Floki Smith
Dietitian, Speciality in Cancer Care
For 10 years Floki has worked for better nutrition for patients with Cancer
Sounds great, right? But creating an infographic is not just slapping together a bunch of numbers and some explaining text. The challenge with great infographics is to make them tell a relevant story through graphics while making it easy to understand as well as trustworthy, visually appealing and very importantly something that people will share and remember. How to do that I’ll cover in the 9 points below.
Who is your audience and what do they want to know?
Here is a common mistake. Don’t go for generic information. It will be the easiest way forward, but to make youraudience move a muscle for your content you need to drill down to what is really relevant for them – as in all content marketing. Figure out whati nformation your target group is searching for by using tools like answerthepublic.com or other keyword search tools. If you can discover whatinformation is needed and present good answers that are easy to understand you are on the path to infographic greatness.
Consider the infographic genres
Think about what kind of information you are going to communicate.
Infographics can be split into 4 different genres; trends, contrasts, outside the norm and practical guidelines. The genres can be combined in any composition, but you can use them in to trigger the audience in different ways.
- Trends: Work with data trends to illustrate a tendency. You will be expanding the reader’s horizon while underlining why this piece of content is relevant now.
- Contrasts:Use contrasts to put a topic into perspective through comparisons supporting your point.
- Outside the norm: Find unexpected facts about your topic that surprises the readers so much, that they simply want to know more.
- Practical guidelines:Practical guidelines is a visualization of a step by step process. Itcan be very valuable content for the reader because it embodies a quickinstruction solution to a problem the readers are dealing with.
Be picky about your data – make it simple
You are looking for that light bulb moment – not a raised eyebrow or an overwhelmed frown. The best infographics out there are able to communicate the most complex information in a simple way. Evaluate your data and remove anything that is excessive and just cluttering your message. Avoid postulating anything. Credit your sources and be certain of their credibility too. When you pick your information don’t necessarily avoid data that do not support your message. Spinning the information to your advantage can hurt your trustworthiness if you are called out. Social media is ruthless.
Storytelling in infographics
How many people find raw data super entertaining? Your accountant perhaps. Or the occasional digital analyst. An infographic is all about telling a story through data and to really engage a broader part of your target group you have to add a narrative to your numbers. Write up your available data and take your time to consider how to create a flow in the story you are telling. Sometimes you will already know what story to tell and sometimes you will have to go hunting for the right story in the data by looking at tendencies, comparisons, numbers that sticks out etc.
Great infographic design
Well, this is a given. Beautifully designed infographics often get the most attention. But don’t go overboard with the design. Point 3 about keeping it simple applies here too. Your audience must be able to easily navigate the information. If you clutter your infographic with a million graphics, a jungle of images, a juggle of font types and big blocks of (tiny) text, design becomes a distraction instead of a visual aid.
- Organize your data in blocks that each prove a point
- Limit your copy to a minimum
- Avoid presenting the same information twice
- Love your white space
- Use colour with a purpose
Tip: If you are not an Adobe wizard check out solutions like piktochart.com, an easy-to-use online infographics-maker.
Make it mobile
How big a chunk of your audience is tuning into your content on their mobile? According to recent surveys 52% of all online traffic is now powered by mobile devices*. For many publishers it is much more – and we all have to acknowledge that. When designing for the web on desktop it can be easy to forget the mobile view. But the reality is that your mobile readers will drop like flies if presented with infographics that show unreadable text, unfitted graphics and long load times. Make sure you produce your infographic with a mobile first approach and test relentlessly till you get the performance just right.
* https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/
SEO in infographics
The search engines are getting smarter all the time, but they (and your audience) might miss the wonders of yourinfographic if you fail to take the right steps in optimizing for search. From the research phase to publishing your piece you should have SEO in mind. Do your keyword research in the beginning to understand what the audience is searching for and make sure you use the result of that research in your storytelling, image file name (like: breastcancer_symptoms_infographic.png), in the alt text, in your meta description, URL as well as implemented in headlines(H1, H2, H3) and the supporting text (copy). The latter is important, but often forgotten.
Write an amazing headline
Do yourself a favour and spend time finding that perfect headline. It is the one part of the content that everyone will read. One thing is getting eyes on the content, but the headline is what makes them start to check the rest of your content out.
Distribution
Nowadays digital content goes nowhere without a distribution strategy. There is just too much stuff on the old www. As mentioned infographics are shared 3 times more than the standard article. But you still need to give it a virtual push to shovel it out of the nest. Maybe you are lucky to have an owned distribution network or a deal with a great influencer. But most likely you would have to invest in paid distribution to get your content in front of the right people.
Inspiration for infographics – ‘Steal’ with pride
You do not need to reinvent the wheel to create great infographics. Be inspired by the best. There are tons and tons of graphic collections that present the most beautiful work. Put your own spin on it – make it better.
Great resources about infographics:
