Introduction
PowerPoint presentations are quite popular in the business world, especially in corporate offices. Yet, so many people don’t know how to put together an effective presentation or create good slides, as you will see later in this article. I will share with you some of the best PowerPoint presentation tips and 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations. But first, we will look at the best way to deliver a PowerPoint presentation to an audience and get the best results.
What is the best way to give a PowerPoint presentation?
Many people will tell you the different ways they give their presentations. Still, the following remains the main tips for a good PowerPoint presentation that you should follow to give a great presentation.
1. Make use of the stage
One of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks you have to follow is to make good use of your stage and use your movement to tell your story. Instead of standing stiffly in place, you can walk around purposely and keep your audience’s attention on you. Walking around doesn’t mean wandering; instead, you have to stride purposefully and confidently. This is one of the tips for a great PowerPoint presentation for keeping your audience alert.
2. Use the proper body language
Body language is very important for storytelling, and one of the important tips for a good PowerPoint presentation is to master the art of positive body language. When you know how to use body language, you can add to your speech and win your audience’s trust, as you will see in my next point.
3. Be authentic and relatable
One of the top PowerPoint presentation tips experts tell new presenters is to connect with their audience and get them to relate to them. You can’t connect with an audience that finds you fake or stiff. Be yourself, and don’t try to show off a false personality
4. Maintain eye contact with the audience
Maintaining eye contact is important for any presenter because it helps you build rapport with the audience. Most PowerPoint presentation tips say that the best way to do this is to pick 4-5 random members of the audience and maintain eye contact with them for some seconds. It helps you feel less nervous and helps them remain connected to you and your presentation.
5. Practice the presentation days beforehand
You have to practice at least a few days before your presentation. Consistent practice helps you master your presentation to the point that you sound like you are talking by heart. You can practice on your own or with the help of some tools. Also, try out the speech on people who can give you feedback.
6. Defer to your audience’s needs
One of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks is kowtowing to your audience and giving them exactly what they need. You do this by first studying the audience and finding out what makes them tick. You can even ask them leading questions to help you understand.
7. Be entertaining
No matter how good your presentation is, your delivery determines how your audience will receive it. If you’re stiff and boring, you can lose interest within minutes. Some of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks for entertaining your audience are to tell stories and make jokes. A good story can deliver the point of your presentation faster than you can explain it.
8. Train your voice
Your voice is an important tool for your presentation as it can add any meaning you want to your words. Your speech won’t make an impact without the backing of a well-cultured speech. One of the PowerPoint presentation tips that many uses are to speed up or slow down their voices to incite excitement, sadness, anger, or any other emotion into their speech.
What are some tips for making a good PowerPoint presentation?
1. Keep things simple (words and transitions)
This is one of the most important PowerPoint presentation tips in this article. Your aim is to leave your audience enlightened or inspired, as the case may be. Your best bet at that is to use easily understood language to ensure that everyone understands you.
2. Add good quality pictures
Every picture you put in your slides has to be of high quality, especially if used to illustrate a point. Ideally, you should have one picture per slide for detailed pictures. One of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks is to use two pictures max on a slide if they aren’t detailed or labeled.
3. Learn how to navigate your screens
There are few things more annoying than a presenter who is confused by their slides. You need to master the slides beforehand so you can switch them as needed. In fact, one of the PowerPoint presentation tips is to memorize the slide changes until you can change them without looking.
4. Don’t read from the slides
Reading directly of the slides is a rookie mistake that can ruin your presentation. Your slides are for the benefit of your audience and not you. Reading from them shows you are not fully versed in what you’re presenting and can cost your presentation.
5. Don’t use too many animations
Some people get carried away with PowerPoint animations, especially if the topic requires interesting animations. While it isn’t wrong to use animations, one of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks is to stick to one animation throughout your slide.
