How to Make Beautiful Infographics for Your Blog
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Content has become the secret weapon of startups and small businesses on the web. It’s a great way to engage readers, offer value, and create loyalty at the same time. That’s why having a balanced, well-planned, engaging content strategy is a must.
Infographics are only a part of the process, but they can be a great tool in your content marketing toolbelt. We had the pleasure of speaking with Will Blunt, founder of Blogger Sidekick and regular contributor to high profile sites like BlueWireMedia, about blogging, infographics, and how they work together to help businesses grow and achieve their goals.
Why Infographics Are Important For Blogging
According to Blunt, there are “a few reasons why infographics can be important tools to create engagement”. First, on a basic human level, visuals naturally increase engagement.
“It’s a proven model,” said Blunt. “Pinterest is the fastest growing social network, and other platforms like Google+ and Facebook are prioritizing visuals as they get more shares. People love to consume content visually, and infographics are a really good way to leverage that.”
Second, Blunt said that infographics speak to different senses: “Not everyone likes audio or video”. Few people watch/read/listen to everything they find on the web. The more forms of content you can create, the greater the audience you can build as you’ll be able to target different people with different preferences.
On top of that, infographics are one of the best tools for getting backlinks to your website. These backlinks can help you rank better for your preferred search terms and increase your search engine traffic.
There are two main approaches for this. The first options, after creating a beautiful infographic, is to wait for organic traffic, links, and shares to come. It’s not the best idea, but it might work.
“The second tactic is called guestographics, and it was popularized by Brian Dean from Backlinko,” said Blunt. It consists of pitching the infographic via email or social networks to selected industry blogs. You simply offer them the opportunity to post infographics on their site with a personal introduction from you. It looks like the infographic was created by them, but they link back to your site. It’s a win-win.
Finally, it’s all about maximizing efforts, or as Blunt put it, “don’t waste any content”. One of Blunt’s preferred growth tactics is to guest blog on already established platforms like Hubspot.
“If I’m putting a lot of effort into creating content for someone else, why not take advantage of it?” he said. Being able to repurpose that post into another form of content and being able to distribute it on your own blog or on someone else’s will save you a ton of time. “It takes that invested effort and allows me to leverage it into other forms of growth.”
“This process works,” said Blunt. “The first infographic I created has the most amount of backlinks to the site and the most amount of shares on Google+”.
Creating An Infographic From A Blogpost: A Step By Step Rundown
Now that we know why it’s important to repurpose content into beautiful infographics and how to leverage those designs to maximize growth and engagement, let’s go through a detailed rundown of the process:
- The first step is writing a well-researched post. This is the foundation that your infographic will be built upon. If the blogpost is weak, then chances are your infographic will be, too. Blunt uses his Shake n’ Bake method.
- Now that you have an eye-opening blogpost, it’s time to turn it into an outline. The idea is that you should break it down into sections that work as an infographic.
- Now go out there and find beautiful designs that inspire you. Blunt loves Quicksprout from Neil Patel, and you’ll find some useful resources in this post.
- The fourth and final step is actually creating the infographic. “First, you should familiarize yourself with Piktochart, then start by mapping out the infographic on a piece of paper and translating into the actual design,” suggested Blunt.
It’s important to note that the bulk of the process happens before the infographic design. Blunt said that “there is quite a lot of work done before you actually sit down to design the infographic.”
Overcoming The Biggest Challenge
Before talking to Blunt, I would’ve guessed that his biggest challenge was of a technical nature. Something like not being able to use a design tool, or simply having a lack of graphic design skills due to his marketing background.
I was pleasantly surprised when he said that his biggest challenge was the assumption that it was going to be hard. “For a long time, I didn’t make an infographic because I didn’t have a design background. The biggest challenge was breaking down that assumption and actually doing it,” explained Blunt.
Overcomplicating a simple process is a common mistake. When starting with infographics, your mind starts rumbling about all the research and data you’ll need before starting out. “Actually, writing a lengthy, well-developed post (or other form of content) is enough. Putting it into an infographic form is perfect. It’s easy to overcomplicate what needs to be done instead of just doing it.”
The #1 Tip For First-Timers
If anyone can give you advice on how to design an infographic with no design background whatsoever, it’s Will Blunt. He said it’s “a trial and error process”, and I firmly believe he is correct. “It’s like any skill, like blogging or podcasting or whatever you do in terms of content creation. The more you do it, the more you refine the process, and the better you’ll be at producing high quality stuff. It’s all trial and error.”
For more tips on infographic design, along with some advice on how visual storytelling can improve your skills as a designer, marketer, and educator, check out our blog at http://piktochart.com/blog.
