An important aspects of effective public speaking is engaging and making eye contact with your audience. A speaker who is constantly reading from prepared notes or looking away at a PowerPoint presentation is less engaging and less interesting. If you have a complicated speech, prepare notes and practice so that you can spend the majority of your speaking time looking at the audience, and less time referring to notes. Look for people in the audience who are attentive and have a positive attitude and make eye contact with them. Return to these positive faces throughout your speech to build confidence; most people want to see speakers do a good job. Avoid staring at the same person for too long as it can cause you to lose focus and make the person feel awkward. Usually a couple seconds of looking at a person is enough.
Projecting confidence when speaking is important even if you don't feel confident. A confident and strong voice lends credibility to your speech, and speaking confidently will help you become more confident as your presentation continues. Negativity begets more negativity while positivity leads to more positivity. Audiences can sense anxiety and nerves if you speak indecisively; even if you are unsure of yourself, talk as if you are the leading authority on your subject.
Proper use of body language can help keep an audience engaged in a speech. Standing at a podium and giving a prepared speech can become tiresome for the audience, but using the hands to inflect meaning along with words can add interest to the speech. When using a PowerPoint display, point out what you are talking about with your arms to focus the audience's attention. Props can sometimes be useful as aids to liven a presentation.
There's nothing that can turn a good presentation into bad one quite like drawing the speech out past its expected length. If an audience expects a 10-minute presentation, keep the presentation to 10 minutes or less. Everything you do and say during the presentation should be important and have a purpose; don't waste time delving into unnecessary details, tangents or anecdotes. The more concise a presentation, the more likely the audience will remember your main points.