If you’re like many site owners and bloggers, you want traffic! But the methods people recommend to get that traffic seem to be constantly changing: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumble Upon, regular blog posts, guest blog posts, you name it, people recommend it. The worst part is that every time someone talks about one of these techniques, they bill it as the magic bullet that will get you tons of inbound links, traffic, attention, and of course – money!
So I can understand if you’re a little unsure about these “infographic” things you may have heard about lately (like, in my posts!). But far from being another flash in the pan or “miracle product” that will likely just waste your time with uncertain results, infographics represent a trend shift in online linkbuilding and content marketing. Here are some reasons why you want to be a part of that trend.
Time
First off, infographics (IGs) take time – not a prohibitive amount of time – but time nonetheless. They require pairing with the right infographic design agency research, then a designer creates a wireframe, then a full IG down the line. There is interaction all along the way, with approval stages and numerous corrections and revisions. When your audience sees your IG, they aren’t just looking at a stagnant image or a bunch of facts and figures thrown together at random. They see your creative process brought to life. The interaction between the designer, researchers, and other stakeholders comes together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. Investment on this scale translates to your audience and they will respond to it in kind.
On the flip side – while it takes time and energy to research, develop, produce, and promote an IG, the beauty of an IG is that users can read and interpret the most important parts of one almost instantly. This easy availability of information will convince them to share the IG (more about that later), and the added depth of information (also to be talked about later) will reward further study and analysis.
Depth of Information
Just as a well-done IG takes time to make, it also takes time to fully enjoy and appreciate. Infographics differ from other forms of content (even videos and long-form essays) by giving deep, involved information, in an easily digestible format. Essays and long blog posts can be great for explaining things, and there are lots of great ways to make them fun and palatable, but they tend to drag on. Videos and podcasts can be a bit more “fun” (what’s not fun about reading a 2000-word blog post?!), but the problem with those is that they are on your schedule.
With an infographic, a viewer can be as involved as he or she wants. Many will want to quickly access a few interesting facts and share the image with their friends to point out a great design element or fun piece of data visualization. Others will latch on to a specific section of the IG and take in every part of it, because it speaks to them. The IG format allows them to control the experience, and get what they want out of it.
Share-ability
Pretty much everything is share-able these days. Most sites and blogs have share buttons (sometimes WAY too many!) for all sorts of different sites. However, your ace in the hole is the embed code. With an embed code, you can be sure that everyone who wants to share it can by quickly and easily copying and pasting.
A strong promotion program will also get your IG on the “other side of the gate,” meaning that instead of just relying on social media re-posts, you are (hopefully) getting your IG posted by blog and site owners. I call this “the other side of the gate,” because you couldn’t just go out and post the IG yourself – you had to get approval from the blog/site owner. This kind of support and promotion from bloggers makes the IG that much more visible, lovable, and shareable.
Wrap Up
If you weren’t convinced about using IGs before you read this article, hopefully you are now. They can be a great addition to your linkbuilding arsenal. They take some time and effort to develop, but that investment pays off in the long run with more, higher-quality links and a unique experience that your audience will want to share with everyone in their network.