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Who doesn’t love a good infographic? Wouldn’t it be awesome if creating your own infographic was easy to do? Well, in this detailed tutorial, you can learn how to do just that, so read on!

Why does anyone, specifically a blogger or a marketer, make infographics? If I’m being as transparent as possible, it’s merely a way to repurpose content that was created previously, or summarize a series of ideas and thoughts into a cohesive, visual representation. But let’s say you want to transform a 1200 word article into an infographic? You can’t include every single piece of text–you need to be selective with the words and sentences you choose. This process can be very difficult for people who are not well-versed with the art of making an infographic outline. Your troubles end here, though. This guide will break down the process for transforming one of your existing blog posts into a beautiful and useful infographic.

Understand your theme

If you’ve ever looked at infographics on Pinterest, think back to what element of the infographics drew your attention. It’s usually a combination of the color and the headline. A vibrant, colorful infographic pulls in your focus, and a catchy title gets you to click. How do you decide what color combination to use, or what the title should be? It all depends on the content of your blog post. Most individuals and companies believe that the way to go with an infographic is by matching their branding style, but what does this indicate to your audience? Well it comes off as overly self-promotional, and people immediately think that your infographic has something to do with you and not a subject that could offer them any sort of practical value. If possible, avoid using your branding colors unless your infographic is specifically about your company.

Instead, what you should do is figure out the story and theme of your infographic, and pick colors based on image triggers. An image trigger is a visual thought that results from being told, or from reading a specific word or line of text. For instance, if I told you: “The best thing about the ocean is the smell”, your image trigger will be a visual thought of a large body of water. By association, you think of the color blue.

Now let’s use a harder example. I recently wrote this article about the 4 factors of irresistible content. Those four factors are Practical Value, Entertaining, Awe-Inspiring and Credible, or P.E.A.C. for short. What is the image that comes to mind when you read/hear P.E.A.C.? It kind of looks and sounds like the word “peak”, right? Perhaps you envision the peak of a mountain? Once again, by association a mountain might remind you of earthier colors tones.

Try to pick out these little visual nuggets from your blog post content, and use them to help you decide on a theme for your infographic design.

When deciding on a title for your infographic, the instinct of most people is to choose an overly explanatory title. If I’m creating an infographic about the 4 factors of irresistible content, rather than making that my title, it can be more effective to link the theme of your design with the header. Something along the lines of Reach the “P.E.A.C.” of Irresistible Content might be more appropriate. Furthermore, try to include a strong emotion word in your title. In doing so, you have a better chance at affecting your audience viscerally. You can also try out a title idea generator to provide you with some inspiration.

Find your data points

Depending on the type of article you are transforming into an infographic, it’s a good idea to include as many data points and numerical values as possible. After all, an infographic generally (but not always) includes one or more charts.

Most blog posts, and particularly marketing blog posts, include at least one statistic. Neil Patel is notorious for opening almost every one of his posts with a hook statistic.

There are copious amounts of different types of data points. These include (and are certainly not limited to):

1. Percentages
2. Ratios
3. Surveys
4. Quantities

You can learn more about choosing the best charts for your infographic by reading the article, How to choose the best charts for your infographic.

Again, your data points can typically be almost any number, as long as it is a value that adds some sense of credibility or proof of concept. If you really don’t have any numbers in your blog post, don’t worry. Like I said, an infographic doesn’t need to have data points, they just generally do.

Picking your text

Picking out the right kind of text from your blog post is one of the most difficult parts of the transformation process. In this article from KISSmetrics, the author states that it’s important to, “use simple language and tighten your text,”. This means you should avoid copying and pasting long portions of your article. So as difficult as it may be for you to cut out the clutter and kill some of your “text babies”, if you’re not thorough your audience will quickly lose interest in your infographic. Stick to including punchy statements and strong emotional words. For example, the following line of text is far too wordy to include in an infographic. After it, two clearer rewrites are given.

Too wordy:

One best way to communicate your guidelines is by offering the rationale behind those guidelines. Rationale will be easier to relate to than an instruction, and will give content writers a clearer understanding of that kind of writing they must produce.

Much clearer:

Communicate with rationale!

OR

Rationale demands clarity.

The objective of the text you choose is to get the main idea across in as few words as possible, and in the simplest way possible.

Finally, understand that transforming a blog post into an infographic takes patience and practice. Establish what message you want your reader to take away, and how you can represent that message visually. If you can successfully accomplish this and articulate your thoughts succinctly, people will respond with positive feedback. Furthermore, if you ever have any questions about infographics and using them as a tool for your content marketing, feel free to reach out to me via twitter. I will be happy to provide you with tips and feedback!

INFOGRAPHIC: How To Transform Your Blog Post Into An Infogrpahic

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