Since Google’s most recent major algorithm changes, it has become harder than ever before to build links that genuinely benefit your website. This has completely changed the job of anyone in SEO, making outreach more and more difficult.
So, how can you naturally build links that you don’t have to pay for and that won’t look spammy?
The answer is infographics.
Why use infographics?
Quite why people like infographics is down to the simple fact of being able to quickly gleam information in a fast and enjoyable manner. Nobody wants to sit down and read through pages and pages of endless chatter when they could just as quickly scan an image for the facts and figures they were looking for.
That’s great, it means that if you have an infographic that contains the information people want to see then people will want to look at it, but, unlike a standard article, if it is aesthetically pleasing they won’t just want to see it – they’ll want to share it!
Sharing is the Key
Social media has given rise to a new way of living; people now want to deliver content that’s interesting to their family and friends on a regular basis. This means that if they found your infographic insightful and interesting then they are likely to share it on their social platforms and, again not like a standard article, as it is a picture it typically goes down very well.
So, you create an infographic and your social shares go up – that’s great news for you as it means potential increase in traffic for your blog / website, but also as social shares are carrying more weight now, a potential increase in your search engine relevancy and rankings.
But what about backlinks? This is what SEOs really want. How do infographics create backlinks?
Embedding Images
Ah, the beauty of a simple embed code! With a quick click of copy and paste, your infographic can be placed on any blog, website or online magazine anywhere in the world. That means that if anyone happens to see this wonderful piece of imagery you constructed and wants to steal it for themselves then they can – while giving you the credit for it!
This means that people can now effectively rip off your ideas and content while helping you out with links – provided you’ve made it so they can’t simply save or download the image. It’s a strange concept when you think about it, but it’s a great way to build up those all-important links in a very natural way.
The Important Stuff
While that all gives you a pretty general idea of how to get links from an infographic, I haven’t really told you the nitty gritty of actually getting them. There are in theory, two different methods for acquiring backlinks from infographics, the “build it and they will come” strategy, which basically means make it and hope people view it, like it and share it, or the manual outreach strategy. Brian at Backlinko provides a great insight into how exactly to reach out to people for infographics and gives some brilliant information, basically saying that all you need to do is find people that write about the topic your infographic is based on, show them your infographic, offer them unique content then the backlinks will roll in!
How exactly do you outreach to these influential people you want to build links with?
It’s simple enough to get in touch with people, but building a rapport and a strong enough relationship to get backlinks from their website is something slightly more challenging, Matthew Barby wrote an article on SEO Land – as he explains, automated emails for outreach are no longer something people want to see or should be practicing, it completely rips the personal feel from communicating and the people worth contacting will see past that. For outreach, build real relationships, be a real person and don’t use automated email scripts as your method of outreach.
If you go down the route of infographic outreach, make sure you put the time into it, getting infographics designed can be relatively expensive so making sure you get the most out of them is vital. Outreach to the right people, in the right way, with the right content and infographic and your website will be on the rise to the top of those rankings in no time!
By Rhys John, Digital Marketing Executive at Thomas Design.
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