Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
An infographic is among the most common and effective forms of content on the Internet. Who hasn’t seen a visual containing data regarding a specific topic? Today, I’ll show you how to make an infographic for free to put onto your blog.
In reality, you can use these visual elements pretty much anywhere you want nowadays. In fact, I’ve seen a few in Pinterest to help market a product.
What is an Infographic?
An infographic is a visual element that displays images and data in a very easy-to-follow layout. The infographic will usually have minimal text relying mostly on graphics to engage the audience.
As humans are often more responsive to visual stimuli, infographics work exceptionally well in a variety of circumstances.
Bear in mind that 90% of the information the brain processes is visual input. And humans are tens of thousands of times more likely to remember visual input over text.
This means that infographics will probably play a big part in content marketing on the Internet for years to come.
How to Build Your Own Infographic for Free
You don’t need to have the best graphic design skills when it comes to setting up an infographic. In fact, some tools on the Internet take a lot of the work out of the design process.
Today, I’ll show you how to use the free version of Canva. It’s one of my favorite apps and can help you create a myriad of images for virtually any online purpose.
1. Outline Your Idea and What You Want to Display
What kind of an infographic do you want to create and why? Are you looking to show data points for specific topics? Perhaps you want to show quick snippets of information.
For this tutorial, let’s say that I want to create an Infographic about WordPress and why I love using it. I want to show maybe a handful of statistics that demonstrate how prolific the platform is on the Internet.
2. Collect the Data or Information
This is probably the most difficult part of setting up an infographic. I know when I create them for clients, the data collection aspect takes an incredible amount of time…more than it takes to write an entire blog post.
You want data from reputable and factual sources. So, it’s a good idea to scrutinize claims to make sure they are valid. This often means traveling down a rabbit hole of backlinks to discover the source of the information.
Make sure you keep the address of pages you pull information from so you can cite them later on.
3. Make the Visuals in the Free Version of Canva
It’s probably a good idea to create a free account with Canva. This way, your infographic is saved if you need to make adjustments. But, it’s not a requirement.
You can still use this tool without creating an account or logging in. You just have access to a lot more fun tools.
Open Infographics
Today, we’re going to use a free template for the infographic. Canva has a ton of premium images and add-ons, but we can still create something nice without paying.
Search for “infographic” in the search bar of Canva.
As you’ll see, Canva has a variety of template themes to use, such as educational or even charity. For this tutorial, I’m going to keep it basic and just click “infographic.”
Choose the Basic Layout
You can pick any of the infographic templates on the next screen. The premium layouts are the ones with little dollar signs in the bottom right corners.
If you hover your mouse over the images, it’ll change to say “paid” or “free.” You can also change the filter to just show just the free templates.
Find and click a template you want to use.
This will open Canva’s editor.
Edit the Elements
Ok, here is where we get creative. You can double-click into any element within the infographic to change its data, text, colors, format, and more.
For instance, I am changing the text at the top of the template to read, “Why I Prefer to Use WordPress.”
To change a data point, double-click into it and use the available options.
Let’s say I want to show how WordPress makes up 41.3% of all websites on the Internet…according to W3Techs.com. I double-click into the people image, change the icons, and adjust the filters accordingly.
I’m also going to change the red color to more of a WordPress light blue to give it some visual context.
Zooming in for More Control
OK, now I want to change some text, but it’s very small to read. Use the zoom slider to move in closer to your infographic.
Now, I can make the text changes easily.
Deleting Things You Don’t Want
OK, what if I don’t want that quote in the middle of my infographic? Click to select an element and hit the “delete” key on your keyboard.
4. Cite Your Sources
There are a couple of ways you can cite your sources. A lot of people will include the URLs of where they got the information in the infographic itself.
You can also include them in a blog post if that is where you plan on placing your new image.
Personally, I do both. This way, if I decide to share the image on something like Pinterest or Instagram, viewers can see that I’m actually using verifiable information within the image.
5. Download or Share Your Infographic
After making all the modifications you want, you’re ready to download or share the image.
Download the Image
Let’s download the infographic so we can add it to our website. Click the download icon from the top bar.
Use the dropdown and select the type of file you want to save.
In this tutorial, I’m going to use a JPG in my blog post.
If you pay for the premium version of Canva, you’d be able to change the file size as well as other options depending on the file type you choose.
Click the “Download” button.
Canva will then render your image accordingly and allow you to download the file to your computer. If your computer is set up to download files automatically, it should be located in your “Downloads” folder.
Personally, I have Chrome set to ask me where I want my file saved. Either way, you’ll now have your image that you can add to your blog post or page.
And here is the finished product:
It’s not very extravagant, but you get the picture…no pun intended. This is an example of an infographic made with Canva.
You can fill the infographic template with as much data as you can fit to really drive home a point you’re trying to make.
Sharing Your Image
This is one of the reasons why I suggest using a free account on Canva. The system will let you share your images across a wide scope of social accounts and Cloud storage platforms.
Click the 3-dot icon on the right.
From here, you can select what platform you want for sharing the infographic. Let’s say I want to share it on Twitter.
If you haven’t connected a social account to your Canva profile, the connection option will launch.
Depending on the social platform, it could be a quick and easy process. For example, Twitter just authorizes Canva in a popup window.
Once Cava is authorized to post to your social site of choice, enter the message and click “Publish” to send.
Canva will then share it on your social media feed.
And yes, I know that I misspelled “your” in the tweet. It happens…
Awesome Ideas to Market Your Infographic
Canva has a lot of functionality when it comes to marketing. And I am actually going to put more effort in the future to take advantage of what it has to offer.
For instance, you can use the infographic to:
- Accentuate a blog post. Even just a short visual can work wonders to engage an audience.
- Engage Twitter users using the proper hashtags and mentions. In fact, I got one follower already just from sharing the above infographic.
- Update your Pinterest Pins board.
- Create a presentation for the data.
- Update your LinkedIn profile or page with a nice data visual.
- Embed the image directly to WordPress or Medium, depending on what blogging platform you choose.
Are Infographics Still as Effective Today?
Remember, humans are a visual species. There are just some forms of content that are going to work regardless of time or trend. This is why video content is continuing to grow at a very rapid pace.
An infographic can be used to vastly improve understanding, engage an audience, draw attention to a brand, or entertain the viewer.
Thanks to tools like Canva, it’s very easy to make your own. The hardest part of the entire process is spending the time to collect the data.
Issues I Came Across in This Tutorial
I always like to let readers know of any issues I came across while setting up a tutorial. This way, you can see how I fixed my specific problem to get the tutorial to work.
Keep in mind, this was from my own personal experience. As every website is different, you may not have any issues depending on your site’s configuration.
Infographic Sizes in Free Account
When you use the free account and infographic templates, you’re unable to change its overall size. So, you’ll need to either upgrade your account to resize the image or fit everything you want in the 800 x 2000 px layout.
Unable to Upload File to WordPress
When trying to upload the image to WordPress, I kept getting an error that the file was too large or the server was too busy. However, the file was still saved into the media library of WordPress.
What I had to do was save the post, leave, and then come back in to edit. After that, the image was available in the Gutenberg editor.
Hopefully, this is a temporary problem.
Accentuate Your Blog with Visuals
Although I highlighted Canva as a great infographic creator, there are plenty on the Internet to choose from. Find one that is easy for you to use and boost the engagement rate of your blog posts.
Who knows, you may find creating infographics fun. I know I do. I just wish I had more time to pump out a lot more of them.
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