Give Your Blog’s Graphics a Lift with Visme [Review]

Many bloggers struggle to give their content some pizzazz. We all know how important quality content is but you also need quality visuals to capture attention. That's where Visme comes in.

It's a web application that helps you to create online presentations, Infographics and all kinds of interactive visual content – and it's laughably easy to use. I first reviewed it a few months ago on the Crazy Egg blog, but a lot has changed since then so I thought it was time for a new look at this tool.

Why You Might Need Visme

Many people struggle to create professional looking graphics. Some of the available tools have a steep learning curve; others don't allow enough customization at a decent price.

That's not the case with Visme.

Most of the core functionality is available for free, though for this review I tested the premium version, benefiting from a couple of additional templates and widgets plus the ability to download projects for offline use. Visme is also built on HTML5, making it mobile friendly.

Check out the video below for an introduction:

Visme the Best Online Presentations and Infographics Tool

Getting Started with Visme

Since my last review, the developers have refreshed the interface. Login and you get to a dashboard giving you easy access to previous presentations, plus buttons giving you the choice of creating presentations, infographics, banner ads and (not yet live) product demos. You can also click to create your own custom content size and design, starting with a blank slate, which is great if you're experienced with visual content or want something special.

For those who find graphics creation challenging or who need a helping hand, the templates are a great starting point. Bear in mind, that you don't necessarily have to use the templates as intended. For example, the banner ad template could easily be used to create a visually exciting logo for your website.

For this trial, I decided to create an infographic. Clicking on the infographic button gave me several templates to choose from. These appeared below the button, with sample data filled in so it was easy to see how they could look. Selecting a template loaded an editable version in a new window, with an introductory overlay pointing out the key tools I would need to work with the Visme app, including exploring presentations, choosing backgrounds, and adding objects, animations and slides.

Editing and Previewing Content in Visme

With Visme, you can change any part of a template, just by double-clicking. Whether you are looking to change font, formatting, color or opacity of text or change background boxes and add shadows, it's all possible. Pop up menus allow you to add special effects, link to other content, add videos and images (from Visme's own Creative Commons database) and more. There's a huge array of different backgrounds which you can use for your infographic or presentation, lots of text choices, a variety of shapes, images and more. You can also upload and insert your own images. All changes are saved automatically, a big improvement since my first review.

You can also delete objects (a warning message pops up every time in case you've made a mistake) or press undo or add them again later if you change your mind. You can work with multiple objects at a time by dragging to select them, though this didn't always work seamlessly. However, it's a great way to move multiple objects to a new location or to duplicate something you're happy with.

It's worth noting that you can also navigate to different objects via the objects list that appears at the top of your screen. This is a good way to make sure you have selected exactly what you want to work on (and it's also useful to help you identify content you might want to delete).

I found Visme super speedy compared with my initial trial, though I did have one gripe: what I saw when I hit the preview button didn't always match what I saw on the template and there was no easy way to fix the difference. I'm guessing that I moved something without realizing.

Guides and Animations

Visme has a number of cool features, but the coolest is the ability to let individual objects on the page animate, presentation style so that they fly, feed or pop into the appropriate location. I was also happy to see faint guidelines whenever I moved an object so that I could line it up with other objects on the page. And another neat piece of UX design is that when an object is highlighted with a red line can drag it and when it is highlighted with a blue line you can edit the internal content. One small issue is that the right click menu which allows you to arrange, duplicate or delete objects does not always show clearly, though this could have been a browser-based issue (I was using Chrome).

If you are creating presentations or banners, there are additional tools you can use. For example, the presentation section includes a slide sorter and the banner tool includes a timeline so that you can time your animations.

Finishing Touches

Once you have edited everything you can and previewed to check it's ok, then it's time to publish. One useful change since my first review is that now you get a pop-up publish menu which gives you the option of sharing your work, embedding it to a website or downloading it. You can also share on social media or password protect your work. Downloading gives you the option to download as a JPEG, PDF or HTML. This is very useful as you can use the downloaded graphic content in a variety of ways.

The Verdict

It doesn't take long to create attractive looking graphics with Visme. The creators call it the “Swiss knife of visual content” because of the huge number of options to help individuals and companies attract and engage audiences visually. I liked the speed of the tool and the large choice of visuals and animated graphics, as well as the multiple possibilities for publishing. In the future, I'd like to see the preview mode match what I see on screen, but overall, I believe this tool works well whether you plan to create something attractive for your personal blog or use it to support content marketing efforts for a large company.