How To Make An Infographic That Grabs People’s Attention

In a world where content is considered king, the biggest challenge among marketers is capturing a potential customer’s attention.

It’s no secret that people’s attention spans are becoming shorter with the average currently at 8.5 seconds.

In fact, it only takes a website visitor 10 to 20 seconds to leave if your page’s content doesn’t spark their interest. That being said, it’s essential to have both attractive and compelling content if the goal is to grab people’s attention.

But you’ll need more than just a bunch of images, videos, and text for this to work. You need to find a way to show people information that would not just spark their interest but also compel them to keep on reading instead of jumping over to another website.

Sadly, this is easier said than done. But if there’s one proven and effective way to do it, it’s through the use of infographics.

What is an Infographic?

An infographic is a visual representation of information or data. It’s a collection of charts, images, and text that helps make a certain topic easier to understand.

It’s a visual communication tool used by businesses to grab people’s attention. More than attracting and engaging people, a good infographic makes its audience understand and remember the information it conveys.

Infographics are generally used to make complex information easier to digest by doing the following:

• Providing a quick overview of a topic
• Explaining a complex process
• Highlighting research findings
• Summarizing a long piece of content like a blog post or report
• Comparing multiple concepts
• Raising awareness about a certain issue

Infographics allow you to give a quick rundown on a certain topic that is otherwise difficult to explain in words alone.

What’s great about infographics is that it works for pretty much any kind of industry or niche. It all goes down to what your objective is in presenting such information to people.

Common Uses of Infographics

Marketers and business owners use infographics for several reasons and below are some of them.

• Send a visually striking newsletter
• Round or organize pieces of information
• Summarize key points
• Showcase business achievements
• Clearly define a difficult-to-understand process

The Benefits Of Using Infographics

Apart from grabbing people’s attention and keeping them engaged, using infographics come with several benefits.

Increased Site Visits and Engagement

Grabbing people’s attention is crucial given the amount of competition you have to deal with and infographics provide you a way to stand out.

Getting attention is just part of the equation. Once you’ve got their interest, they’ll likely be looking for more. If the information you produce is compelling enough, they’ll keep coming back to your page, effectively improving your site stats and opening you up to bigger opportunities.

Improved Brand Awareness

When a business is just starting out, it’s crucial to be able to get your brand into people’s consciousness.

The more they recognize and remember your business’ name, logo, and contact information (which is usually incorporated with infographics), the more they will likely go to you for the service you offer.

Improved Visibility

Standing out from your competition is a must for your brand to succeed but this won’t be possible if no one knows you exist.

While SEO helps improve your ranking, searchability, and site visibility, a well-designed infographic can also make a difference especially if it gets shared and embedded in a variety of channels.

Increased Follower/Subscriber Count

Speaking of searchability, a well-designed infographic tends to get shared across social media channels.

If it gets popular enough after being liked and heavily commented on, getting people to follow and subscribe to your channels wouldn’t be that much difficult anymore because people will voluntarily do it.

Going viral will certainly open doors to more business opportunities as your audience grows larger.

How To Make A Good Infographic

Creating an effective infographic is not just about visuals because a visually stunning infographic would be worthless if the information it contains doesn’t help your audience.

To create an infographic that works, make sure to follow these guidelines.

Define your Audience

Just like any piece of content, it’s important to know beforehand who will be the infographic’s target audience so you can decide who it will be created for.

Will your target audience be someone who belongs to the same team as you are or will it be someone external?

Will they be entry-level interns or someone who belongs to the higher-ups?

Are they advanced or expert level users or are they basic level ones?

The more specific your answers are to these questions, the easier it would be for you to decide which kind of infographic is best.

Identify Your Goals

As mentioned, creating an infographic is not as simple as putting together a bunch of images, graphics, and text.

For the infographic to be effective, it needs to have structure and direction, something you can achieve by clearly defining the infographic’s goals.

Is it supposed to help people visualize a process or report on data perhaps? What is the infographic aiming to achieve?

There are dozens of ways an infographic can help an audience and knowing the answers to these questions will help you design an infographic that will suit their needs.

A good example would be that of onboarding a new employee. This will come in handy if you have new HR staff who are not familiar with the process yet.

By showing them the step-by-step visually via an infographic, they’d be able to get a quick grasp on how to go about getting a new employee onboard.

Do Your Research

Contrary to what most people believe, you don’t need to have advanced graphic design skills to create an infographic. In fact, you should be more worried about its content because this is its most crucial aspect.

That being said, due diligence is essential when it comes to the data gathering process. This is especially true if the infographic you’re planning to create will involve important statistics or historical data.

The good news is there is tons of information you can find on the internet. The only thing you need to ensure is that they should come from credible or reliable sources.

It’s also important to remember that when it comes to the data gathering process, less is usually more. Avoid providing your audience with a truckload of data because doing so can get them confused and overwhelmed.

The right approach would be to give them enough data points that will help them at least get an overview of the topic or just take one data point and expound on it.

Choose the Right Type of Infographic for Your Audience

The type of infographic you choose is crucial because it will determine the overall layout and flow of your data.

The good news is there are several infographic types you can choose from and below are some of them.

• Process infographics
• Comparison infographics
• Timeline infographics
• Informational infographics
• List infographics

As can be expected, each infographic has its unique way of presenting information. This is why it’s important to at least have an idea of the kind of layout you want to implement so you’ll know what to look for when you pick a template.

Pick a Template

Once you’ve defined your audience, identified your goals, conducted your research, and have chosen the infographic type you’ll use, the last step is to pick a template that will serve as your base.

While it can be tempting to design an infographic from scratch, we wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re a professional graphic designer.

Using a template isn’t such a bad idea because more than the design, it’s how you relay your message that counts.

Why?

Because an infographic with an average design but has a solid structure will always beat one that is superbly designed but is all over the place. Bear in mind that these templates were created by professional designers so it’s highly unlikely that you’ll come across one that is below standard.

Just pick a template that matches the structure you’re aiming for then make the adjustments according to your preference. Move some of the parts to the location of your choice, change the font, or adjust the colors to your liking until you get the look you have in mind.

Final Thoughts

Getting noticed is one of the hardest things to do on the internet. Creating an infographic is just one of the ways to stand out and get noticed but it has to be done the right way.

You’ve got to have a plan, you need to have a good structure in mind in terms of how you would present your data so people wouldn’t just take notice but continue to come back and consume whatever it is your brand has to offer.

If you’re ready to add infographics to your strategy, FreeUp can help. Sign up for an account today and hire a skilled graphic designer.