Optimizing Infographics For Search: How-To Tips And Tools To Use
Updated on: 15 October 2021
Infographics are a great way to break large blocks of text that users will be much more likely to skim over without letting the information sink in. Infographics create a visual interest that gives users more reasons to stay longer on your site.
Whether on social media, email, or marketing platforms, visual content plays a crucial role in search engine optimization (SEO) to drive more traffic and more sales. With more than three billion images being shared each day, it’s only a wise decision to jump in on the bandwagon to keep up with your competition. Ever since the world has gone digital, more and more smart devices have been invented, giving marketers new opportunities to increase their reach and enhance their brands. Even SEO services are leveling themselves up by inserting unique and insightful infographics in blog articles.
In essence, one way of making the most of such a development is to create visual content, particularly infographics, to entice more followers and buyers.
Why infographics matter in SEO
Besides elevating your SEO Game with outbound links – infographics now have a huge impact on your SEO strategy as well.
Infographics are a combination of pictures and text, helping marketers describe complex messages more creatively and concisely to a target audience. In short, infographics make complex topics easier and more enjoyable to digest. This can sustain readers’ attention, enticing them to take your next desired action.
Here are other compelling reasons infographics work hand-in-hand with SEO.
1. They are an effective marketing tool
A lot of digital marketers use infographics as it is one of the most effective digital marketing tools that can clearly convey messages – especially for SEO and social media marketing. This is due to the fact that consumers nowadays are more interested in visual content. This means that using infographics is a wise choice if you want to reach out to a wider audience.
2. They help spread brand awareness
You can easily and explicitly describe what your brand is all about through infographics. Through infographics, you can effectively describe your brand, as well as your products and services, to entice people to engage with your site. As a result, you can have more traffic and revenues in the long run.
3. They are shareable and linkable
Because infographics are more interesting, users are more willing to share them. This helps retain the relevancy of such images for several months and even years. This also results in more websites wanting to link to you.
4. They enhance your content
Graphics add more value to your articles, blog posts, and other content. B2B companies say that they have seen an estimated 65% increase in the use of infographics in the last four years, which proves that they are effective in enhancing content and driving more traffic to your site.
How to get started with infographics
To attract more attention from your target audience, you should consider using infographics and add more value to your content.
Here are few tips to help you get started with infographics.
1. Create infographics with your target audience in mind
Of course, the first step to creating powerful infographics is to come up with an incredible concept that your audience wants. After all, you are creating these informative images to provide answers or solutions for your target audience.
The key to viral-worthy infographics is keeping them specific and relevant. But first, you need to pick a post that you believe can benefit from an infographic.
2. Do keyword research
One of the most important steps to creating powerful content is choosing the right keywords to use. Since you want to optimize infographics for search, it’s also important that you use the right keywords. These words or phrases will become your guide to ensure that all your infographics will be in line with the user’s intent. Moreover, keywords will help you make sure that the images will be a concise visual representation of how your products or services can solve people’s problems.
3. Name your image accordingly
While you can’t insert all of the keywords you picked into your infographics, you can use them as the images’ filenames instead. Any kind of graphic you use on your site or social media accounts must have filenames that best describes what the images are all about.
Assigning the appropriate filenames to your infographics will also help search engines better understand what the infographics are about, increasing your chances of ranking in the image search.
4. Don’t forget the alt text
Alt-text is another way to inform search engines what kind of information your infographic offers. Alt-text is embedded in the HTML code of a page to provide information on what the image is all about. Users will see the alt text if an image fails to load. Aside from that, alt text helps ensure that your content will be accessible to all users. This also helps Google bots understand which keywords are relevant to your infographics.
5. Optimize H1s
To let users know that your content contains an infographic, it would be best to include the word “infographic” in the title or H1. This allows search engine crawlers to spot the keyword immediately.
To naturally insert the term “infographic” into your titles, you can place it inside the square brackets at the end of the title, or place it at the beginning of the title followed by a colon.
6. Optimize your meta description
Writing the perfect meta description is quite tricky. You only have up to 160 characters to concisely summarize your content and also include your keyword and make sure users click on your post. This means that your meta description should be short but effectively summarizes your content. Also, don’t forget to add the word “infographic” somewhere.
7. Use a killer headline
The headline is the first thing that web users will see about your infographic. This is why you have to make sure that it is attention-grabbing and compelling. Every headline should precisely describe what the content and infographic are all about. It should also only be up to 70 characters long.
Since the headline is the front end of your content and infographic, it needs to be explosive enough to entice readers into reading the rest of the article.
Creating your own SEO infographics
If you’ve decided to start designing infographics to optimize your blog content, the time to start is now.
Here are some of the best tools you can use to create awe-inspiring infographics.
- Canva
- Venngage
- Piktochart
- Easel.ly
- Visme
- Infogram
- Visualize.me
- Snappa
- Animaker
- BeFunky
- Biteable
- Mind the Graph
Making the most of infographics
Infographics have been, are, and will always be important to digital marketing. This is why it’s a good idea to invest time and resources in making high-quality infographics that will add more value to your content. Also, be sure to keep the tips mentioned above to ensure appealing infographics that support your content.