The Truth About Visual Content Marketing Tactics: Infographics

It’s safe to say that Big Data is revolutionizing 21^st century business. The big question for marketers, however, is how do you take the wealth of information at your disposal and effectively simplify and present it in an engaging and informative way? One answer is infographics.

Defining what entails a good infographic is complex. For one, not all data lends itself to creative and unique visual communication. Someone who’s expert in design may not understand your audience or how to map relevant data in a compelling way. Don’t forget: great content isn’t great until it’s discovered, consumed and shared.

A couple of years ago, big splashy infographics with little substance were able to attract a lot of traffic because they represented a new content marketing format. While the novelty of the format has waned, they are still a fantastic way to present ideas and data in an easily digestible way as long as you think about the story behind the numbers and readers glean actual insight.

Remember, data is the foundation of every infographic, so when you have a dataset on hand, take the time to learn what it’s about, where it’s from, the methodology behind the estimates and what makes it interesting and unique.

According to statistics gathered by Hubspot, consider that

• 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual


• Visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text


• 40% of people will respond better to visual information than plain text

So, the proliferation of infographics should come as no surprise.

When it comes to business, big data offers unprecedented insight, improved decision-making and untapped sources of revenue. In the era of big data, where information moves faster than ever, infographics can reveal patterns in our lives and our world in fresh and surprising ways.

Simply put, infographics as a content marketing tactic provide a tool to educate and inform your primary target audience using data-rich visualization through storytelling, which TopRank has advocated for years.

Pros

• Helps with search engine optimization (SEO) – As the infographic gains traction, it earns incoming links.


• Builds brand awareness – By adding an unobtrusive logo in a prime position on the graphic, you can boost your online branding. One way to measure this is by viewing image file loads in your server logs.


• Creates social buzz – It’s easy to measure new followers, fans and sharing on various social networks.


• Establish company as an industry thought leader – By utilizing your own company data, internal subject matter experts, and industry related research, you offer a rich trove of information, demonstrating your expertise.

Cons

• Infographics created solely for their ‘linkbait’ potential has resulted in a glut of poorly executed infographics, giving a bad name to worthy and creditable data visualization.


• The cost to create a striking infographic may place this content marketing tactic out of reach for small businesses.


• Outsourcing information mining for statistics or hard data may result in a disconnect with your audience’s true pain points to be effective.


• Unrealistic expectations of what it takes to make an infographic ‘go viral’ could perpetuate infographic fatigue, doing more harm than good for your brand.

What the Experts Are Saying

“As a Google search term, ‘infographic’ has increased nearly twenty-fold in the last five years. Yet infographics have been popular, in one form or another, for centuries. The source of their power isn’t computers or the Internet, but the brain’s natural visual intelligence. Gareth Cook, The New Yorker

“The very best [infographics] engender and facilitate an insight by visual means — allow us to grasp some relationship quickly and easily that otherwise would take many pages and illustrations and tables to convey. Insight seems to happen most often when data sets are crossed in the design of the piece — when we can quickly see the effects on something over time, for example, or view how factors like income, race, geography, or diet might affect other data. When that happens, there’s an instant ‘Aha!’…”David Byren, quoted in BrainPickings.

Infographics That Engage

National Pen Company

Ranked #2 for views and shares on Visual.ly, the National Pen Company created a compelling information-packed infographic geared to their target audience. Who knew so many people still wrote with pens?! They identified over 5,000 personality traits that are reveled when a person writes. With their in-depth data analysis, they tapped into the zeitgeist of handwriting analysis. They intrigued the reader with tidbits of how graphology is even used for detecting lies. In addition to being visually appealing, they cited numerous credible sources in the footer of the graphic. You can view the entire graphic here.

Dell – (TopRank Client)

Dell, clever as ever, utilized the old-school binary ‘yes-no’ format known to programmers the world over to engage their primary audience. They created a cohesive piece of ‘eye candy’ incorporating humor which, again, works with tech types. While there’s no real data employed, by visualizing a ‘Day in the Life’ of a person sitting in front of a computer all day, Dell made it clear they empathize, making it easy for the reader to connect with the brand.

