How to create a QR Code to add to marketing material and direct people to your website!

Do you want to create a QR code that drives people to a page on your website? In this video post, I’m going to show you how to create a QR code that links to your website. We can then use the QR code image in our marketing materials and put them up in public places.

When scanned with a smartphone, the QR code will take the user directly to whatever link you would like.

You can watch this video here, or if you would rather read/skim, use the transcript below this video instead.

 

 

So first what we’re going to do is we’re going to use a QR code generator website. Most QR code generators are free to create QR codes, but they expire, so you need to pay for an account to keep the QR code active before you create your QR code.

Check the pricing on a few of the generators, and then choose one that you feel comfortable with. You may also find some that are free forever.

The first thing you want to do is go into your favorite search engine and search for a QR code generator.

I’m going to choose qr-code-generator.com.

When you first visit this link, you’re presented with a screen to create the QR code right away, but what you really want to do is create an account first before you begin to create the code because in order to download the code, you will need to have an account. So go ahead and either log in if you have an account or sign up.

If you choose sign up, you will need to create your account here. Xhoose your industry, add your email address, choose a password, and then you’ll need to choose the type of document you want to create. Now you’ll be sent an email to that email address that you’ll need to activate. So go ahead and activate your account.

After you activate your account, you’ll be directed with the automatic login to the page to start creating the QR code. We’re going choose “website” in this case and then click next. On the next screen you will need to paste in the link to the website where you want people to go. You’re want to browse to that page and copy the link or URL.

Let’s do that together. Now, in this video, I’m going to browse to my bootcamp page. I want people to sign up for my bootcamp and register. So here’s the page URL: https://learn.totocoaching.com/courses/rise-in-google-search-step-one-where-does-your-website-stand-right-now.

I’m going to come up to the top of the window and I’m going to copy the url, but I want to show you something when I copy this url: this URL happens to have tracking codes on it for Facebook ads. That’s because I came to this link from my Facebook page on a link that I pasted on my Facebook page. I have tracking that is on all of my Facebook posts, so I know if someone registered, they came from Facebook. You can see here anything after the question mark, all those letters and numbers, that big string there, that’s the Facebook code.

https://learn.totocoaching.com/courses/rise-in-google-search-step-one-where-does-your-website-stand-right-now?fbclid=IwAR2HkmQRrq8gxk2jEl7D-_JrS_vQ0zWTuIRGpB7FvG8O_wnmDibDPDngme8

I don’t want to keep that on my link because if I do, every time someone goes to the QR code link with the tracking code on it that’s in the postcard I’m going to make, or the brochure I’m going to make, or the email I’m going send out, my website is going to think they came from Facebook and Facebook is going get all the credit when they really didn’t. So you wanna look at the URL and make sure there’s no tracking links. Sometimes there’s tracking links from Google Analytics as well, or any other type of software that you may be using for tracking or ads. So check your link carefully, make sure there’s not anything attached to the end of it. You can tell here it’s attached to the end of it with everything after the question mark and including the question mark.

So go ahead and copy your link and then head back over to the QR code generator screen and paste the link in. Make sure the link looks good: verify that there is nothing at the end of it that shouldn’t be there for tracking, and also look at the beginning of it and make sure it starts with https:// and that you didn’t leave any of that out. Check your link and click next. You’ll be brought to the next screen where you can begin to design out your QR code.

We’ll start from the top and move towards the bottom. If you have questions, you can always mouse over a tool tip to get more information.

Let’s start with the frame. You have a lot of different options for the frame. I’ll just choose the first one here.

Next we have an option to choose our frame color. You can either select the little color wheel and choose a color there, but if you know your brand colors, it’s better to paste them in here.

You can change the text that appears on the frame if you would like. In this example we change the text to Register.

Next, what type of QR code would you like? There’s all different types of options. You can do little circles, et cetera. If that matters to you, go ahead and change that. There’s more options as well, and we can also change the code color. So I can go ahead and put in my brand color here as well or I can select the color wheel and choose a fun different color.

Next we have our logo. Upload your logo or another image here and you can see that what’s really nice is the logo is placed nicely in the center of the QR code.

A shortened URL was also automatically generated for us! You can edit the end of this link to something that matches your brand or event. Now, if you’ve already used this QR code, meaning you’ve already created it and you’re editing it right now, you don’t want to change the URL because then people will be brought to the long, wrong link (the previous shortened URL). But, if this is your first time creating this QR code, go ahead and create your own short URL. You don’t have to change this, but if you would like to, you can go ahead and do that.

You’ll save it and now you’re all set. The next step to do is to download your QR code. Once you download it, open it up and look at it to make sure it looks good.

Now you have an image that you can put into any application that you’d like to. You can put it into Word, you can put it into Canva, you can event put it into an email. I’m going show you how to put it into Canva.

 

1. Log into Canva.
2. Go ahead and create a new design or open the one you would like to insert the QR code.
3. Now it’s time to upload the QR code. Head over to uploads on the left menu bar, Click upload files, and choose the QR code you just downloaded to your computer.
4. Drag the QR code to the place in the document where you would like it to appear and then resize it to the size you like
5. After your document is all set up, click share and then follow the prompts to download this file in the format you would like. If this is a flyer, most likely you will choose PDF file.
6. Now print out the flyer
7. Test the code by opening up the CAMERA app on your phone and hold your phone up to the QR code like you are going to take a picture of it but don’t click the button to actually take the photo. When the QR code is registered by your camera app, you will see a border appear around the QR code and then a link to the website will appear on the screen. Click that link
8. Verify that the link goes to the page you would like users to go. If they do not go to the correct link. you will need to fix this and then download a new QR code and replace the one in your document. This is also a good time to verify that your page looks good in mobile! Most users will be coming from a mobile device when using the QR code so make sure the whole page looks good and you can’t scroll left to right, only up and down. If you have problems like words breaking in strange places or images too wide or columns too skinny, you will need to fix these first before publicizing your QR code.