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Infographics are one of the most important content marketing forms today.  Many readers want simpler ways to understand numbers and data, more visual ways to follow instructions, and more interesting ways to learn about serious topics.      

Making effective infographics is not just making any visual content.  Especially now that infographics can be found in so many websites, you have to make sure your infographic will stand out with relevant information, understandable layout, and attention-grabbing design.

How do you plan for an effective infographic design?

While we are talking about infographics, the best way to show you how to plan an effective infographic design is through an infographic itself.   Below is an infographic made by Visme on how you can plan your infographic design in 9 easy steps.

Let me just explain the above steps quickly:

Step 1: Identify your target audience

Who are you making the infographic for? This should be the first thing you need to answer.  Infographics should not be generic and should not be for all people.  Instead, they should be specific and relevant for a target audience.  Identifying your audience and knowing what they want can help you design an effective infographic. This way, it would be easier for you to set the details of your infographic, such as the tone, the dimensions, the colors, etc. while still being consistent with your brand.   

Step 2: Define your infographic goals and objectives

The next thing you need to do is to identify your goal for your infographic.  What do you want to do with your content? Do you want to give an overview of a certain topic, summarize a long article, explain a complex process, display findings or data?  Defining your goals can help you find a proper template or make a proper design for your infographic. 

Step 3: Choose your topic

The third step in making an effective infographic is to choose a topic.  The topic should be relevant to your target audience and must be focused on a single topic.  An infographic is not a bin where you throw all your information and numbers just for sake of creating an informative presentation.  There must be a sense of focus and simplicity, without missing out on the important details. 

Step 4: Gather reliable and up-to-date information

Effective infographics are factual, current, and trustworthy.   When you gather information, you must make sure that they are from trusted sources and are up-to-date.  Especially when you have a lot of numbers and statistics in your infographic, be sure to double-check their authenticity and accuracy. 

Step 5: Cite your sources

As you gather your information, be sure to note down your sources.  You would need to cite them in your infographic.  You can cite your sources towards the end of your infographic or in the body, as long as it does not interrupt the flow of your presentation.

Step 6: Determine how to visualize your data

Before you make your infographic layout, you need to decide how to visualize your data.  You can visualize your data in different ways.  You can use flowcharts for simplifying a process; you can use charts, tables, graphs, and Venn diagrams for different statistics and comparisons; and use different icons for visualizing other information. 

Step 7: Set the tone for your infographic

The tone of your presentation is another thing you need to decide on.  You can have it in a friendly, fun, humorous, academic, or a more serious tone.  The tone will depend on the information you want to relay, the target audience of your infographic, and your business brand. 

Step 8: Write the copy and create a textual outline

This step involves the texts that will go with your visuals.  You arrange your texts into sections and write them in short, concise sentences or phrases that are easy to read and understand.  The sections must be streamlined and consistent with your tone. 

Step 9: Sketch a wireframe of your infographic

Now that you have everything set – from tone, to text, to visuals, you can now make a wireframe for your infographic.  You can simply use your pen and paper, a whiteboard, a wireframing software, or use Illustrator or Word. 

Make a skeleton of how you want to organize your infographic. Consider the text sections and visuals that you have and see how you can put them in place. 

Now that you have planned your infographic, you can proceed with designing your infographic.  You can do the designing yourself using templates or hire a visual artist.

What are other tips on making effective infographics?

Making an effective infographic depends on how you plan, design, and execute it.   Here are more tips you can consider to ensure you are doing the right thing:

Keep it simple

Effective infographics are not only informative, but also clear and easy to understand.  There is no better way to keep it that way than being simple and clutter-free.  Keep your sentences or phrases concise and avoid using too much visuals.

Maintain balance between visuals and texts

Too many words and lacking in visuals do not make good infographics – they’re boring.  Too many visuals and very limited text are also not the right way to do it – they may not be informative enough.  Effective infographics must possess a balance between visuals and texts.  They must be visually appealing yet informative.     

Make it easy to read and view

In designing your infographic, you need to make sure that is easy on the eyes of the viewer.  Ensure that the smallest font is readable.  The size of your font must balance with the size of your visuals. 

Remember to also add white space when laying out your infographic.  The white space will make your infographic easier to read, comprehend, and follow.  White space around a text or visual can also help highlight that object.   

Don’t make your infographic too long

If you make your infographic too long, you will lose the interest of your readers.  Make sure the length is just enough to convey your message and keep your readers’ attention.  This is also the reason why it’s important to choose a specific and focused topic, so that you won’t have to contain a lot of information in one infographic.    