ADT Home Security Services

The creative department at ADT Home Security Services produced this infographic, depicting some of the largest diamond, cash and art-related crimes around the world in recent times.Making use of thorough research, the infographic’s author establishes what are generally believed to be the top heists in all three categories, and writes up notes showcasing just why each is classified as ‘extreme.’

The infographic does a good job of incorporating a clean central theme, blending in the different heist scenarios into a single canvas. The recurring stylistic elements of the map background and the ‘outcome’ section tie together the separate topics into the intended focus of the need for security without hitting the reader over the head.

Infographic Best Practices

• Write a catchy title. (Easier said than done.)


• Choose an interesting vs. ‘hot’ topic that resonates with your customers’ needs.


• Be topical. Check Google trends for trending topics relevant to your industry and/or target audience.


• Involve credible sources in the data collection, such as prominent companies, people or research organizations, and then encourage those sources to help you promote the resulting graphic.


• Promote vial social channels and make it easy to share or embed by including HTML code.


• On the resized image page, try and insert text to help with search engine crawlers and include social sharing buttons above and below the infographic.


• Avoid a white background or too much text. Infographics are often shared on multiple websites and blogs, most of which have white backgrounds. If your infographic’s background is also white, then deciphering where it begins and ends will be difficult.


• Link to a larger image of the graphic to a page with no formatting for a better user experience.


• List references of research sources you’ve cited, which will increase the perceived value of your efforts.

For more on the optimization and marketing of infographics, see Chapter 10, pp. 142 – 144, Optimize, by Lee Odden.

Remember, you’re telling a story. Too much emphasis on data points (less is better) and not enough on high resolution visuals will result in a ho-hum infographic that receives a tepid response. Design isn’t just about making things pretty. It’s about making things work and, in the case of infographics, that means representing data accurately and clearly. It means letting the data speak.

What do you envision the next generation of infographics will be?

Photo credit: Shutterstock

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Why You Shouldn’t Get Bent Out of Shape About Siri Rankings (Yet)

Siri, and by extension Apple Maps, is a hot topic these days. With good reason. But I think it’s important to take a step back and not fall victim to “shiny object syndrome,” as SEO’s (including your humble author) so often do. But the number of questions I get, and chatter that I see, about Siri seems to be way out of proportion. What should that proportion be?

Mihmorandum: Local SEO + Web DesignMihmorandum: Local SEO + Web Design

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What You Need to Understand about Google Penguin Recovery

Anyone who runs an SEO agency has experienced the following scenario.

A client comes to you and explains they ranked number one for a keyword(s) before Penguin. They got hit, having fallen into near invisibility in the Google SERPs and are desperate to get their Google traffic back and recover from Penguin.

Manual vs. Algorithmic Link Penalties

Post Penguin we most commonly see two types of Penguin related penalties. Manual and algorithmic. Manual penalties usually happen to those that have received the “unnatural link warning” email from Google.

In the case of a manual penalty, someone at Google has decided your backlink profile is actively attempting to manipulate the algorithm. This is the hardest of the two to overcome. Why?

Because it means that your link profile will undergo much more scrutiny than it would trying to recover from an algorithmic penalty. There’s an actual person making a judgement call on your links (and their intent) vs. a mathematical formula.

In an algorithmic penalty, it’s merely Google’s algorithm that has detected some type of irregularity that seems like manipulation in your link profile and you get caught up in its filter.

While not “easy” to overcome, it’s easier to recover from than a manual penalty, because your link profile is being reviewed by an algorithm vs. a human. Identify the issue and remove links, disavow links and/or build links to rectify the balance of your link profile and the signals your site is giving off to the algorithm.

Penguin Recovery Doesn’t Mean “Getting Your Rankings Back”

The common misunderstanding is that Penguin recovery means you recover your original rankings. This is almost never the case. Penguin recovery merely means you’re no longer being “punished” by Google. It means that Google has decided your site is no longer “guilty” of link manipulation. It means you’ve escaped the filter or had the manual penalty lifted.

So why don’t you “get your rankings back” in regards to where they originally were?

You’ve lost links that were actually helping

The whole reason that Google “dinged” you in Penguin was because it felt you were ranking with manipulative links. When you remove (some of) the manipulative links, you also remove some of the links that were indeed helping you rank before you were hit by Penguin.

