Strengths and Limitations of Various Infographics
Ahhh, Infographics. That ubiquitous sweet spot between informational and entertaining content made possible by the Age of Content. Infographics allow webmasters and bloggers to condense large amounts of information into an interesting, easily digestible, and nice looking form. Through graphics, they have the power to transform raw data into useable, compelling, and sharable content, and are extremely popular for that reason. But are they right for you? Here we’ll go over some strengths and weaknesses of using them for your blog. Read on!
They create more engagement
It’s well known and documented that graphical or image content boosts engagement (the measure of how much a user interacts with a post or tweet). This is true on Twitter, where the presence of an image has been observed to increase retweets by 35%! This is huge. And this is simply the value of having an image at all, so if you manage to put something that’s interesting or useful, you can bet it will increase engagement even more. This is true for other channels like blogs or Facebook as well.
They’re easily sharable
There’s a lot to be said for ease of use. And images sure are easy. By virtue of being complete pieces, the image is utterly portable. Users can post it on their own blog, text it to their friends, or email it. And everywhere it goes, if you’ve designed it right, it will keep leading users back to your website.
They are easy to read and absorb
Infographics are also great content because they’re so good at communicating ideas. When designed well, it can take you by the hand and lead you through a topic with vigor and enthusiasm, allowing you to understand it with ease. With infographics, it’s possible to absorb large amounts of statistics or other data simply by reading and following along.
They foster brand awareness
If you work your brand into your infographic, you can ensure that everywhere it goes, it brings a little bit of you with it. Infographics get shared all over the web, and eventually it’s inevitable they’ll be shared without attribution. With your brand and URL on there, everyone will know who made it and where to go if they want more high quality content like that.
They help SEO
It’s a common misconception that images don’t help SEO much. But actually, if you’ve formulated it right, an infographic can overcome these difficulties and boost your SEO. How? Simply by virtue of being shared and linked to, it enriches your blog and boosts your PageRank. The more links you have, the better your PageRank will be.
One critical weakness:
It’s entirely possible that an infographic can be inappropriate for your blog. Depending on the subject, an infographic might feel less appropriate than a more sober presentation of data. Infographics, with their cute graphics and pithy phrasing, tend to make light of whatever topic they’re discussing. This can be a problem if you’re discussing something very serious, like health insurance. In these cases, it might be better to reevaluate what you’re trying to accomplish with your infographic and go from there.
Shamil Shamilov
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