Despite the recurring claims that “infographics are dead” and the need for marketers to shift their focus to other areas of link building, promotion, and visual content, infographics remain a reliable tool for boosting SEO and outperforming different visual content types year after year.
Infographic link building, while requiring significant time and outreach efforts that many marketers may shy away from, continues to be a successful strategy for building links and improving website SEO. Though link-building and SEO strategies may require ongoing adaptation to keep pace with evolving search engine algorithms, using infographics as a link-building tool has proven to be a consistently practical approach.
How Infographics Boost Link-Building Efforts
Numerous link-building techniques, such as outreach teams scouring for link opportunities, guest blogging with backlinks, or replacing broken links with your articles, are available.
Another effective approach is crafting and promoting infographics. This strategy can enhance website traffic, augment domain authority, and elevate SEO rankings.
Studies demonstrate that infographics can amplify website traffic by up to 12%, and the graphics like infographics are the most effective visual content.
By developing an infographic centering on a trending topic and featuring informative statistics and data visualizations, you can engage people fascinated by that subject to share your infographic with their network.
Creating Infographics That Drive Engagement and Boost Traffic
For your infographic to effectively garner shares and build links to support your SEO strategy, it must be engaging and expertly designed.
To ensure that your infographic achieves this, adhere to these steps.
- Researching Your Topic
Compelling content is the foundation of an exceptional infographic.
Even if your design is top-notch, readers will only engage with it if the information presented is fresh, pertinent, helpful, and inspiring.
To enhance the likelihood of being featured by prominent bloggers and major news outlets, generate content that is wholly unique and never previously published.
But how can you obtain exclusive content? The most effective method is to use your proprietary data or conduct your research or survey.
Suppose you’re a digital marketer seeking to explore current trending topics from the past month. In that case, you can tap into a wealth of information on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. This data can be aggregated, analyzed, and presented visually through an infographic.
If you need more resources to collect your data, you can still perform comprehensive research to ensure you have gathered all available information on your selected topic.
- Audience-Centric Infographics
Once you have gathered your information, it’s crucial to fully comprehend the audience interested in consuming your infographic.
Depending on your infographic’s subject matter, your potential audience could be diverse.
Suppose you’re crafting an infographic for link-building purposes that cater to your audience. In that case, select a segment of your audience most likely to share your content.
If you’re capitalizing on a current trend, the target audience of the infographic might be a broader section of your audience.
Understanding who your content is aimed at enables you to determine the tone and theme of your content. For example, if your target audience is young college students, there may be better approaches than adopting an overly severe tone of voice.
Moreover, your infographic’s visuals should consider your audience and the type of design they prefer to see.
- Crafting a Narrative for Infographic Success
Once you’ve gathered your research and identified your specific audience, crafting a captivating narrative will keep your readers engaged from beginning to end.
Visual storytelling is a distinct art, and you must capture it when developing the storyline for your infographic.
Lead your readers on a journey. Instead of placing a bunch of statistics in random places, arrange your information in a logical sequence. Then, decide on your starting point and your conclusion.
Think of your infographic as a visual roadmap demonstrating how you intend to take your reader from point A to point B.
Consider the following infographic template. Observe how it effortlessly guides the reader through the dos and don’ts of launching a small business.
By providing your viewers with an engaging and enjoyable journey, you can ensure they reach the final destination with a complete comprehension of your topic and a desire to act on that information.
There are numerous types of infographics to select from. For example, present your information in a timeline, create a flowchart to lead your reader from beginning to end, or combine a variety of charts to imagine all of your data and statistics.
- Creating a Wireframe
Before diving into the design phase, creating an infographic wireframe as a roadmap for your design is worth creating. This allows you to plan the layout of your infographic and determine the placement of each piece of information before you begin designing.
Using a wireframe, you can ensure that your design is organized and coherent and can help you find inspiration for your design. In addition, with a clear roadmap, you’ll save time and effort during the design process as you’ll have a clear idea of what needs to be done.
- Designing Your Way to Infographic Success
Now it’s time for the best part: designing your infographic! Although it may seem demanding, the process is similar to creating any other type of content. It would be good to have clear goals and objectives, a well-defined topic, a detailed outline, a target audience, and all the other essential elements that go into creating great content. If you need extra help, consider checking out our monthly SEO packages that can make the design process a breeze.