Make a powerful headline

To make effective infographics, you must have powerful headlines – attention-grabbing and relevant.  Make sure your title really describes what your infographic is all about in the most interesting way possible to grab the reader’s attention.           

Focus on the flow

Infographics are like stories.  Make sure the flow of your content is seamless and sequentially laid out without missing major points.      

Animate your infographics

If you are hiring a visual artist or you know how to do it yourself, you can consider animating your visuals.  This will make your content more visually appealing and engaging. 

Follow infographic best practices

One of the best ways to make effective infographics is to follow best practices.  Find good examples and see how you can improve your infographic. 

Promote

Your infographic cannot reach your target audience if you do not promote it.  Especially if you do not have many subscribers yet, promoting your content through different platforms is crucial.  You can request users to share your infographic or have it featured in other sources.  Be sure to also make your infographic shareable with social plugins so it can have the potential to go viral.

Making effective infographics can be intimidating to think about, but as long as you follow the tips we shared with you, we are confident you can do it well. 

Sources:

You should remember that content marketing doesn’t stop the moment you post your content and make it available to the public. It is a continuous process that entails a number of follow-ups and assessments. You have to look back on your content and check its engagements. Failing to assess your analytics would only leave you behind.

With insufficient knowledge on the ins and outs of content creation, all your marketing efforts could be pointless.

Below are the common questions that content marketers like you should consider:

1. How do we know if content is driving conversions?
2. How can we discover content gaps in our strategy?
3. How much of our content do people read?
4. How do we know the best time and day for us to publish content?
5. How can we tell how people are interacting with our content?
6. How can we see who is reading our content?

Find out the answers here: https://www.webfx.com/blog/marketing/content-marketing-analytics/

4 Critical Dos and Don’ts of Web Content Writing and Editing

The world of the web can be very promising. In fact, it is the perfect platform for every brand to easily market, sell, and engage with their audience. However, with its great power should come great responsibility. Anyone who posts anything online are held accountable for their every action. And as a content marketer, you better use your influence right.

How?

Check out these critical dos and don’ts that you must remember:

Don’t

1. Be boring
2. Beat around the bush
3. Plagiarize
4. Produce content without proofreading

Do

1. Be clear
2. Avoid unnecessary points
3. Experiment with different content ideas
4. Research well

Read the full article here: https://expresswriters.com/dos-and-donts-of-content-writing/

Page Title Writing Best Practices

Google’s New Page Title Writing Best Practices

Google revised its recommended practices for writing page titles, including avoiding substituting your titles in search results.

In August, Google altered how page titles are created in search results.

Google has released an upgrade that would replace some page names in SERPs with more “readable and accessible,” affecting less than 20% of page titles. Though it’s feasible that number will drop even further if websites begin to implement Google’s new recommendations.

Google’s best practices for creating titles are as follows:

• Ensure that each page on your site has its unique title in the <title> element.
• Make each page’s title distinctive and avoid using boilerplate content.
• Keep titles short and avoid text that is too long.
• For the main page, use meaningful titles instead of ambiguous words like “Home.”
• Don’t repeat material in titles to stuff them with keywords.
• When it’s acceptable, include the name of your website at the front of your titles. The home page, for example, might be an excellent place to start. It isn’t required on every page.

Read more: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-title-links/422926

With over a million content swirling around the net, it may seem quite impossible to create a one of a kind content that can stand out from the rest.

How do you solve this, then?

Simple. Don’t give up without trying.

Whether you want to simply build your blog, or you want to amplify your content marketing strategies, consider the following factors:

1. Posting frequency. Too much or too less number of posts can impact your site’s traffic so much, you have no idea. To be safe, try posting at least three to four times a week, as to not annoy your audience, nor leave them waiting for nothing.
2. Be cohesive. The simpler the better. Know that time is gold. Don’t bore your readers with too many useless flowery words. To give them the most value in a short period, aim for about 300 to 500 words only per post.
3. Engagement. Encourage discussions and stimulate comments as much as possible. Give them questions to ponder on.
4. Be you(nique). Your brand’s uniqueness is what can make you stand out. Be honest, and let your readers grow with you.
5. Make your content shareable. Let readers share your content with others through emails or even their social media accounts. This will allow your content to reach a bigger audience, and enforce heavier traffic back to your site.