6. Use large text
Using large text is one of those PowerPoint presentation tips that seem obvious. But, several people make the mistake of sizing their text without considering the people standing the farthest away. Your slides should have large enough text that every member of the audience can see.
Put these tips to work and practice your presentation with Orai
Why are most PowerPoint presentations terrible?
Too much packed in
Too many people fall for the wrong idea that their slides have to show everything included in their presentation. On the contrary, one of the top PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks is to keep your slides as simple and neat as possible. That way, your audience can read what you have on easily without straining their eyes.
Extreme animations and transitions
Another misconception people tend to have with their PowerPoint slides is that they need different animations and transitions to keep them interesting. That is far from the truth and only serves to make the presentation look messy. One animation and transition per slideshow does the job and doesn’t distract from the topic.
Overdoing it with pictures
Visual aids are great to use in your PowerPoint slides, but some people take it over the top. The main PowerPoint presentation tips state that you should only use relevant visual aids per slide. Else they can crowd your slide and make it harder to understand.
Funny fonts
Fonts can be quite boring, so it makes sense for people to avoid having a plain slideshow by using interesting fonts. However, using too many fancy fonts or extremely cursive fonts that are hard to read can be detrimental to your presentation.
Boring color schemes
As much as too colorful slides are considered bad, boring slides aren’t much better. You don’t want to bore your audience to sleep during the presentation, so you should use some more interesting colors. The main PowerPoint presentation tip and trick regarding colors is to use three different colors at most in your slide.
How to create a unique presentation
These are the top 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations that you should follow
1. Create a color scheme
One of the top 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations is to create a custom color scheme using complementary colors. It will make your work look more polished and put together.
2. Highlight large images
If you have large enough images to fit in your slide, you can highlight them instead of placing them next to some text. This creates a cleaner slide that your audience can still understand fully.
3. Match your fonts to the topic
Fonts can tell different stories. Some are more suited to formal presentations, while you can get away with using more interesting fonts in informal situations. Make sure your fonts match and keep them readable.
4. Use audio and video files
Using a video in the middle of a slideshow is one of the PowerPoint presentation tips. Instead of just text and images, you can include audio and videos explaining your slide in a captivating way.
5. Use a unique background image
Your background image should be unique and well-thought-out. You can use any picture, but make sure it is also good enough to place text without distraction.
6. Use speech bubbles
Instead of writing out thoughts or notes, one of the 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations is to use speech bubbles. They add a bit of whimsy to your slides, and they can be a creative method if you use them correctly.
7. Try out different styles
One of the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks is to try out different styles until you find the one that resonates with your best. When you find your style, every other thing can fall into place.
8. Don’t follow the regular PowerPoint rules
There are preset themes and defaults on PowerPoint that tend to show up in many slides. One of the tips for a good PowerPoint presentation is to avoid them and customize your slide to your tastes.
9. Get rid of bullets
Bullets are boring, and they can make an otherwise beautiful slide look bland. You can try using visual charts to show your points. They look much better, and you can customize them to match your theme.
10. Include interesting touches
You can create unique slides using animations that can set your slides apart. However, you have to be careful not to go overboard with them.
11. Create a timeline to illustrate your story
Adding a timeline is one of those PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks that adds a bit of uniqueness to your slides. The timeline can show your presentation’s direction, and you can signify each step with a different icon.
12. Steer clear of the traditional slides
The last 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations are to dump the traditional slide transition method. Instead, you can make an infographic, scroll vertically, or use features to improve the slides’ look.
What are the rules of a good PowerPoint presentation?
In addition to the PowerPoint presentation tips you can find, there are still some rules you have to follow when creating a presentation. These rules help you to create a great PowerPoint presentation that you can use anywhere.
- The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint
The 10/20/30 rule is the most popular in PowerPoint, and it states that your entire presentation should only have 10 slides, last for only 20 minutes, and with a font of at least 30 minutes. An audience won’t pay too much attention to a presentation much longer than ten minutes, and thirty minutes is the smallest font you can use for the audience to read your slide. Also, the rule states that you should talk for twenty minutes regardless of how much time you have – you can use the rest of the time for answers and discussions.
