You’re hearing it everywhere these days that your local business has got to have video to keep up with the times. But if you don’t have a fancy mobile phone with excellent filming capabilities or the technical challenges of making a film seem daunting, you may feel like you’re falling behind.

We’re going to get rid of that uncomfortable feeling today! Meanwhile, if you work in local SEO, you almost certainly have clients who fit this criteria, and getting video from them just isn’t going to happen without someone waving a magic wand.

Well, I’ve found the wand, thanks to a tweet from my honored colleague Darren Shaw, mentioning that you can use the free design program Canva to create a slideshow, save it as a video MP4 file, and upload it to your Google Business Profile.

This sent me on a bit of an odyssey. I’ve now made a ton of videos this way. While they may not roll out the red carpet for me in Hollywood, I’m enchanted by the magic of anyone being able to put together a few slides and come away with a video that you can share on all the platforms shown above! Your Google listing, your social profiles, and your website are about to get so much better! If your business has photos, you can do this, and I’m going to walk you through it, step by step, with every detail you need to create your first Canva video.

For this exercise, we’re going to imagine we’re marketing a local service area business that delivers vegan meals throughout Marin County, California.

We want our video to give customers all the essential information about our business in about 1 minute.

*Important note: this is a fictitious business I’m featuring, and I am using stock photos because of this, but please use your own original images! You’re trying to get your Google Business Profile to stand out, not blend in by looking like a generic enterprise.

Let’s begin:

1. Take or assemble half a dozen decent photos that sum up key aspects of your business. Save them to a folder on your computer. Grab your business logo while you’re at it and save it there, too, so you can find and upload it easily.

2. Sign up for a Canva account. You can do this project with a free account.

3. Once you are signed in, click the “Create a design” button at the top right of the Canva home page:

4. Type “slideshow video” into the search box that appears and then click on that selection from the dropdown menu.

This will take you to the Canva dashboard:

The display at the right is your workspace. You can add as many slides as you like via the “+” button. The display at left is where most of the tools you’ll use are located.

5. Click on the “uploads” button in the left menu.

This will bring up a big button that says, “upload your files”

6. Click that button and upload your half-dozen photos. They will appear below like this:

7. Drag a photo onto each slide in whatever order you want to tell the story of your local business. There are dots at each corner of the image; once you’ve dragged it over, you can enlarge or reduce the photo size so it fits the slide however you want.

If you’ve decided you don’t like a photo, right-click it, and a trash can will appear so you can get rid of it and upload something else to that slide.

8. Now, I want to add the logo I uploaded. I just drag it over and place it wherever I want it to go:

9. I want to add my business’s USP to this first slide. Click the “Text” button in the menu” and drag over the word “body” over to wherever you’d like to type. You can choose from many fonts, and you can also make your text any size you want.

Here, you can see I’ve added the USP:

10. Now, create the rest of your slides. Keep it short, though. As is covered by the awesome Darren Shaw in this useful video, there’s been some confusion about what Google’s guidelines are for video length. The guidelines read that videos should feature these specs:

• Duration: Up to 30 seconds long

• File size: Up to 75 MB

• Resolution: 720p or higher

Initially, the local search industry took this to mean that videos had to be 30 seconds long AND no more than 75 MB, but as was subsequently realized, Google appears to be fine with longer videos so long as the file size is 75 MB or less. If your file is larger than this, you’ll need to use a free video compression tool like VEED. Our little video is just 7.3 MB, so it’s good to go.

As you create your slideshow in Canva, you’ll see that you can set the length of each slide. I’ve set each of mine to 6.5 seconds, so viewers have time to read the text. Be sure your video ends with a strong call to action (CTA) based on what you hope the viewer will do after seeing the video.

11. Add transition effects between slides

By clicking the little arrow under the plus sign between slides, you can make them transition more smoothly via a variety of effects that will pop up on the left. I like the “dissolve” choice best. It’s elegant. You’ll be able to choose your effect and then click an “apply to all” button so you don’t have to manually add the effect between each slide.

And I like to add a fade-in effect to the first slide of my videos so it is smoother. Do that by clicking on your first slide and then clicking on the “animate” button at the top of your dashboard:

I like the animation called “fade,” and I choose “on enter” so that the image will fade in, on entering.

