Promoting an infographic is an investment, and you need to make sure that it’s a worthwhile one. If done correctly, promoting an infographic is a process that can do a lot of the work just on the basis of being a good piece of content.
However, just letting the infographic sit on your website is not enough to make your investment a good one. When you create something as awesome as our heroin infographic pictured in this post, you want to ensure that everyone sees it.
By using the steps below, you can get some eyes on your infographic, and not only will these earn traffic to your website, they will also improve your company’s reputation and help you develop long-lasting relationships with others whom can help you promote your content.
Step 1: Get a Good Infographic
Your promotion efforts are only going to be as worthwhile as your infographic, so if you’re not a designer, go find a good one. There is no going halfway with the creation process of the infographic, as your promotion efforts will be for naught if no one likes the design.
In fact, the opposite would be true: many blogger may share your infographic based more on the design rather than their interest in the topic.
Additionally, don’t forget to make your infographic content interesting – this is where your expertise comes in (it’s your business, after all!). You can choose topics ranging from your product itself to topics related to your industry and vertical.
Take a look through the news and related blogs for ideas for what kind of topics are recent in your area. Also, take a look at what’s NOT there. Being ahead of the game for a particular topic can give you an edge, and make your infographic more interesting.
Step 2: Research Submission Sites
Go find a variety of sites to submit your infographics to, and use their current posts to determine if they’re worth submitting to or putting additional effort into. You’re not submitting anything yet; instead, collect a large amount of sites, and make notes on how the site ranks. Take a look at:
- Domain authority
- Already posted infographics
- Requirements for submission
- Overall website design
- Overall grammar and syntax
- Cost (if not free)
The more appealing these criteria seem, the better it’s going to be for your post to be there. The blogger or website owner is generally going to be much pickier about which submissions they accept if they have a strong handle on the above criteria, so that’s where having an excellent infographic comes in.
These blogs drive traffic to your website from people looking for more information or good design. Both will help make you an authority in your industry, and you get a followed link in the process.
Step 3: Take Advantage of Instant Submission Sites
Sites that use no-follow links may not seem worthwhile at first since anyone can submit to them and get accepted, but they are an excellent stepping stone towards getting your infographic seen. Sites like Visual.ly, Pinterest, and Infographic File will display your infographic without the restrictions and whims of a blog.
These sites are meant to get your infographics seen, and although they may drive some traffic to your website (especially with Pinterest, but that’s another topic), their main purpose is to drive shares.
Bloggers who visit the website looking for good content will find your infographic and hopefully share it with their readers. We’ll get to what to do about these bloggers who share, but right now, get those infographics submitted (it’s a fairly quick and easy process once you’ve got a list of them going). The no-follow links that you place in your description can get your website some decent follow links without any proactive outreach!
Step 4: Write Awesome Content for an Awesome Infographic
Good infographics speak for themselves, but a well-written summary will help drive traffic to your website, and many infographic blogs will not accept content without it. The best course of action is to right a brief “base” piece (about a paragraph in length), and then modify it to suit the overall feel or needs of the blog you’re submitting to.
The description should contain two things: a short summary of the infographic, and a sentence or two on why the infographic is important. This “reason” can range from “The fate of the world relies on you knowing this!” to “This is an entertaining piece.”
With a well-written and creative description, readers are more likely to notice the link back to your website. I find it better to naturally include the link back as a source rather than an embedded, keyword-loaded link. This makes the link seem more natural and also more noticeable for those looking to share the infographic on their own blogs – the more obvious it is that your link is the original source, the more likely they are to grab that link on their own pages.
Step 5: Build Relationships
Once you manage to get a hold of a blogger, keep in touch with them, and your next outreach will be twice as easy. Proactive outreach to blogs is tough – sometimes it’s hard just to get a response, let alone one that’s a “yes”. If you get posted on a few blogs, touch base with them on a regular basis, even if you have no new content. Point out a broken link, or touch base on another infographic you found interesting.
If you keep yourself in their minds, the next infographic that you have will be more likely to have some attention paid to it. Keep these bloggers in your contact list, especially as they may know other bloggers that post infographics, and can provide a reference, even if that reference is “I heard from so-and-so that you were looking for infographics.” This can provide some excellent links that may not have been possible.
Step 6: Make Sure Your Infographics Receive Proper Attribution
A good infographic will inevitably be posted elsewhere, often with wrong attribution – use this to your advantage instead of considering it a detriment.
Perform a reverse image search by using Google (click on the little camera icon under the image search) or TinEye. Both of these will search for your image whether or not that page has linked to you properly. In the results, you will find pages that you’ve already posted to, and likely a few more.
Some of these will have attributed to you properly – reach out to these people, and thank them for sharing the infographic. Because you had a good reason for contacting them, they’re more likely to respond to you favorably.
It’s a great relationship building opportunity, as you’re reactively reaching out instead of proactively – you’re not a “cold caller”. As with the bloggers that had accepted your infographic previously, keep in touch with these people.
Some of the bloggers may not have used your source or had an incorrect attribution – for example, they may have attributed to Visual.ly instead of using the link you provided in that post. These are often decent outreach opportunities. They’re using your content without proper attribution, so you have every right to contact them about it.
I find it’s easier to catch flies with honey – I often thank them for sharing the infographic, but I firmly let them know that we desire a link back in return. Most are more than happy to change the attribution when you touch base with them. Unfortunately, some aren’t readily contactable.
Usually, though, this happens on websites that are of poor quality, and they don’t really care enough to even look out for the original source. It’s better to ask these websites to remove your content rather than provide attribution.
Step 7: Make A New Infographic, and Start All Over!
Once one infographic is good and done, use the relationships you’ve built from the other infographic to help promote this one, or other types of content, like a PDF. As you continue these relationships, new ones may form from mutual friendships with other bloggers.
Additionally, a new infographic will attract a new set of eyes when you submit it to sites like Visual.ly. Having multiple examples of good content can improve your reputation and traffic to your website. People will be more likely to look further into your website if they’ve already liked multiple pieces of content.
Final Thoughts
Infographic submission and promotion is a critical part of any good infographic campaign. If you spend the time and effort to create a great piece, you want people to see it. Using these tips, you’ll get even more return on the initial infographic investment, and build your list of contacts for future marketing efforts.
For more information on infographics, visit our post about using infographics effectively in an SEO campaign!