5 Steps for Creating Superhero Slides

Posted: July 27, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11458" align="alignright" width="730"]image from moz.com[/caption]If you've ever had to do a presentation that includes slides, you know that it can be tough to make them entertaining and engaging, while getting your message across. Follow these steps for creating slides that will really catch your audience's attention.

Two weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to speak at MozCon, where I presented about how to develop an ROI positive International SEO process.

A Q&A session followed my presentation, and to my surprise, the first question I was asked was something along the lines of, "This is not my 'real' question --I will ask it after this one-- but many of us are wondering: where have you found the Lego images for your slides?"

When I finished my session, I noticed I also had some tweets during my session asking the same question (which also happened last year with my MozCon SEO Project Management presentation) and afterwards, people approached me during the breaks at MozCon and congratulated me on the presentation, telling me they loved the slides (for which I'm very thankful).

Additionally, I published the presentation slides on Slideshare, which also gained some unexpected visibility when it was first featured on the Slideshare homepage and then selected as the "Slideshare of the Day." The response looked something like this (image showing in original post).

After just a few short weeks, my MozCon presentation from this year has almost had twice the views than the one from 2012 received during an entire year (image showing in original post).

(Side note: I was so happy with the results that after MozCon and I felt ready for new challenges, so I went to my home country, climbed a volcano, and slid down with a board. I'm not kidding!)

Because of this (and despite the fact that I am by no means an expert in this field; just someone with the chance of giving a few presentations in front of diverse audiences over the last few years), I thought it might be valuable for the Moz community -- for those of you who do public and even internal presentations, or who are looking to give them in the future -- to share not only where and how I find my images, but the process I've taken to develop the slides, with a special focus on my MozCon presentation.

Here we go!

This is not the first (and won't be the last) resource about how to build effective presentation slides. Rand even did a Whiteboard Friday with "8 Rules for Exceptional Slide Presentations" here that I highly recommend you to watch.

Other highly recommended resources to develop good presentations that I've read include:

7 Lessons From the World's Most Captivating Presenters (post)
The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs - Carmine Gallo (slideshare)
Confessions of a Public Speaker (book)
Presentation Zen (book)

Nonetheless, I won't be repetitive since my approach here will be a bit different. This post is about the steps you take along your presentation slides lifecycle, and how to make them effective so that you can achieve your presentation goals.

Your slides can serve as a support to visually communicate and share whatever you want with your audience in a way that is not only easy to understand and visually attractive, but that will connect with them and their emotions, so they don't forget your talk.

Make your presentation a Story

First, define the outline of your presentation, preferably through writing (as you can see in the image below, this is how I outline). Although I tried to avoid this step as I believed it was kind of a waste of time, it has proven later to be super useful not only for presentations, but also for posts, to keep from the start the focus of what I want to share, avoid missing any important aspect, and to make sure that I follow a "logical order."

Read the entire article 5 Steps for Creating Superhero Slides at moz.com.