settings like opening a new tab are working properly.

Previewing on both desktop and mobile is recommended since links may behave differently across devices. Canva‘s built-in mobile previewer makes it easy to see how your design looks on various screen sizes.

Step 7: Publish, Download, or Share

Once you‘ve confirmed your hyperlinks are all in order, it‘s time to send your interactive Canva design out into the world!

If you‘re publishing a design to the web or social media, simply click the "Publish" button in the top right corner of the editor. This will generate a shareable public URL that you can send to anyone. When viewers open this link, they‘ll be able to click and interact with your design just like a web page.

For designs that you plan to embed on your own website, download your design as an HTML file under the "Share" button. You can then upload this HTML file to your site for a seamless interactive experience.

Finally, if you‘re creating a design to be shared as a document or presentation, download it as a PDF under the "File" menu. The PDF will retain all of your hyperlinks for easy navigation, and you can attach it to emails, upload it to cloud storage, or print it for distribution.

Hyperlink Best Practices

Now that you know the technical process for adding hyperlinks in Canva, let‘s discuss some tips to make sure your links are as effective and user-friendly as possible:

1. Make links visible and clear. Use visual cues like buttons, underlined text, or icons to signal clickability. Avoid generic phrases like "click here" in favor of descriptive link text.

2. Set links to open in a new tab. This allows viewers to explore linked resources without losing their place in your main design. It‘s courteous and can increase session duration.

3. Double check your URLs. Before publishing, click through each link to ensure it directs to the intended page. Broken links can significantly hurt the user experience and your credibility.

4. Use links to provide value. Every hyperlink should serve a purpose and provide additional information or next steps that enhance your content. Aim to include 2-3 relevant links per design.

5. Create a consistent linking style. Establish a standard treatment for hyperlinks in terms of color, font, and placement. Apply this style throughout your design for a cohesive look.

6. Explain links in offline contexts. If your design will be printed or used without digital access, include the full URL in parentheses after the linked text so viewers still benefit.

Creative Hyperlink Use Cases

Aside from basic website and page navigation, there are tons of creative ways to use hyperlinks to make your Canva designs more informative and engaging. Here are a few examples:

Product Catalogs:

• Link product names or photos to detailed description pages
• Use links to segmented category pages to aid browsing
• Direct to order forms or shopping carts to streamline purchases

Annual Reports:

• Link statistics and charts to full data sets and methodology info
• Include links to video case studies and interviews with executives
• Create a linked table of contents for easy section jumping

Email Newsletters:

• Link featured blog post titles to full articles on your site
• Include links to product landing pages for promotions
• Add social media links so readers can follow/share your content

Restaurant Menus:

• Link menu items to mouthwatering photos or videos of the dish
• Direct to online ordering pages for each section
• Include links to ingredient sourcing and sustainability info

Real Estate Brochures:

• Link property photos to virtual tour videos and 3D walkthroughs
• Include links to book viewings or contact the agent
• Direct to mortgage calculator tools and area information pages

The possibilities are endless! Use hyperlinks anytime you want to give viewers the opportunity to learn more, see examples, take action, or explore curated resources. When you connect your designs to relevant, high-value destinations, you‘ll keep your audience engaged and inspired.

Conclusion

Hyperlinks are a designer‘s best friend for transforming static Canva designs into interactive experiences. By providing your audience the ability to click and explore, you can communicate more information in less space, driving engagement and action.

Canva‘s intuitive, code-free hyperlinking tools make it easy to set up links on any element in just a few seconds. Whether you‘re connecting to external URLs or other pages in your design, you can quickly create a web of resources for viewers to navigate.

Of course, hyperlinking is both an art and a science. Following UX and accessibility best practices will ensure your links are discoverable, purposeful, and user-friendly. Thinking outside the box in terms of how and where to include links will make your designs stand out.

With compelling interactive content, you can educate, entertain, and convert your audience more effectively. So power up your Canva designs with clickable links using the steps and tips in this guide!

Your audience will appreciate the added functionality and depth, and you‘ll love the boost in engagement and results. Happy hyperlinking!

Article references:

• Demand Metric, "Interactive Content Benchmarks Report"
• Canva Design School, "Hyperlink Designs for Better Click-Throughs"
• Adobe Blog, "Best Practices for Buttons and Links"
• Nielsen Norman Group, "Designing Accessible Links"