Gone are the days when blogs only contained written articles. If you’re neglecting infographics, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful forms of content available. Infographics are the secret key to standing out in a sea of monotonous generic content. This article is going to explain why we love infographics and provide some tips on how to make them!
What’s on Earth’s an Infographic?
“A picture tells a thousand words” – English language adage
Many people will immediately turn away when they see a wall of text. Who has time to read all that? Fortunately, for every problem, there’s a solution.
An infographic is an image which combines text and graphics. They summarise great quantities of information into one easily digestible picture. They may include visual data displays such as graphs, charts and diagrams. They may also include drawings, icons and colours to highlight important points.
Six Benefits of Using Infographics
1. Well-designed Infographics are attractive and enticing!
Stylist infographics draw the reader in and ensure that they’re paying attention. Businesses publish them stand out from the crowd. They turn a dull article into a beautiful visual display.
2. Infographics Provide a Great Opportunity To Be Lazy
Of course, we always recommend creating unique content rather than recycling old ideas, but if you’re so inclined, you could take existing ideas and express them in a new way by creating a unique and attractive infographic. The information might be the same, but the way you’re presenting it will make your content stand out!
You can also use infographics for summarising the content of articles you’ve previously published. That way, you don’t need to do any additional research, and you’re giving your audience a new way of consuming the information. Some members of your audience will particularly appreciate this because some people prefer different formats of content. Some like written content, others visual.
3. Infographics give you a better chance of going viral
Infographics are a great opportunity to go viral! In our experience, infographics are much more likely to be shared online!
The reasons are obvious. You only need a few seconds to digest an infographic. While only the more dedicated members of your audience will read a long article, almost anyone can make a judgement on an infographic in less than a minute. Ultimately, the more people who actually consume your content, the more people there are who might share it.
People also like to share ‘cool things’. A well-designed infographic look cool and stylish. They’re the perfect form of content to social media encourage sharing.
4. Infographics Provide A Welcome SEO Boost
The fact that infographics are regularly shared online can also lead to an SEO boost for your website. With people liking and sharing your content, you’re able to generate backlinks which are indispensable to SEO.
Google is still cagey about how much importance they give to social shares, but Bing is quite clear on the matter. For them, social shares will improve your SEO! With 33% of internet users using the Bing search engine, social shares matter!
5. Infographics Demonstrate Your Expertise
Another great thing about infographics is that they make it easy for you to demonstrate your expertise on a subject. They help you make points more effectively, summarise data and express ideas. A well-designed infographic proves that you’re an expert in your field. Positioning yourself as an expert improves your brand image and makes your business appear trustworthy.
6. Making Infographics Means Building Brand Assets
Infographics become long-term assets for your brand. Once they’re created and released, they’ll continue to serve you for years to come! Every time someone sees one of your infographics, they’re reminded of your business and how knowledgeable, stylish and helpful you are!
Infographic Design Tips
We could have made a list of sixty benefits of using infographics as part of your content strategy. But you’re probably excited to get ready and start making some infographics of your own. Therefore, let’s move on and cover a few basic tips for creating engaging, stylish and effective infographics.
People have published entire books covering how to create infographics. We don’t have that much time in this article so let’s look at a few basic tips that should improve your infographic design skills.
Begin with the end in mind
Before you begin creating your infographic, you need to determine exactly what points you want to make and what information you want to summarise. Planning and head to know exactly what you want to say will help you structure the infographic.
Structure
The structure of your infographic will depend on its goal. Infographics need to display data in a logical format. That’s the key to making it easier for your audience to understand them.
We recommend using columns to give your infographic structure. For example, an infographic designed to compare two things works well with a two-column structure.
You can divide the columns further into rows. Imagine you have eight data points. Rather than throwing information all over the page in a random manner, you can have two columns divided into four rows each (thus creating eight cells in a 4×2 formation).
Another option is to structure the data around a central image. This approach is best when the reading order is not so important, and the data is directly relevant to that image. Think of a scientific diagram with different arrows pointing to the central image to provide commentary.
Colour
It’s best to stick to a few colours. Otherwise, you risk your design looking too loud (and not in a good way). Use contrast to make different elements stand out and stick to a palette of no more than three main colours.
Icon Design
The best way to bring your ideas to life is through pictures and icons to illustrate your points. There are millions of icons available to use. Some websites offer premium paid icons, others offer free icons. A lot of design software include free icons.
Whatever icon you use make sure that the style is the same throughout the infographic. For example, you can’t jump from using hyper-realistic icons and then suddenly switch to cartoon-style drawings. It’ll make the infographic look unprofessional.
White Space
Make sure to use plenty of white space. Infographics are about making information easy to understand. An overly crowded diagram has the opposite effect. Remember to focus on simple, clean designs.
Incorporate the theme into the graphic
Now we’re getting fancy. If you want your infographic to stand out, think of a way to incorporate the theme of the infographic into the picture. The infographics below illustrate what I mean.
An infographic about unique wedding drink ideas is created to look like a drink’s menu
The next infographic compares the benefits of buying or renting a home. We’ve used a “For Sale” and a “To Let” sign as the border to the main text. Notice the two-column structure used for a comparison infographic.
Conclusion
These days infographics are as important as written articles. So, ignore them at your peril. I mentioned that there are entire books on the subject of creating infographics (we know because we own several). To save you the cost of having to go out and buy a book. I will list a few articles from other websites. I believe these articles alone should be enough to teach you to create excellent infographics!
https://visme.co/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic/
https://visme.co/blog/infographic-design-tips/
https://venngage.com/blog/how-to-make-an-infographic-in-5-steps/
https://venngage.com/blog/infographic-design/
You’ll notice that a couple of these are from Visme. We love their software and use it to make many of our infographics (this is an honest review we do not make any money for recommending them).
We’ll be publishing a full comprehensive review of their software and others on our blog at a later time.