Read more about the five ways to attract more readers to your blog

As you welcome a new Monday to start the week, you better welcome it with gusto. Cut off the worries circling around being out of fun and engaging content ideas because now, this article is here to help you out. In fact, this might just be your saving grace. Interested to learn more about how to create content for your Facebook page and/or blog? Read on.

In this article, you’ll learn more about the following:

• Shaping the basics
• Coming up with good content
• Analyzing success
• Final tips

Shaping the basics

Before curating your content, it is important to define your basics. To guide you with this, check the golden circle introduced by Simon Sinek.

STEP 1: Know your goal

Your core must be your WHY. It is important to define your ultimate goal before anything else. Know that this is the heart of your whole content. Thus, the more defined your goal is, the stronger success awaits for you—along with consistency, of course.

STEP 2: Research about your target market

When creating your every content, you have to specifically design it in a manner that would benefit and focus on your target market. Before planning your HOW, research more about your target audience—their interests, activities, etc. Knowing your demographics would make things a lot smoother.

STEP 3: Plan your schedule

Having your own content calendar allows you to not just stay organized but as well as help trace your posts easily. Moreover, it’s safe to say that planning your schedule keeps you on track, and helps ensure consistency on your end.

Coming up with good content

Now, let’s talk about what you’re really here for: content curation.

4 things that you might want to consider:

What’s hot?

First, it’s always safe to bank on relevance. Research about what’s trending, and try to create content from there. Since they’re very popular, this means that more and more people find them interesting. The thing with trends, however, is that they come and go. With this, not only should you write fast, but you also have to ensure to produce evergreen content. In other words, don’t sacrifice quality, over popularity. Sure, you can always tap on trends, but remember to integrate your core too. In this manner, you get to benefit the best of both worlds, but with caution!

Mind ticker

More often than not, people love to read about odd information. Try to research about odd topics that might pique your target market’s interests. Go for angles that are unusual, but try to avoid fake news and controversies. Know that these come and go, but a tainted reputation is hard to regain. Furthermore, although unusual content doesn’t come easy, it can be very rewarding when done right.

Facts: old or new

Facts are fuel to the brain. They’re very good as conversation starters and even as content hooks. It would be nice to research on fun facts related to your content goals and write about them. Remember to support them well and provide sources!

Hacks

Write tips, provide hacks. With a lot of things on everybody’s plate, learning about a few hacks to make things a lot easier is greatly appreciated by most—if not the whole—community. So, try providing comprehensive and engaging tips and tricks for your audience to enjoy. How to’s and step-by-step processes could work wonders!

Analyzing success

Content creation does not just stop the moment you hit save and publish, but it goes beyond that. It is important to keep track of the numbers in order to weigh things out properly. Effective analysis can do you so much in terms of ensuring engagements, determining your strengths and weaknesses, and improving your traffic.

Final tips

1. Make your content engaging. Avoid lengthy posts as much as you can.
2. Make it understandable. Avoid highfalutin words, and keep your post direct yet entertaining.
3. Don’t let pressure eat you up. Take time to rest and recover. When you feel like your words are failing you, do something else. Then, when you’re ready, get back on to writing. Remember that writing is a very complex activity with endless opportunities. Being out of topic is only but almost impossible. Expand your horizon (think), widen your reach (read), and believe in your capabilities (persevere).

If you need more enlightenment regarding content marketing, click here.

A writer’s content brief is like an architect’s blueprint. It serves as an important guide to guarantee your content’s structure and ensure that every necessary detail is addressed, tackled, and substantiated with cohesion. It is a pivotal phase of content creation that every content marketer/author must include in their writing process. After all, a well-planned content clearly shows!

What you’ll find in this article:

• What tools to use?
• How to do it in Google Doc or MS Word?
• How to do it using a tool like ContentStudio?

What tools to use?

As you write your content brief, it would be wise for you to keep in mind that part of your ultimate goal is to generate an audience and/or improve your SEO. How can you do this? You simply have to use the right keywords and/or phrases. This way, you get to amplify your content’s chance of appearing every time people ask or search about your topic. Below are a few tools that you should consider using.

Google’s People Also Ask

Google presents a useful section called “People Also Ask,” also known as related questions. Every time you search for anything in Google, this small section shows up and presents the other frequently asked questions related to your topic. In this manner, not only can you get more clarity for yourself, but you also get to know what people are looking for, and hopefully write about them too.

