Infographic

With an infographic, complicated contexts are processed and explained pictorially. In this way, difficult topics can be communicated more easily. On the web, infographics also lend themselves to breaking up content and making the user experience of a page more enjoyable.

Definition

An infographic is an illustration that presents difficult relationships and facts in a pictorial and simplified way.

The user can quickly overview and understand even complex topics with an infographic.

What makes a good infographic?

With a good infographic, you draw the user into the graphic, which guides them through the topic itself. To achieve this, the graphics must be clearly designed and the flow of information must be self-explanatory. To simplify the complexity of the topic pictorially, you need to research the topic extensively to decide what information is relevant to the graphic and what you can offer in more depth elsewhere.

The graphic itself must be self-explanatory. If you feel you need to elaborate on the graphic by adding a description, you should revise it. Ideally, an infographic should be understandable on its own and be able to convey all the important information even without the context – for example, the website.

Where can you use an infographic?

Among the most popular types of infographics are maps. For example, one that simplifies local relationships, like a map of a subway system. There are also maps showing temporal relationships , genealogical relationships such as family trees , or an organization chart – the organization of a company or institution. Diagrams that prepare statistical data, illustrate advantages and disadvantages, opportunities or risks, or action-reaction mechanisms are all areas where an infographic lends itself.

What are the disadvantages of an infographic?

The advantages of such illustrations are obvious: they can convey a lot of complex information quickly, simply and in a way that is easy to understand. In addition, it is easier for many people to memorize facts if they can absorb the information graphically in addition to the text.

But an infographic always has the disadvantage that it presents information in an abstract way and information is lost through this simplification. The possible information content of an infographic is therefore automatically limited.To create an infographic you no longer have to be an expert in the field of graphic design. Today there are a variety of free and paid programs that allow even laymen to create graphics. Well-known tools are for example infogr.am, PiktoChart or Wordle.

How can you use infographics for your SEO work?

For your content optimization, infographics are a great way to break up your site ‘s content and make it more understandable. A good infographic not only conveys the information more easily and appealingly than a comparable amount of text, but also loosens up your page visually. Because an infographic needs to be understandable regardless of the page it was originally presented on, it also lends itself to sharing on the web and social media. By either linking to the graphic yourself, or crediting its origin on it as a source, it is particularly suitable for your content marketing.

If you use a graphic on your page, it’s important to remember that search engines can’t evaluate it themselves. For the indexing of a page Google, Bing & co use so-called crawlers, which collect information on the page and provide this to the algorithm as a ranking factor for the page. But these crawlers only understand characters, not images. So, in order for them to understand the content of an infographic, you need to assign the right ALT tags. This is information in the background of the page that reproduces the content of a graphic or other image file as text.

Infographics and backlinks

The market-leading search engine in Germany and most other countries is Google. The company has found that many infographics are now only created for marketing purposes. So that inferior or confusing graphics can no longer positively influence the PageRank of a page by serving as a source of backlinks, Google has announced that in the future links related to infographics will be weighted less. Therefore, it is even more important for you to credit your site as the source on the graphic in order to continue generating organic traffic through your graphics.

Conclusion

A good infographic is a lot of work. It requires careful research and is time-consuming to create. But it’s worth it! A good graphic greatly increases the value of your content for your users. And satisfied users are the prerequisite for natural link building.

Despite Google’s devaluation, don’t be afraid to create a good infographic and share it on the web. A good graphic conveys competence and seriousness to your users.