How Infographics Can Help You Build Quality Backlinks
Here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for – the strategy to build links using your freshly designed infographic.
The key to success is promotion. You can’t just create a beautiful and informative infographic and expect it to reach your target audience automatically. It would help if you actively promoted it to get as many people as possible.
A good rule of thumb is to assign an equal amount of time promoting your infographic as you did create it.
In the following step-by-step guide, we will show you how to promote your infographic effectively to build links.
- Making your infographic go live
Making your infographic accessible to others is crucial to obtain backlinks. You can publish your infographic on a dedicated page or blog post on your website. This also allows you to add some explanatory text about your findings and process, which can improve your SEO ranking. Including text alongside your infographic is essential to enhance your stakes of ranking high on search engines like Google. Even though the word count is not the only factor that search engines consider, longer content pieces generally perform better. This doesn’t mean you should add fluff to your content, but rather provide insightful and valuable information related to your infographic.
A recommended approach is creating a new blog post that includes your infographic and a brief description of your research process and key findings. Additionally, incorporating an embed code in the post makes it easier for others to share your infographic on their websites or social media platforms.
Lastly, remember to include a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your blog post. Encourage readers to share your infographic on their website or social media channels. This increases the likelihood of sharing your infographic, which can generate more backlinks and improve your online visibility.
- Sharing Your Infographic on Social Media
Maximize your infographic exposure by leveraging social media platforms. First, determine which social media platforms best suit your target audience and focus your efforts on those.
Develop a content promotion plan that reveals teasers of your infographic and article over several days or weeks, and share them on your chosen social media platform(s).
For social media sharing, post smaller snippets of your infographic that are optimized for social media use rather than sharing the entire piece of content at once. For example, share a few tweets daily and post once every few days on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Explore relevant subreddits, as they can help you connect with even more niche and targeted audience members.
- Promoting your infographic on social media
Once you’ve developed a promotion plan for your organic social media, it’s time to explore paid advertising options on your top platforms.
Whether you choose Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Instagram Story ads, or LinkedIn ads, it’s crucial to ensure that your selected platform aligns with your content. Paid advertising can effectively increase your content’s views and improve the chances of it being shared on social media.
While social media promotion, both organic and paid, can help increase exposure, the following strategies are more effective for link-building.
- Collaborate with Bloggers to Promote Your Infographic
Now it’s time for the hard work – approaching influencers and bloggers in your industry or those relevant to your topic, known for sharing infographics.
Effective outreach requires a strategic approach. Instead of starting your initial communication by asking for something, consider crafting an email that goes along the lines of:
“Hi [influencer/blogger’s name],
I hope this email finds you well. I recently created an infographic on [insert topic] that might interest you and your audience. Would you be interested in having a look?
I put time and effort into researching and designing this infographic, and I’m confident your audience will find it valuable. If you think it would resonate with them, I would love it if you shared it on your website or social media.
Thank you for your precious time, and I look forward to your thoughts.
Best regards, [Your name].”
Remember, your initial outreach aims to pique their interest and start a conversation. Once they respond, ask if they would consider sharing your infographic with their audience.
- Get your infographic listed in directories
Submitting your infographic to directories can help increase its reach and visibility. With so many directories available, you can choose the ones that fit your niche and submit your infographic to them. While some directories accept the infographic alone, others may require a unique description. Either way, this is an effective way to create backlinks to your website and reach a larger audience.
- Announce Your Infographic with a Press Release
Craft a press release to promote your infographic and share it on various PR sites to generate buzz and interest.
Press releases are an effective way to grab the attention of journalists and can lead to potential media coverage, allowing your infographic to reach a wider audience.
- Leverage your network to promote your infographic.
Do you have a list of contacts you’ve previously collaborated with and think would be interested in your new infographic? This strategy is more personalized than typical influencer outreach because you probably have direct email addresses and existing connections to these contacts.
Send them an email to introduce your new infographic and ask if they would be willing to take a look and share it with their audience.
Remember to reach out to anyone you’ve cited within your infographic. Alerting people when you’ve used their information or quotes as a source is an excellent way to generate shares. In addition, they’ll likely be eager to showcase their followers.