Google’s Keyword Planner

As mentioned, to get more traffic from Google, you have to do a keyword search. Generally, Google’s Keyword Planner is a free research tool that allows you to identify what people are finding. Moreover, it gives you two options: (1) find keywords; and (2) get search and volume forecasts. Both can be very beneficial for you when used right.

Google Autocomplete

Google autocomplete must be the most exposed tool out of the three mentioned. It is a Google feature that begins the moment you type anything in the Google search box. Its algorithm is centering on the concept of giving predictions of possible search queries and showing a drop-down list of related words or phrases. These predictions are basing on factors like popularity and freshness.

How to do it in Google Doc or MS Word?

To do it in Google Doc or MS Word, make sure to outline the following factors first: goal, SERP’s analysis, target audience, content idea, keywords, and suggested outline. To ensure easier tracking, turn all those factors as your heading 1.

Goal

First and foremost, you have to determine your goal as this will soon serve as the heart of your content. You don’t have to make it long, just be sure to be concise.

Example:

The goal is to create a top-level article that would serve as a comprehensive and in-depth guide on the topic, [topic].

This would include subtopics like [topic] in general and some subtopics related to [topic 1], [topic 2], and/or [topic 3].

SERP’s Analysis

This section must entail the top competitors for specific keywords (topic/subtopic). It would be best if you would present an URL for each competitor to give you an idea of what their content is for the given keyword.

Learn more: https://mangools.com/blog/what-is-serp-analysis-boost-keyword-research

Target Audience

This section must show all the possible audiences that you’d like to engage with your article. This would later help you specifically design your content in a manner that will best attract, hook, and benefit them.

Content Idea

Just one sentence should be enough for this section. You just have to present your content’s main idea.

Keywords

This section helps guide you in reevaluating your choice of words and/or phrases to ensure that you use relevant keywords for your niche. This is where you can make use of the three tools mentioned above.

Suggested Outline

After filling in and determining the different factors mentioned, you can now proceed to create your outline. Remember that an outline does not have to be too comprehensive. It simply has to reflect all the angles that you wish to present in the actual article. Unfortunately, there is no exact formula for this. It differs according to one’s writing style. Just be sure to have your main bullets encompass your main subtopics.

Sample guide:

• [topic 1]
  • What is [topic 1]?
    • Brief background/history
    • Demographics
  • Why is [topic 1] important?
• [topic 2]
  • What is [topic 2]?
    • Brief background/history
    • Demographics
  • Why is [topic 2] important?
• [topic 3]
  • What is [topic 3]?
    • Brief background/history
    • Demographics
  • Why is [topic 3] important?

How to do it using a tool like ContentStudio?

ContentStudio is a social media management tool that offers a number of features for your ease—from planning your content, making it, to even analyzing their reach. It is very promising, especially as you create your content briefs for your site. How? First, it offers over 12,000 topics that you can choose from and follow to get access to highly relevant content suggestions. Second, without the dire need for the three aforementioned tools, this site regularly scans through more than 4 million domains and offers a wide range of varied content. Ultimately—when used well, of course—this site can be your greatest investment!

Learn more about Content Studio:

• ContentStudio website
• ContentStudio: content curation and viral blogging platform

Are you a beginner in search engine optimization (SEO)? You may be surprised to find out that there are so many metrics out there that will measure your performance and help evaluate your strategies. If you want to monitor your performance on a regular basis in a more manageable way, you may want to just focus on the SEO metrics that really matter.

These metrics include organic traffic, clickthrough rate (CTR), bounce rate, keyword rankings, domain authority, new backlinks and referring domains, page speed, and conversions. You can learn more about them here: The 8 SEO Tracking Metrics That Really Matter

Starting a business blog? You have made a great decision! Creating a blog for your business will surely help your business grow – when you do it right.

If you don’t know how and where to begin, read The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Business Blog. You will learn a step-by-step guide on how to start a blog for your business. It begins with setting up your goals, continues with installing a blogging software, gathering your blogging team, and ends with being consistent and being patient with the results.

Read more: The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Business Blog

Rich snippets or “rich results” are simple Google search results with additional data displayed aside from the title tag, meta description, and URL. For example, restaurants or accommodation rich snippets can display star ratings. Recipes can also display the dish image, the time it takes to prepare the food, and reviews.

Using rich snippets can make a great SEO strategy. Rich results are more eye-catching and can thus give you a higher organic clickthrough rate (CTR).

Read more: Rich Snippets