You know you need visuals for your growing publication. You’re just not sure how to create them in a timely, cost-efficient, and headache-less way.
That’s why free tools and resources are so important. Luckily for publishers who need to boost their blog posts with images, videos, and GIFs—they’re also plentiful across the web.
To help, we’re breaking down why visuals are so important for your burgeoning site, and outlining 10 free tools you can use to start creating them right now.
Why Visuals Are So Important
Just as text-based content can inform, educate, and entertain your readers, visuals can do the same. On top of that, they can also catch a reader’s eye and make information easier to digest and share.
According to Social Media Today, it takes 60 seconds to read 200-250 words and only 1/10 of a second to register an image. Websites containing images also drive 47% higher clickthrough rates than those without them.
Additionally, Hubspot found that the top content consumers want to see from brands are videos, newsletters, and social images. And, according to Cisco, videos will be responsible for 82% of all global internet traffic by 2021.
Evidently, visuals aren’t just nice to look at. They’re also powerful tools for optimizing audience engagement and content delivery.
10 Free Tools and Resources for Creating Visuals
Use these 10 free tools to start creating visuals that reel audiences in and keep them on your site.
1. Canva
(Source: Canva)
Canva is one of the most popular free design platforms for creating graphics of all kinds. Choose templates for anything from infographics and YouTube intro slides to email newsletters and website banners. Also, select ready-made images and illustrations from Canva’s library.
2. Piktochart
(Source: Piktochart)
Piktochart‘s collaborative design platforms allows you to work with team members on building brand assets, presentations, and social graphics from one place. They even have solutions specifically built for brands in marketing, human resources, healthcare, and finance.
3. Adobe Spark
(Source: Adobe Spark)
Adobe Spark is a free resource for creating high-quality, eye-catching social graphics, web pages, and videos in minutes. Spark platforms are also available as iPhone and Android apps so you can build and edit visuals from your mobile devices.
4. PicMonkey
(Source: PicMonkey)
PicMonkey is a photo editing, graphic design, and collage tool for boosting your visual creative efforts. The platform offers over 8,000 graphics and textures, hundreds of fonts, thousands of templates, and millions of stock photos for customizing your digital creations.
5. Animoto
(Source: Animoto)
Animoto is a DIY video-making platform, allowing anyone to build their own mini movies and animations with an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop system. Just choose a storyboard template, add photos and clips, customize assets to match your brand, and share your video.
6. Pixlr
(Source: Pixlr)
Pixlr is an Adobe Photoshop-inspired photo editor that uses AI-powered tools and machine learning to help you make clean, professional edits without breaking the bank. Pixlr is compatible with a range of different file formats, including PSD, JPEG, WebP, and PNG.
7. Lumen5
(Source: Lumen5)
Lumen5 is a social video-making tool that turns your existing visual and audio assets into engaging videos. If you’re starting from scratch, you can also choose from Lumen5’s media library of clips, photos, music, fonts, and themes to help tell your story.
8. GIFs
(Source: GIFs)
GIFs lets you make, well…GIFs by trimming and cropping video clips, inserting animations and captions, and adding filters. Their automated highlight algorithm even finds the best part of your video so you know exactly which frames to use for your new visual asset.
9. Visme
(Source: Visme)
Visme is a cloud-based visual content creation platform, built to help brands and business design their own presentations, graphics, and videos for free. Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced designer, you can use Visme’s tools to create, manage, and share your visual communications.
10. Venngage
(Source: Venngage)
Venngage is a free infographic maker that lets you transform your data and information into digestible graphics in three easy steps. Just choose an infographic template, add charts, icons, and text, and customize your design with on-brand fonts and colors.
11. VEED
(Source: VEED)
Visualize Your Site’s Success
When you’re building a publication from scratch, you have a couple of key priorities—namely, generating revenue and growing an engaged community. You don’t exactly have the time to sit down and create a high-quality infographic, or the budget to pay a filmmaker to create a marketing video.
Free tools and resources can help. With these platforms at your fingertips, you can fill your website with rich, high-quality, visual content that captivates your audience and motivates them share with others. So you can get back to running your business and growing your publication.