This post by Anita Clark, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker SSK Realtors in Warner Robins, Ga., originally appeared on ActiveRain.
As those of you who regularly follow my blogs (thank you) know, I have recently begun using infographics in some of my blog posts. Because I have had a bunch of questions about them recently, I thought I would pass along some information that may be helpful to you.
First, being as transparent as possible here, I have not created any of my own infographics. My oldest daughter, who is the creative force on my team, has developed all of them and deserves the accolades for being so darn smart about this stuff!
Here is what I can tell you based on our experiences the past few weeks:
- Do NOT build infographics for the SEO benefit. Matt Cutts from Google has already said the links from infographics may get discounted in the future. That does not mean you will get penalized, it just means Google may decide not to give you link credit at some future point.
- If you are not creative or lack the time to learn, find and pay someone who is/does.
- Check around to find an infographic site that meets your design and storage needs.
- Do pay for a professional subscription so you get access to a variety of decent-looking infographic templates, which will make the process quicker and easier. Trust me on this one.
- If your creations are easy to follow and provide good information, they will help drive a LOT of traffic to your sites.
- Do use social media (Google Plus, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc.) to share the data.
- They REALLY appeal to consumers who are visually stimulated. Build one and see!
Most of us have heard that Google now expects our blog content to be decent quality and longer in length (300 words minimum), which does not lend itself well to infographics since the majority of the information is displayed in the photo and not on the blog post. To combat that, I write and publish my original content on my WordPress blog first and then create an ActiveRain companion post with less content but a giant infographic to provide a visual snapshot. My goal is to send consumers who find my infographics (from my ActiveRain post, social media or storage on an infographic site) over to my WordPress blog or IDX website so they can be converted from prospects to clients.
I am not concerned about trying to rank these ActiveRain posts in the search engines, as there is really not enough word content to be effective for that purpose and I don’t want to duplicate what I’ve already said in my WordPress blog (the photo rehashes that information). I am not saying you cannot get your infographic ActiveRain blog posts to rank in the search engine results pages; I am just saying it is not my intent to try, since I want the photo to speak for itself.
We are still learning as we go. Here are a few of my recent infographics:
- The Ultimate Seller’s Checklist
- Warner Robins GA Foreclosures (Feb 2014)
- How Much Home Can You Afford?
I hope you found this information useful. If you are already using infographics in your online arsenal, please share one in the comments below so we can learn together!