- The 5/5/5 rule
The 5/5/5 rule states your slide should have 5 words per line of text, no more than 5 lines per slide, and 5 text-based slides in a row, so your slides don’t overwhelm your audience.
- The 2/4/8 rule
The 2/4/8 rule states that you should spend at least 2 minutes on one slide, don’t use more than 4 bullets in the presentation, and have at most 8 words in each bullet.
- The 7/7 rule
The 7/7 rule states that each line of your slide should have 7 words at most, and each slide should have no more than 7 lines. With this rule, you are less likely to put too much information into your slides.
- The billboard test
The billboard test is for checking the readability of the presentation. Your audience should be able to read your slides as easily as they can read a billboard while on the move.
What are the top presentation skills?
If you work in an office or in any formal capacity, you need PowerPoint presentation tips and presentation skills to help you deliver effective and clear presentations. Most businesses depend on presentations to thrive, so you need to show that you’re a valuable member of the organization. Everyone needs these skills regardless of their position.
These are some of the skills you need in every stage of your presentation, from the preparatory stage to the delivery and then the follow-up.
| Preparatory | Delivery | Follow-up |
| Digital slide creation | Articulation and elocution | Feedback evaluation |
| Research and development skills | Vocal modulation | Follow up email with attached slides |
| Breaking down important points into more understandable sections | Body language and gestures | Collecting information about the attendees |
| Incorporating correct statistics and figures | Confident speaking | Interpreting and applying feedback from the attendees |
| Studying the audience | How to deal with questions effectively |
What separates a good presenter from a bad one?
| Good presenter | Bad presenter |
| A good presenter is confident, eloquent, and articulate | A bad presenter is shifty, nervous, and mumbles throughout the speech |
| A good presenter knows how to use their PowerPoint presentation tips to create unique and beautiful slides | A bad presenter ignores the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks and creates messy, unreadable slides that add nothing to the presentation |
| A good presenter doesn’t depend on their slides to deliver their presentation | A bad presenter reads from the slides directly or makes it a major part of their presentation |
| A good presenter can keep an audience engaged during their presentation using humor, body language techniques, and interesting stories | A bad presenter doesn’t follow the PowerPoint presentation tips and tricks that show how to keep an audience’s attention |
| A good presenter knows how to use their voice to their advantage when delivering a presentation | A bad presenter uses a dull, monotonous voice for their presentation |
FAQs
How to prepare yourself for a presentation
Some of the PowerPoint presentation tips include having a good night’s sleep, doing some light exercise, practicing self-care, eating well, and practicing the presentation speech.
What should be the word limit on a PPT slide?
The average word limit per PPT slide should be 30 words.
What makes an effective PowerPoint presentation?
Many tips for a good PowerPoint presentation give confidence, articulation, humor, statistics, suitable slides, and an engaged audience as some of the bases of an effective presentation.
What are some cool Microsoft PowerPoint presentation tricks?
Some tips for a good PowerPoint presentation include putting pictures into shapes, customizing icons, editing and merging shapes, writing curved text on shapes, embedding fonts, audio and video files, flipping shapes, images, and clip art, and drawing on your slide. If you want the audience to concentrate on you, you can use the ‘B’ and the ‘W’ buttons to blackout your slides or white them out, respectively.
How to prepare myself for an online presentation
An online presentation is not that different from an in-person presentation, so you can use the same PowerPoint presentation tips. Additional tips include dressing appropriately, ensuring your devices and wi-fi work well, and arranging your background.
Conclusion
The PowerPoint presentation tips in this article will help with creating the best PowerPoint presentations. Incorporating them into your presentations can drastically improve your presentation skills. Also, the 12 tips for creating better PowerPoint presentations will make you a better PowerPoint presenter.