Typically Penguin recovery returns you from oblivion to somewhere within the first three pages of the search results for your former “number one ranked” keywords. If you’re lucky, your recovery will return you to the first page – but almost never back in your original number one slot. In short, the recovery won’t be as stark a climb as it was a drop off.

This is especially true in recovery from manual link penalties, which usually require a lot more helpful (but deemed manipulative by human eyes) links to be removed.

What Penguin Recovery gives you is the ability to earn top rankings again.

Reinclusion Requests Won’t Help With Algorithmic Penguin Penalties

If you did not receive the feared “link warning” email, but suffered a “hit” corresponding with a Penguin update, then you’re caught up in the Penguin filter and reinclusion requests will not help. Why not?

“Google” didn’t give you the penalty in this case – their algorithm did

If you didn’t get the link email, then there was no manual decision made to hit your site. The decision was made by the algorithm. And as such, the algorithm has to be the one to decide to release you from the filter.

Again, the good news is that (in my experience) the algorithmic Penguin penalty is easier to recover from (though still not easy per se) than a manual link penalty.

The bad news is that because the penalty was algorithmic you have to do what needs to be done and then wait for the next Penguin update to occur to see if your escape efforts were successful.

Not only will reinclusion requests not help remove an algorithmic Penguin penalty, but they merely stand to potentially draw attention to your link profile from Google – which in my experience isn’t something you want to do.

(Edited to add: My buddy Paul emailed me to tell me that Google recently removed the ability to even submit a reconsideration request UNLESS a manual spam action has been found for the site… I’m guessing that might be due to all the reinclusion requests they were likely getting for algorithmic penalties that didn’t require them – haha.)

The Penguin Algorithm isn’t fair (or about hard numbers)

Understand that the Penguin algorithm isn’t fair. Just because your competition has managed not to trip the filter with the same link building techniques you used doesn’t mean that you’ll be as lucky. Lamenting about what the competition is getting away with won’t fix your rankings.

Additionally, IMHO, being hit by Penguin’s algorithm is all about your overall backlink profile. Not specific links or link types as individual entities. So looking at what your competition is doing may give you deceiving results.

For example – Site A could have 100 directory listings. Site B could have 60. If Site A has a 40,000 overall links and Site B has 400 overall links, then that means that less than 1% (.25% to be exact) of Site A’s backlink profile is made up of directories, while 15% of Site B’s is.

Site A may do “more” directory link building, but it is a much smaller, less glaring percentage of their backlink profile. It’s not about “hard numbers” so to speak. It’s the overall profile.

In the case of a manual penalty, the situation is even more unfair. You’ll often have to remove more links then you would need to in an algorithmic penalty – with many of those links being the same kind of links your competition is benefiting from.

What Penguin Recovery Really Looks Like

• This client came to us having been hit by Penguin and had not received a link warning email. (Unfortunately, they didn’t have analytics on the site at the time, but their sales numbers allowed us to pinpoint the date they were hit to confirm Penguin).


• We found some technical glitches causing what appeared to look like a link network from a sister site and cleaned them up (pink line).


• We also found that a link building service they had formerly used appeared to have accidentally (we assume) developed links for another client, but had used our (now) client’s URL causing them to have a slew of 100% unrelated anchors. We disavowed those. (purple line)


• We disavowed a few other very low quality links (also purple line).


• No reinclusion requests were submitted.


• Penguin 2.1 came into play (green line) and the client bounced back to the first page (except at number five whereas they used to be number one).

Organic search traffic is way up since their recovery, but not back to their old traffic levels before they were hit by Penguin. Getting that done will take some renewed and better executed marketing efforts.

Born again SEO

Essentially, recovering from Penguin gives you a chance to “start over” so to speak. Unlike a brand new site, you at least have some good backlinks and a few decent rankings to start with. But getting back your top ranks means you’ll have to build new, defensible links – the right way – forever swearing off your former link manipulation sins.

The post What You Need to Understand about Google Penguin Recovery appeared first on Sugarrae.

Sugarrae aka Rae Hoffman

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