How To Create Compelling Infographics That Engage & Convert Your Audience

With so many companies turning to visual marketing you need to create compelling infographics if you want to engage your audience and convert them into leads or sales. Infographics work extremely well, and this has lead to an overflow of infographics being created and spread throughout the web. Infographics tend to receive more social shares, which leads to more brand awareness as well as link earning.

With their immense popularity, your business should be using infographics, and aince everyone is using them these days you have to make sure that yours stands out if you want it to be successful. Not all of them will gain momentum and go viral, and today most infographics remain in the dark and don’t receive the kind of attention originally anticipated.

We have put together a list of 10 points to make sure tat you address when creating your infographic. Following this simple checklist will help you create an infographic that will be highly engaging and get your business the attention that you desire.

1. Start with a topic that is going to interest your audience

The infographic process begins with selecting a topic, and this is the most important part. You could have the best design, but if your audience isn’t interested in your topic the infographic will be a failure. The key to creating a compelling infographic is to come up with a timely topic that will really capture the interest of your audience. They need to want to engage with it immediately after seeing the topic.

There is always going to be new and exciting topics to describe in a visual manner throughout every industry. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. What will they find interesting? What will they immediately want to engage with? A compelling topic will increase the chance of it going viral throughout social media.

2. Perform extensive research

Spend some time to really uncover interesting data for your infographic. Again, you could have the most beautiful design, but without amazing data and content your infographic will fall flat on its face. Make sure that the data you mine is highly relevant and interesting. Make sure that all of the data, from the beginning to end is compelling. You want to make sure that individuals that are interacting with it read the entire piece of content.

3. Simplistic designs allow you to present your message

Many businesses will assume that they have to create a wild mind blowing design in order to gain traction for their infographic. This is not the case at all. If you take a look at some of the most successful and viral infographics throughout the past couple of years you will see that they all feature a very simple design.

The goal of an infographic is to present complex data in a way that is easy to digest and understand. An overly busy design will make it harder for your audience to get the full message. Focus on a simple design that presents the data in a manner that is easy to understand.

4. Color selection is key

Use colors that work well together and match the topic of your infographic. Select a few colors and stick with that throughout the entire infographic. Random colors throughout will break the flow. You can use two or three main colors and then different shades of those colors. This goes back to what we just discussed above about keeping the infographic design simple.

5. Keep your fonts simple and uniform

When you create a blog post you maintain simple to read font and some structure with headings, correct? The same approach should be taken when outlining the text of your infographic. Avoid using hard to read small fonts. Remember, the goal is to attract eyes to your infographic, so make sure that the major points are easy to identify. Also, avoid using several different font styles – instead, use one or two and use different sizes to keep it uniform. When making a point use larger font size and colors.

6. Use standard infographic dimensions

There are two ways to go when designing an infographic, and that is vertical or horizontal. You want people to share and publish your infographic on other websites in order to earn links, so stick to the standard vertical dimensions. Not only are they easier to read, but they also fit perfectly into blog posts and can be read on mobile devices easier than a bulky horizontal infographic.

7. Make sure you keep a consistent flow throughout the entire infographic

An infographic tells a story, and if a story contains information that doesn’t flow correctly or isn’t consistent the reader will lose interest. Just like a blog post, it starts with a headline and then works down, with new points being highlighted. When putting your content and data together just remember that you are telling a story, so make sure that the flow doesn’t break.

8. Reference your data sources

When you are collecting the data for your infographic it is important that you note the source of the information, and cite that source on your infographic. If you look at some of the most popular infographics you will see that some will give credit in the design and some will list all of the URL’s where they obtained the data at the very bottom. Do whatever works best for your design; just don’t forget to cite your data sources.

9. Brand your infographic

If an infographic goes viral it can be a wonderful branding tool for your business. Make sure that you include your company’s logo as well as URL and other contact information at the bottom of the infographic. Make sure there is a call-to-action that signals your brand was the creator. Something like “infographic brought to you by” or “infographic created by” will work just fine.

10. Make sure your infographic is easy to share

In order for your infographic to gain traction it needs to easily be shareable. Include a social sharing tool that easily allows people to share it on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Also, you will want to include HTML code at the bottom that allows website owners to simply copy/paste the code and display your infographic on their blog. This is a great way to earn high quality industry related links, so make it as simple as possible for others to publish your infographic.