Creating a good PowerPoint presentation is possible, but making it awesome is a different story. With the best design, you can make your PowerPoint presentation visually appealing and encourage your audience to stick with you until the end.
If you think that you need help making awesome presentations, below are 5 tips to making an awesome Powerpoint presentation that will be very helpful to you on your next PowerPoint presentation.
What is the 5-5-5 Rule in PowerPoint Presentations?
Effective PowerPoint presentations follow the 5-5-5 rule. This rule states that there should only be a maximum of five words per line and five lines in one slide. There should only be five consecutive text-heavy slides in your whole presentation.
If you need to share long statements, consider breaking them down using the 5-5-5 rule into multiple slides. You can highlight specific words to make your presentation interesting.
This rule helps keep your target audience feeling less overwhelmed. They can also easily follow your presentation from the start until the end.
PowerPoint Presentation Tips
Here are some PowerPoint design tips for making an effective PowerPoint presentation:
Consistent and Simple Slide Deck
You can keep your PowerPoint slide deck consistent by sticking to a single template. You can either make use of the slide master feature of your MS PowerPoint or download a free template. A template can make your presentation look put together and help engage your audience.
Keep your presentation simple. You don’t necessarily have to use bullet points for all your slides. minimize using all caps for the text and limit punctuation usage as much as possible.
Your slide deck will look professional if the elements are all aligned. Avoid over-formatting your slides, for this, can become a distraction instead of an attraction to your readers or audience.
Using highly customizable and professionally-made templates for your entire presentation is advisable. Simpleslides.co offers several design templates that can help make your presentation simple and consistent.
A professionally-made PowerPoint template from Simple Slides can save you a lot of time creating your presentation slide deck from scratch. Hence, you can focus more on your presentation skills and how you can keep your audience’s attention until the presentation ends.
2. Create Your Slideshow Content With the Audience in Mind
A great PowerPoint presentation should have contents that can deliver the message effectively to your target audience. You can tailor-fit your presentation to your audience, the jokes, quotes, and graphics you share.
You can use PowerPoint effectively by knowing who your audience will be. Will you be talking to students, professionals, or the elderly? Your content should be in line with their language and interest.
Knowing your target audience helps you choose the appropriate graphics, slide transitions, animations, or sound effects to keep them engaged and interested in your presentation.
3. Use High-Quality Graphics
You can make a visually appealing presentation by using large and good-quality images. The human brain can process images faster than text. Hence, using a powerful image to convey an important message is beneficial for your presentation.
Instead of text-heavy slides, you can use images, clip art, graphs, videos, GIFs, and flash animation to emphasize key points. Make your title slide stand out by using appropriate and high-quality graphics.
4. Use Presenter View
Don’t make your presentation about the slides. Your PowerPoint presentation is only a tool to make your presentation better. Your whole presentation should be about you.
Using the Presenter View of PowerPoint is advisable when starting your slideshow presentation. With the presenter view, you can have your own private screen with the relevant information only to you, while your audience gets to enjoy a different presentation slide.
The presenter view tab includes features such as a timer or clock for tracking presentation time, a notes area for note-taking, and the actual presentation display to see if you are in sync with the slide the audience is seeing. You can access the presenter view tab by using at least two monitor screens.
5. Run the Presentation
You can have the best presentation by doing a trial run of your whole presentation. You can practice setting up your slides and have a feel of what it is like to explain and discuss essential points of your topic.
You will be able to spot words, pictures, graphs, or any element that may look off and doesn’t blend well with your presentation. You can take note of this and revise it afterward.
You can check if all the graphics, text, animations, videos, and like are functioning properly. You should also check if the venue where you will be presenting has access to a stable internet connection.
At one point, you may need to connect to the internet for your presentation. However, it is best if you can prepare your presentation that is independently of the internet.
Another advantage of running and practicing your presentation is your ability to present in front of an audience even if the worst-case scenario happens – presentation slides are not working.
This rarely happens, especially if you have rehearsed multiple times with your Powerpoint presentation. You may want to upload your presentation in Google Slides as a backup plan. You can access them anytime and anywhere, provided there is an internet connection.
Conclusion
An awesome presentation involves excellent content and slides. When you create a presentation with your target audience in mind, you make sure that your presentation is easy on the eyes, easy to digest, and can effectively convey your message.
Your presentation is about you. It is not about your slides. Focus on making fewer but more powerful slides. You want your audience to focus on both you and your slides until the end.
You don’t have to spend so much time making your slides from scratch. There are several customizable and professionally-made templates that you can use for your next PowerPoint presentation. If you find this article helpful, do share it with your friends.
