You have been creating PowerPoint presentations since high school! But have you been doing them right? From project presentations and business pitches to even simple progress updates, you always need a good PPT to deliver your content in a better way.
To help you out, here are 5 tips to follow throughout your career to create very effective & professional PowerPoint presentations.
1. Outline before anything!
Before you even begin preparing the presentation, have the complete outline ready for your PPT. From title page till the ending page, be clear about what is going to go on each slide.
You are doing nothing but telling a story, so make sure the flow of slides are set right!
2. Keep it Short and Sweet
Do not EVER write paragraphs on your slides. You want your audience to listen to you, and not get carried away by reading what’s written on your slide! Keep the number of words very limited and frame them as clear & distinguished bullet points. Try not to exceed more than 5 simple bullet points on each slide.
3. Maintain uniform font style
You might get overwhelmed by looking at so many available font options and end up using different fonts on each slide. Unfortunately this makes it look very shabby and spoils the overall professional look of the presentation! Use a maximum of 2 font styles and maintain them throughout your presentation. Choose the font that is very clear to read and understand.
4. Stats, Figures, Images
No one likes a presentation without any picture, statistical data or figure, because visualization makes them believe in what you are going to say. Visuals always speak more than words, so add them frequently in your presentation. Most importantly, try to place them at the center of your slides and align the caption text accordingly.
5. Balance your content on each slide
While presenting, if you stop at one particular slide for a long time, it is definitely going to bore your audience. If one slide takes 30 seconds to explain, the next slide must not take around 5 minutes! There needs to be continuous change in slides at constant intervals. So, make sure you have balanced out the content that goes into each slide. If too many things need to be added under the same headline, there is no harm in splitting them as two slides. At the end every slide must approximately take the same amount of time to explain.