Unless you have been living in a cave somewhere, the odds are good that you’ve seen infographics somewhere. These are basically a combination of graphics and text which makes it easier to get across specific ideas to your visitors. However, while these are relatively useful ways to get your customers involved, people also tend to think of them as being rather expensive to make. They think that you need to use something like Photoshop to create an infographic and that it should cost hundreds if not thousands to make one. Well once upon a time, that might have been true. Today though, there are a number of services that will let you make them free or for very little money:
PiktoChart
Probably the best known and easiest system to use is Piktochart. This online only product allows you to create infographics by using readymade templates that they have available on their site. You simply choose which template to use and then enter information.
Visual.ly
Similar to Pikotchart, Visua.ly is an online tool designed to allow you to use various templates to create your very own infographics. Their selection of templates is not nearly as extensive as what is available on Piktochart, however the free option is more generous than that which Piktochart has to offer.
Infogra.am
Finally, Infogr.am is the newest player in this business, also offering the template based approach to create infographics. The service has been around for less than a year but does seem to be gaining steam as a very popular choice for using templates.
Hohli Charts
For those who just want a bit of help with creating the charts needed in an infographic but who will otherwise use a traditional image editor like Photoshop, Hohli Charts makes it easy to organize data into charts which can then be pasted into your infographics. You do need to create your own basic templates though.
Google Charts
This is a different take on the whole concept of an infographic. Instead of a single graphic image which people look at on your site, Google Charts allows you to create charts which you can then format text and other graphics around. The charts are displayed off of Google’s cloud service.
Pixlr
Finally, tying together these other tools is Pixlr which is sometimes called the free online version of Adobe Photoshop. It is in truth nowhere near as powerful as Photoshop. However, for the purposes of creating infographics for your website, it should work just fine.
One Thing to Keep In Mind
One thing to keep in mind with all of these tools though is that you still need a bit of graphic design knowledge, not to mention research abilities to create the infographics. While these services certainly make it easier without the need to use something as powerful and full featured as Photoshop, they do require a certain amount of effort on your part. If you are not sure how to create these things, consider hiring a pro and telling them to use these tools to make your infographic. This will give you something you can easily tweak on your own once they’re done with the basic job.