Communicated Content – Infographics can be a great tool for attracting eyes to your site, whether you are planning to build a website for your business or for a personal blog. Your site will need to be as informed as possible to gain eyes on it, and infographics are a great way to easily and clearly express ideas. As the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words, so your users are going to be happy to gain all the information they need in a combination of pictures and captions for a dump of information that takes seconds to digest.
You can get infographics on everything from peer-to-peer subjects like the inner workings of SEO, to the different ways you can tie a tie. Your users, be they industry peers or audience members will appreciate any wisdom you are willing to share in a digestible format. But there is a way to do it right. Take a look at our tips for adding infographics to your website.
Create your own
With the right tools, it’s simple enough to create your own infographics. The point here is simplicity. They don’t typically involve overly complicated graphics and the text is minimal. You’re trying to get as much information across in as little work as possible.
If you don’t want to create your own, make sure that anything you use that didn’t come from yourself is credited. It’s likely to have a watermark anyway, but it is shady and dishonest to crop out the watermark for example. You can lose credibility and therefore followers that way since they can’t trust anything that you’re saying.
If you are making your own infographic, it’s worth pointing out that a watermark will allow you to be credited, but you should also include a list of sources. Big companies sending out information gathered from various reports will cite them at the bottom of the graphic so that users can see for themselves where the information came from and that you have quoted it correctly. This is important in an age of misinformation, but even if the users don’t go check if you know what you’re talking about, they will be comforted by the fact that you can back up what you’re saying.
Do some research
People take infographics seriously, so it’s important that you are giving out the best advice you can get. In order to cite your sources, you’re going to have to gather sources. If your source is your own experience within the field, back it up with a report or an article.
The more detailed an infographic is, the better, so if you’ve got tips around the one concept, make sure you have a lot of them. At least half a dozen will be optimal. You have to make this worth your user’s time. It might be saved and referred back to if it’s informative enough, making for something that will keep you and your website in the mind of users.
Make sure it looks good
Infographics typically don’t fit the usual sizes of online photographs and if you try and make them fit, you’re going to end up with a warped picture that depicts words that stretch across the screen.
Luckily, there are a lot of design tools out there that will keep your infographic at the highest resolution while you attempt to manipulate it, and add effects that will allow you to dictate how it appears on the page and what actions it does on the site, etc.
You can get creative here. Have the site scroll around the infographic, add more detail when scrolled over, etc. The more interactive you can make it, the more engaging it will be.
Apply marketing principles
Treat your infographic like a piece of marketing material. Apply the same color and stylistic theories you would have to consider in order to convey branding. What demographic is this for? What is that demographic into? What will get their attention and tell them that this is aimed at them? You’re looking to target people who are likely to take in your content, engage with it, and come back for more, just like any other piece of content online.
Don’t forget your SEO either. Search Engine Optimization applies even to infographics. SEO is the aim of climbing up the results of a Google search result. Since no one looks at the second page of a Google search, or even at the bottom link of the first page, it’s important that your website reaches the top. The way you get there is by being as informed and relevant as possible. The page you put it on should be optimized for relevance in the keywords, the information shared in the page name, etc.
Conclusion
Infographics can be a great asset to your website, and even your social media accounts. The best are well-researched, original, and eye-catching. Luckily there are a lot of tools on the internet to help you create a great infographic and spread your wealth of knowledge.
