Did you know that 25 percent of all online time is now spent using social media sites? Many businesses are looking for ways to engage their consumers more using social networks. Infographics are a great way to not only engage consumers, but also generate more web traffic, link building, and content sharing.

There are a lot of advantages to using great infographics on your site, and there are a lot of infographic creator websites that can help you out. However, there are a lot of disadvantages to having a bad infographic as well. Not only will it fail to help you accomplish your web visibility goals, but it can also convey to readers that your company is boring, outdated, or even unprofessional. Here are three things you should avoid doing when you make infographics.

One.
Your infographic is not a sales pitch, and this is one of the top amateur mistakes. Take a careful look at some of the top online infographics. You will see that they are not, for the most part, regurgitated ad copy. Instead, they are a visual representation of interesting and timely data. Part of the new age of advertising online is engaging people with content, rather than with Trust Me, Buy Me sales noise they have learned to tune out.

Two.
When you use a free infographic tool, do not load down your infographic with heavy paragraphs and reams of text. The point is to visually represent data, not add a picture or two to paragraphs of words. Focus on using your infographic creator to illustrate important points about your industry, company or consumers by representing this data as a visual story that can be easily understood with few words.

Three.
Make sure your infographic is designed well and is easy on the eyes. When you use an online infographic creator, limit yourself to one or two easy to read fonts, use generous amounts of white or free space around your images and text, and create a visual flow line for the eye to follow. Use colors and shapes strategically to help your infographic stay uniform in appearance, rather than look like four graphs and a title you threw together while blindfolded.