Infographics are a valuable way to showcase information in a visual format. But, you should implement some foundational rules to create a great infographic over an average one. Here are five tips to help you pique your readers’ interests and, in turn, allow them to better absorb the information you’re trying to share.

1. Avoid Big No-Nos

Before you can make a great infographic, it’s important to understand what makes a bad one. In doing so, you’ll learn what to avoid when creating your content.

Be sure to avoid:

  • Misleading your audience with false information or data distortions. If you’re citing a study or data, it’s important to always indicate the source of your information and link to it if you’re able.
  • Overloading your infographic with too many visual distractions or clutter. You can make an eye-popping infographic without making people nauseous from content overload.
  • Neglecting to showcase all types of people in your infographic. Showing diversity in your content is not only good for your brand — it’s generally just good practice all around.
  • Refusing to correct these mistakes. Hey, mistakes happen, but if you don’t adjust your infographic, that decision could result in a miss on your brand’s reputation.

If you can avoid these blunders, you’ll be well on your way to making a successful infographic.

2. Respect Your Audience

The term “read the room” comes to mind for this one. In short, you want to gain your audience’s trust as they view your infographic, so you have to be respectful of the types of data that will be important to the people you’re targeting. Often, people involved in the data-gathering part of infographics — such as statisticians — may be disconnected from what you’re trying to achieve as a marketer for your brand. It then becomes your job to bridge those gaps and talk to people in a way that will resonate with them.

On the other hand, people often create infographics with no knowledge of the data behind the numbers. This can lead to misinformation or final products that don’t respect audiences’ ever-valuable attention.

In the end, you want to communicate information in a visual way that helps improve your audience’s complete understanding of the topic.

3. Make Sure Your Images are Intrinsically Tied to Your Data

You never want to just throw any old clip art pictures into your infographic so you can say you’ve included images. The images you choose need to be the storytellers of the data you’re presenting to your readers.

By using carefully chosen images that don’t contain too much excess data, you’ll allow your viewers to visualize the data you’re trying to convey, rather than overwhelming them with a list of numbers that can quickly seem meaningless to them.

If you can’t create images for your infographic yourself, this is a great place to set funds aside and work with a professional graphic designer. Skimping on your visual storytelling effects can cost you big in the long run.

4. Keep It Focused

Simplicity always wins the infographic game. Ultimately, simplicity is all about focus. You don’t want to sprinkle in a million facts and stats that are semi-related to the topic at hand. Instead, aim to make a streamlined product focused on one topic.

White space (or negative space) isn’t a bad thing when you’re creating an infographic. In fact, it can be your best friend. Infographics that are too busy are usually off-putting and hard on the eyes. When that happens, people will just scroll by. To drive your point home, leave plenty of white space so your audience’s attention can be focused on the information you’re delivering to them.

It’s important to understand that infographics shouldn’t be your channel to randomly dump in every piece of data you can compile. The point is to drive home information related to a single, focused point.

5. Promote It!

Once your infographic has been created, send it out to the world in every way you can. Write a blog around the information you’ve uncovered, share it on social media, and email it to your subscribers. Be sure it’s easily shareable by providing a link to the infographic itself and including a call to action that encourages your followers to share it with their circles.

Did you know you can earn awesome link juice by creating an infographic? It can ultimately boost your domain authority and help you rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The key is to make sure anyone referencing your infographic can easily link to it and give you credit for all the hard work you’ve done. Be sure to use your company’s branding within the confines of the infographic – so people know it was your company that created it, helping to prevent others from stealing your work. Having your branding within the infographic also helps increase brand recognition, which is likely a goal of your marketing team.

Now that you’ve learned how to create a great infographic, it’s time to showcase your valuable information in a creative, appealing way!