Get Graphic! 8 Affordable Web Tools to Infuse Visuals Into Your Marketing. Websites need to be engaging visually or risk being ignored but that doesn't require adding a new line item to your budget.
By Pooja Lohana Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Increasingly, the web is awash with visuals. Wherever you turn, they are there in the form of photos, infographics or videos.
And why not? You give people what they ask for. With the advent of Big Data, many readers simply don't have the time to wade through a ton of content presented in the form of text. A study of Facebook posts found 87 percent of those that "get most action" are photos.
Given that social media is the most widely used marketing method among B2C marketers, with 63 percent believing it's effective, it only makes sense to embrace visuals in your marketing mix, if you haven't yet. It's not hard or expensive. Here eight easy-to-use tools that won't break the bank.
Related: 3 Ways to Get Graphics for Your Website
1. Visme
Visme is dubbed as the Swiss knife of visual content. It lets you create several types of visual content all under one roof without any coding necessary. You have free templates to start and create interactive infographics, presentation slides, call-to-action banners – you name it.
You can create a free account (or use Facebook for one-click login) and use Visme's free templates for your content creation. It's best known for interactive HTML5 infographics and as a PowerPoint alternative for presentations.
Price: Free for up to three projects.
2. Visual.ly
Visual.ly is both a tool to create infographics as well as a community where you can submit your infographics for designers, marketers and entrepreneurs passionate about visual content for their brand.
Price: Free to post your own or someone else's credited visuals (infographics, motion graphics and data visualizations allowed).
3. Design-Seeds
Each day, the editor at Design-seeds posts two stunning, hand-picked photos and a color palette to go with each one.
You can easily find out a HEX value by hovering your mouse on the swatch and also discover which colors look great together. Or click "Fresh Hues" on the site and search by color on the right-hand sidebar for more inspiration.
Price: Free.
Related: Oh Snap! Getty Images Makes Photos Free for Noncommercial Use
4. Google Web Fonts
To add some eye-candy to your branding materials, go to Google Web Fonts, a collection of 647 cool font families available for your marketing projects.
You can add a quick HTML and CSS code (relevant to a chosen font) to your website. The next time your page loads, it will source the new font from Google. You can also download these fonts for more design options.
Price: Free.
5. WhatTheFont
Google Web Fonts is pretty cool but what if you just can't find your "type"? Simple. The next time you see it, just take a snapshot and feed it to WhatTheFont. It'll tell you the font name and where you can find it.
WhatTheFont asked me to select the characters in the image Tip: use a shorter sentence or just one word to avoid filling many characters.
It gave me 36 options that look pretty similar to my original font (but sadly, there was no mention of Abel).
Price: Free (unless you're buying their fonts).
6. Quotes Cover
If you have a penchant for beautiful typography and want to convert them into pictures you can share on social media, Quotes Cover is an amazingly simple yet powerful tool to use.
They have a collection of quotes handy. Unlike other tools, you don't have to hunt for and add your own quotes. You can save a ton of time there and you can choose from optimum sizes for Facebook cover, G+ cover, Twitter header and more.
The editor tool is super-simple to use and gives you many options for color schemes, font, drop shadow etc.
Price: Free.
7. PicJumbo
PicJumbo is a great collection of photos by one web designer for others. All photos are free for commercial use. I browsed through the photos and was pleasantly surprised by the quality and resolution (most of them are 3888px wide).
Be sure to read the site's FAQ section before using any photos.
Price: Free for images on the website, $6 per month for unpublished images delivered to your inbox every month.
8. Awesome Screenshot
A neat little extension for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers, Awesome Screenshot lets you capture a visible part of the page, any region, entire page or even delay captures for drop down menus.
You can also blur sensitive information, annotate your captures with rectangles, circles or arrows and add text. Options include saving as a file on your disk, copying to clipboard and printing. You can choose to save it online on your Google Drive or permanently on Diigo.com.
Price: Free.
Related: Where to Find Free Photos and Never Again Pay for a Website Image
