Five Steps for More Engaging Infographics

The fact that infographics are so uniquely powerful and influential really is a godsend. From a business perspective, being able to pack so much concise and relevant information into such a small marketing material is no less than fantastic. Not to mention the fact that close to half of all people are known to respond better to visual information than plain text alone.

So you understand and acknowledge the power and potential of outstanding infographics. But how to go about creating them?

Well, the good news is that regardless of what line of business you happen to be in, there are certain standards and conventions to stick with. In fact, work in accordance with the following five guidelines and your next infographic could be your most successful to date:

1. Identify your message and stick with it

As is the case with any good story, you need to first consider what your overall message is. Just like when penning a blog post, consider the purpose of the infographic and the relevant theme. Once you’ve made these decisions, you need to make sure you stick with them from start to finish. The closer you remain tied to the primary message and theme, the more convincing and engaging the infographic will be.

2. Work hard on your headline

If you want anybody to bother reading the content of your infographic, you first need to create a compelling headline. Once again, this is no different to the usual standard with any other kind of content creation. The key lies in providing the reader with a good idea what the infographic is all about, though without giving too much away. The idea being that they are compelled to continue reading the rest of its content from top to bottom. If you can create a sense of intrigue, you’re golden.

3. Keep it simple

The more complicated an infographic appears at first glance, the less likely anyone is to bother reading it. It’s a bit like when you come across an unbroken passage of text, as opposed to a passage punctuated by imagery and other breaks. Whether it’s too many visuals, too much text or simply too much of everything crammed into a small space, clutter and crowding can be extremely off-putting. Focus on the basics and keep things simple.

4. Light-hearted visuals

Although there are exceptions to the rule, most infographics benefit from visuals that are relatively light hearted. As you’ve probably noted by now, infographics tend to contain visuals that are somewhat cartoonish, entertaining and highly simplified. They very rarely contain complex, formal or distracting visuals of any kind.

5. Push and promote

Last but not least, perhaps the single most important rule when it comes to creating effective infographics is to push and promote them as vigorously as possible. It’s best to look at infographics in the same way you would view a press release. It represents a marketing material in its own right, but nonetheless needs to be marketed to have any real value. Always keep shareability in mind when deciding on the content for your infographics and do your best to get the process of sharing underway.

Confirmed: Speed Matters More than Ever

If there’s one thing every Internet user today has in common, it’s growing impatience. Even if some have at least a little more patience than others, impatience among web users is growing like never before. For the most part, it is taken for granted that both your website and all of its internal pages will load in full at the snap of a finger. If they don’t, your prospects turn around, head elsewhere and perhaps never return.

Now, it’s natural for those on the business side of the equation to simply throw accusations at impatient customers, arguing that it’s unrealistic to expect flawless performance at all times. Unfortunately, the customer is always right. Or at least, the customer determines whether and to what extent you will succeed, therefore you need to do what they want, when they want it.

According to one of the more recent studies carried out by Kissmetrics, almost half of all consumers now expect websites and internal pages to fire up in no more than 2 seconds. In addition, approximately 40% stated that they will happily walk away from a website (perhaps permanently) if they are forced to wait more than 3 seconds for it to load.

But here’s the real kicker – it’s not only about the huge increase in bounce rates slow loading times tend to trigger. Instead, research has shown that even when customers wait those extra few seconds and stick around, slow loading times can have a remarkable effect on conversion rates.

…and not in a good way.

Extensive surveys have shown that when page loading times are delayed by as little as one second, it can lead to a quite extraordinary 7% reduction in conversions. In the case of Amazon – which is admittedly rather on the large side compared to most online businesses – it is estimated that approximately $1.6 billion is lost every year, simply due to slow page loading times. It’s not as if your own business is likely to incur these kinds of heavy losses, but still – can you really afford to throw away 7% of possible conversions, simply due to basic issues with page loading times?

The answer…of course you can’t!

From a website developer’s perspective, the most frustrating thing about poor page loading times is the way in which they can usually be addressed relatively easily. While it’s not to say that there will not be some time, effort and expenditure involved, it often takes little more than a few simple tweaks behind the scenes to get things up to speed…literally. Whether it’s your current hosting service provider, your site’s coding, issues with its content or anything else across the board, there are various ways and means by which you can and therefore should work to improve its performance.

Given the fact that so many businesses are still allowing themselves to fall behind the curve by operating sluggish and inconsistent websites, this is actually a comparatively quick, easy and affordable way to get ahead.