Infographics Business People Need to Know

Business person in a suit carrying a laptop bag and heading towards city center with lots of people and signs

You might have noticed that over the past decade I’ve never embedded infographics on this blog here.

You might consider that to be paradoxical for someone like me who attempts to be ahead of the game. Why would I ignore such a huge content trend?

Aren’t infographics one of the best ways to display large amounts of information in an easily digestible format? I did it on purpose.

 

Does it make sense to republish infographics?

Why or why not to republish infographics? You can download them from the source and upload them to your blog. That’s a major advantage. This way you are in control of the image.

Yet most infographics are very big both pixel-wise and also considering the file size. Last but not least they get displayed elsewhere, you just reproduce the content.

Sometimes dozens of sites feature the same graphic. I prefer unique content not “me too” one.

The only way to provide some value aside of republishing the same image others already did is to provide some context.

Many bloggers add value by explaining and elaborating on the information that is visualized on the infographic itself.

Here I’d like to provide even more value by curating infographics that are helpful for business people in general.

Make sure to click the links, the small images I cut out aren’t the actual infographics!

 

Design Best Practices

design-best-practices

Many business people still get their website design wrong. They rather create sites to impress and try to make them look amazing and flashy instead of being useful and consistent. Then

marketers end up breaking the websites for good by adding pop-up overlays and other obnoxious push strategies.

There are just a small number of design guidelines and best practices to take into account yet most people apparently don’t know them.

This simple infographic covers design best practices in an easily digestible way. Don’t “make the logo bigger”! Make the website as a whole more usable and useful in the first place.

Things like typography, negative space or simplicity get neglected on many websites to this day. Yet these things are more important than

  • flashy animations
  • the latest trends
  • huge “content shock” articles

that annoy, distract or even overwhelm visitors. Less is more usually when it comes to business websites.

 

Local Search

local-search

How do people find local businesses? Do they even use search engines? It seems just over 1/3 really do.

This infographic shows multiple unique business insights for all those having brick and mortar stores of local relevance.

It’s astounding how complex the customer journey actually is and how many decisions are made along the way.

It’s better to know these stats to be able to adapt your website and offer accordingly. Local search is not necessarily what you’d expect it to be.

Apparently it’s also much more difficult to locate a business in your neighborhood than it sounds.

 

Hosting Types

webhosting-types

Website hosting is sometimes a “get and forget” decision for businesses. Once the website is up and running somewhere it’s also difficult to move to another hosting provider.

Thus you need to sit back and consider the manifold options thoroughly before you actually builda website for the next few years. Ask yourself a few of these questions:

  • Is so called shared hosting really enough or do you plan for growth?
  • How much could a slow loading site cost you due to lost business?
  • Do you also build for traffic spikes in the future?
  • Will your business always be small or mid-sized?
  • Are you prepared for your content to “go viral”?

In short: when you want to be prepared for growth you shard hosting won’t suffice. When your site is more of a business card it will be perfectly sufficient though.

Content rich and ecommerce websites need at least VPS or cloud hosting. Having your own dedicated server is the best solution but also the most expensive one.

You also need to have some expertise to be able to deal with such a high-end solution. Having a Linux-nerd who loves networks in your team might be beneficial then.

 

Engaging Website

engaging-website

Building and optimizing a website for engagement is simple it seems yet most businesses get it wrong nonetheless.

An engaging website looks simple because it has been simplified on purpose leaving only the elements that are truly important for the user.

You can encourage engagement by many means, some of the most popular are

  • easy to follow navigation
  • clear calls to action
  • a simple layout without distractions
  • lots of white space
  • readable fonts and font sizes
  • eye catching colors

These are just common sense measures! Why do we still have to recommend them?

 

Colors in Branding

colors-branding

You might have seen this infographic already in a branding 101. I’m not claiming to be the first one to have seen it. I don’t even like it really.

This “color emotion guide” is just an evergreen classic every business person needs to know.

Even though some of the logos have already been redesigned – think Google – it still shows how color usage affects the brand image with lots of examples everybody has seen already in the wild.

 

Cloud Fax

fax-1985-2016

Do you remember fax? Yes, some people in office environments not only memorized it but still have to use it on a daily basis.

Faxing things is an annoyance to put it mildly. It’s a waste of paper and only shows your lack of trust. Why send a fax when you have “electronic” mail?

OK, there still are reasons to send a fax.

Why not combine modern technology with the trust-inducing haptic experience of paper? Indeed there are contemporary fax tools!

They allow sending fax messages without even the need for a fax machine anymore. That’s real progress, isn’t it?

 

Office Health

office-health

A sedentary lifestyle as encountered in the typical office setting can be very detrimental to your overall health and well-being.

One way to tackle sitting-related health issues to provide proper office equipment. Especially the office chairs and desks play a major role in office worker satisfaction.

Otherwise you can expect a wide-range of symptoms. Many common issues and workplace induced ailments are

  • eye strain
  • fatigue
  • back and neck pain

Do they sound familiar? You may have to fix your office setup and invest in proper furniture.

The more flexible and often expensive the office furniture the higher the productivity. It’s as simple as that. Don’t save money on the people who work for you.

Saving at the wrong end and ruining the health of your workforce will backfire sooner or later. People will either leave or work less efficiently.

 

Website Viewing

people-website

You’d be surprised how people view your site. Most people don’t even read your content. The majority bounces right off.

Many first time visitors will judge based on your website design and user experience.

You have not even 3 seconds to convince people to stay on your site!

Only roughly one  fifth of visitors will scroll down to the actual website footer. There are even more crucial insights like these in the infographic. I can’t paraphrase them all in a few lines of text.

 

 

Why did I choose these infographics?

The infographics I selected can benefit businesses of all sizes. In fact all business people should be aware of them. They explain things you just need to know when you are a business person in the Internet era.

They can help freelancers as much as CEOs. Over the recent months I’ve encountered several infographics I’d like to share with you.

These infographics can improve all kinds of aspects of your business. Some of them are new while others are still relevant despite having been published a while ago.

Most of the infographics are evergreen or even all-time classics. The numbers they visualize may have changed a bit but the overall message is timeless.

Some of these infographics provide excellent overviews on topics that matter to most of us yet are barely known.

In order not to clog your mobile connection with numerous huge image files I decided to just show a partial screenshot of each infographic.

I link to the actual source or the page I’ve found the infographic at. Just click through to see them. Make sure to report broken links in case they don’t work anymore.

You can also suggest additional infographics in the comment section! Please don’t just promote yourself and your content though. Make sure they fit in here.

Last updated: September 15th, 2017.