12. Add sound to your video.

This is where the slideshow really starts to feel like a nice video. By adding sound, you are increasing the level of engagement you can expect from your audience. The free version of Canva has a variety of free audio files (though you get tons more with the paid version). Go to “Elements” in your left menu and then scroll down until you see “Audio”:

I’m adding the free “Happy Whistling Ukulele” track to this video because it has a bright, upbeat feeling I want to convey about this business. Just drag the track over under the lineup of your slides:

And I can use the “Audio Effects” button at the top of the screen to fade my track in and out so it doesn’t feel abrupt:

You can adjust the volume of your audio track via the little speaker symbol shown above.

I’d also like to add the sound effect of a doorbell to a certain slide that shows a delivery happening and another sound effect of a person saying “hooray” to another slide. I search the audio files for these effects and drag them over to sit below the relevant slides.

This is one thing that I think makes Canva so awesome — you can add multiple audio tracks!

I’m not doing it for this example, but you can also add your own voice-over to the video. I’ve experimented with this with my laptop microphone, and the sound isn’t great. If you have a better microphone and would like to add voice, go to the Uploads tab and hit the “record yourself” button:

*This will take you to a recording dashboard, but I want to note that this is where I’ve run into a UX problem with Canva that I have never heard back from them about.

No matter how many times I’ve tried to record just an audio track, the program records it as a video file. You then have to extract the audio track from the video file by choosing to edit the video and extract the soundtrack. This is all unnecessarily complicated and something I hope Canva will address in the future. Experimenting with voiceovers is something that could be a good fit for your business.

12. Name your file something. Do this on the upper right, where you see the word “VEGAN” in my screenshot.

Then save it to a folder in Canva on the left via the “file” tab:

Watch your slide show a few times to be sure there aren’t mistakes in it and that you’re happy with it, and then click the download link (shown above) and save it as an MP4, like this:

And that’s it. You’ve created and downloaded your video!

You should have a downloads arrow icon like this near the URL bar of your computer, and if you click on your file, it should open your newly created video in whatever video player your computer has installed on it. Watch it through at least once to be sure there are no mistakes again. Here’s what we’ve created:

Click the “Add Photo” button in the above display and then click “Photo” in this popup:

This is where you finally get a hint that, yes, you can add videos as well as photos:

Click the “Select photos or videos” link and upload your MP4 file:

You’ll get this message letting you know your upload is being processed:

And then you will get this error message from Google, so be prepared for it:

This bug in Google’s system has been reported since at least 2023 and does not mean your video has been rejected. Just check back three days after publishing, and you should see your video live in your profile.

While you’re waiting for this to happen, you could also upload your MP4-based video to Instagram, and if you’re hoping to start a YouTube account for your local business, you now have your first video to add there. Once you’ve got a YouTube video, you can share it on your X (Twitter) and Facebook profiles. You can also embed it on your website! And you can add videos to Google Updates (formerly Google posts).

A single video can be shared in multiple places repeatedly, which is a lot of return for a few minutes of effort.

1. Don’t count on Canva for support if you run into problems or have questions about how to do something you want to do with the program. Their contact form says they will try to get back to you within 24 hours, but my experience is that you simply won’t hear back. This is too bad. While the product gets an A+ from me, the customer service, even on paid accounts, doesn’t merit a passing grade at his point. Because of this, if you are trying to research how to do something with Canva, I recommend a) you look on YouTube to see if someone has posted a video demoing a particular process and b) being a self-starter and experimenting inside the dashboard until you figure it out yourself.
   
   

2. If tech makes you nervous, remind yourself often that you cannot mess up in Canva. No one can see your work until you feel it is ready. You can take all the time you want to proofread your text, change your pictures, or select different audio. Your creative process is private until you’re ready to make it public!
   
   

3. If you have a local business client who is slow at getting you content, you can likely make a first video for them without them having to give you anything. Their website likely contains enough photos and enough of a USP for you to cobble together a first slideshow. Once they see it live on their profile, I bet they’ll be motivated to help you create the next video with more strategic imagery.
   
   

4. There are dozens of videos any business could make. Consider how you can use this medium to present your premises, staff, inventory, FAQs, guarantees, special events, deals, before-and-after projects, service area explanation, etc. Chances are strong that few of your nearby local competitors are seriously investing in GBP videos. You can make your profile the best in town with just a modest amount of effort!

Have fun with seeing the local businesses you market come to life on film, and good luck!