You probably rely on search engines for lead generation and understand the importance of securing quality backlinks to your site so you can top the search results. There are a variety of strategies you can use to generate those links. In this article we share 9 Reasons Why Infographics Continue to Be Important In SEO.
One approach you can take is infographic marketing. This article will look at how you can use infographics to boost your search rankings. We’ll discuss nine reasons why you should use infographics to support your SEO efforts.
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How do Infographics and SEO Work Together?
Infographics are an excellent way to share information about a topic visually. You can use infographics to summarize the findings of a blog post or share information about a topic you find interesting.
A good infographic is engaging. You’ll find that people naturally share the infographic through social media, embed the infographic on their site, or link back to your content.
These actions can directly or indirectly result in you getting organic backlinks from powerful domains. At the risk of oversimplifying things, the more powerful backlinks your site has, the more trust you get from search engines like Google. That can result in higher search rankings.
Let me provide you with an example of this in action to prove my point.
Here is a fun infographic about “the almighty dollar.” The infographic was created by Column Five Media. The infographic maps the distribution of income by religious beliefs.
A lot of people like this infographic.
A quick look at the page’s backlink profile shows it has links from five powerful DR 60+ domains. It would be difficult for a company like Column Five Media to get a link from these sites.
From an SEO perspective, the links boost the site’s Domain Authority. The higher the site’s authority, the more chance content will organically rank on Google.
That example shows you how a great infographic can help you gain links from authority sites, which is why it’s a good approach to support your efforts to make money blogging. With that in mind, here are nine reasons why infographics continue to be important for SEO professionals.
1. Infographics Are Evergreen, Likeable, and Shareable Assets.
According to a Hubspot survey, 40% more people will engage with a piece of visual content than an article. Photos and images get shared on social media five times more than text. Those stats underline why infographics can be such a valuable part of your content marketing toolkit.
The infographic below, which compares public schools to prisons, is an excellent case in point.
The creators picked a contentious topic and then created a great-looking graphic. It creates awareness of the issue, and it hits hard.
The infographic has over 16,000 likes, 634 shares, and over 500 shares on Facebook. Creative and high-value infographics can net you a ton of social shares and likes. That interaction generates reach, drawing people to your site and getting people to link to the content.
2. Can Use Them in Outreach Campaigns
A good infographic should generate links organically. However, if you’re serious about SEO, you need to market your content actively. One way you can do this is to run a blogger outreach campaign that includes an infographic as part of your marketing material.
Below is an example of an email I received from Story Doc. They created an original piece of research based on an analysis of 100,000 sales and marketing presentations.
They shared the report’s findings by email to sites they felt might be interested in the topic. You can see that they started the email with a link to the blog post before sharing the main findings.
At the end of the email, they shared a link to the infographic. Recipients were told they could embed the infographic on their site as long as they cited Story Doc.
3. Help You Secure Hard to Get Links
Building external links is a key SEO strategy. Securing links from authority sites can be tough. Many authority sites don’t even accept contributor content, meaning the only way you can get a link is if they happen to reference your content organically.
The infographic below, which happens to be an infographic of infographics, did a great job grabbing the attention of editors at a range of authority sites.
This well-crafted informative infographic generated backlinks from 60 referring domains. That included links from sites like Kinsta and Creative Bloq, sites that get millions of monthly visitors.
Backlinks from hard-to-get authority sites like these will boost your Domain Authority. To secure those links, you need to create content that will interest the target audience of the authority site.
4. Provides a Snapshot of Your Content
When you think about literature produced by the World Bank, you probably imagine large academic-style reports. There’s a good reason for this; the World Bank produces a lot of reports. Many of these reports run to a couple of hundred pages and take a deep dive into a topic.
The infographic below is from one such report that discusses Global Warming. The creators of the infographic pulled out the most important points from the report. They shared this information visually in an easy-to-consume format.
The nice thing about using an infographic in this way is that you broaden the reach of your content. Many people who don’t have the time to read a long report care about global warming.
The infographic above taps into this audience. It makes a great resource more accessible, meaning more readers you get and a higher chance of securing powerful backlinks.
Since infographics are so easy to understand they can also be used in your email marketing strategy. Using an email verification tool can also help streamline this process and ensure that your emails are only sent to verified email addresses.
5. Great for Link Acquisition in Small Niches
In some niches, it can be difficult to secure links to your content. Part of the reason for the issue could be that the content you are creating isn’t linkable. Another issue might be that you are operating in an emerging niche. That can cause issues if you want to acquire links to your site to boost your search rankings.
Infographics are one way to overcome this problem.
The World Resources Institute is a non-profit research organization that works with Governments to protect nature and improve people’s lives. The infographic below is an example of a content asset they created to engage their audience.
The graphic also created backlinks from authority sources outside of their direct niche to the blog. Those links help boost the Domain Authority of the site. You’ll find many similar examples of sites that have used infographics to generate links from a wide range of sources.
6. Use Infographics for “News Jacking”
News-jacking is the art of converting trending news and events into marketing opportunities for your brand. Infographics are ideal for newsjacking since they offer you an unusual way to get involved in a story. You’ll find plenty of examples of infographics created by mainstream media organizations around trending stories.
CNBC’s infographic, comparing social chatter of Twitter’s IPO vs. Facebook’s IPO, is a good example of using infographics to news jack events. Not only will your infographic attract citations and links, but there’s also a high probability of it going viral.
7. Infographics can Raise Brand Awareness
Every time your infographic is shared it gives your brand greater visibility and raises brand awareness. This makes them an ideal vehicle for getting your brand in front of your audience while letting them know what you stand for. Another neat benefit is that it’s easy to include relevant information about your business within your infographics, like your URL, logo, and social media pages.
Finally, infographics go beyond merely informing people what your brand offers; it shows them. Since nearly 65% of people are visual learners, the use of infographics is an effective way to spread your brand message.
8. Great for Generating Referral Traffic from Visual Search Engines
When people think of SEO, we tend to think of the text results you get from a search engine like Google. Sure, text-based searches are important. You want to dominate Visual searches and visual search engines.
A good infographic is one way to secure those rankings. Take this example of an infographic about saving whales. You can see the infographic has generated a lot of engagement on Pinterest, which I’d argue is a visual search engine.
It’s also ranking strongly on Google Image search.
Those double rankings undoubtedly generate clicks through to Behance. You could use infographics to get your content ranking in visual search results too.
9. They are Easy to Create
Last but not least, infographics don’t need to be expensive. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to create a well-researched, value-rich, and visually engaging infographic.
Summing Up
This guide looked at nine reasons why infographics continue to be important in SEO. The reasons are many and varied. They include using infographics to organically secure hard to get links, including infographics in your outreach efforts, using them to dominate visual search engines, and more.
As these examples prove, infographic marketing is a proven way to secure authority links and generate referral traffic to your website. Higher search rankings and more site visitors will generally result in.
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Author Bio
Owen Baker is a content marketer for Voila Norbert, an online email verification tool. He has spent most of the last decade working online for a range of marketing companies. When he’s not busy writing, you can find him in the kitchen mastering new dishes.