Written By: Tom Ogg, Co-Owner – Travel Professional NEWS
Infographics have been around for a long, long time and have only come of age in 2020. An infographic is a collection of imagery, charts and text that is presented in an easy-to-understand and graphical way that is engaging for readers and helps explain usually complex ideas. The best infographics are usually quite colorful and capture the reader’s attention with its logic and format.
In 2020 anyone can create professional level infographics without having training as a graphic artist or illustrator. There are dozens of infographic development websites and while most have free platforms with paid upgrades, this is the one time I will make a suggestion of buying one for your use. With the right tool, anyone can create infographics that will be loved by readers and be shared on social media.
Infographics work for a good number of reasons.
1. Infographics are attractive, compelling and engaging and improve the overall effectiveness of content for the user. People perceive infographics as visually stimulating and their eyes will go directly to the colorful and graphical presentation. Once absorbing the infographic content, people tend to see that it contains information about the topic of the article, but laid out in an easy-to-read and logical fashion.
2. Infographics are easy to scan for people wanting the information embedded in the infographic. If you are presenting reasonably complex content in an article using an infographic will certainly make it much easier for your reader to scan the content in the image realizing that there is more detail in the article if they choose to read the entire article. But, many times you can convey the key points in an infographic that will satisfy your reader.
3. Infographics may go viral. If you have produced an engaging infographic on a travel topic, it might be shared and then shared again and again on social media. While infographics seem best integrated into an article, most infographics are just fine standing on their own in social media posts. In fact, once you know how to create quality infographics, you can produce unique social media content that is designed to go viral.
4. Just like memes, infographics will drive traffic to your site or social media by the inclusion of your website or other information. It is also quite easy to make the infographic clickable since it is a digital image. Using textual information such as your website address that is clickable will be certain to generate more traffic to your site, social media or landing page.
5. Infographics will improve your SERPs. Since infographics are searchable, search engines will likely give your article a higher placement in search results simply because the search engines know that users enjoy infographics and it adds to the user’s overall satisfaction with the content you have presented.
There are many more advantages to using infographics, but these really sum up the advantages. Before you start thinking that creating an infographic is beyond your creativity and design talent, think again. There are dozens of websites that have a free platform with upgrades if you choose to do so. You can easily create high quality and professional level infographics with absolutely no experience or training to do so.
Where Can I Make an Infographic?
This is one of those rare occasions where I am actually going to suggest that you buy a lifetime license to software. But, as always I am going to share a good number of websites that offer free usage and also upgraded plans that are more robust.
infograpia.com This site is simply awesome for infographics. It does cost $49 for a lifetime of usage which includes all updates as they are added, but it is so worth it. There are tons of templates which you can control the elements to make it distinctly your own. You import the template you want to work on into your presentation program (Powerpoint, Keynote and Google Slides) and just edit the colors, text and other elements. Once you are satisfied with your infographic, you simply export it as a .jpeg to a folder on your hard drive. You can then insert it into an article, use it on social media or do anything else you would like with it. It is really easy to use and will make your infographics professional and engaging.
visme.com This is a free website where you can create infographics from a wide assortment of templates. Once you join Visme you can log onto the site, click “Create” and you will be presented with a ton of templates. Once you find the one that you think would be good for your project you simply click on “edit” and you are off and running. While the free access is OK they do offer three different upgrade programs that start at a monthly charge of $25 per month.
canva.com Everyone should know about Canva by this time. It is one of the best free graphic tools out there. While you can easily create posters, logos, memes and other business graphics, Canva has a robust infographics capability. Just click on the infographics link and you are given hundreds of infographic templates to choose from. All you have to do is click on one of the templates and start editing. And, once again while the free access is OK, upgrading to CanvaPro cost roughly $119 which many people feel is quite worth it.
snappa.com Snappa’s free level is robust and the only real difference between the free level and paid level ($15 per month) is the number of downloads you can make during a month. It is super easy to do and offers a surprising number of templates and other assets for your use. While Snappa’s infographic capabilities are impressive, it also offers and excellent selection of social media templates that you can use to create graphics for your social media posts.
easel.ly Easel is another easy to use infographic maker. Just pick a template and edit it using easel’s library of icons, charts, illustrations and images. You can then download the infographic in a good number of extensions and also as embed code. They offer both a free platform and a paid, however the business usage platform is only $5 per month and includes unlimited downloads and usage of their site.
animaker.com We included amimaker in case anyone wants to start playing around with intermediate level creation of animated infographics. This site offers a free version, but I wouldn’t use it unless you are getting into creating infographics and other digital content that uses animation such as explainer videos and such. The paid version costs $19 per month.
biteable.com This is a really cool site if you are interested in creating stunning video infographics. While it has a free platform it is very limited and is used to get you to buy a premium membership, which may be well worth it once you see how easy it is to create engaging video infographics for social media.
While there are dozens more (just Google “Sites like infograpia.com”) these pretty much run the gamut from super easy to operate to the more sophisticated. But, rest assured that you can create compelling infographics using any one of these sites.