There are different types of learners, but for the sake of the comprehension of this post I wish keeping stuff easier; so let’s assume there just three types of learners:
- Active learners, whose tend to retain and understand information best by doing something active with it (e.g. discussing or applying it or explaining it to others)
- Visual learners, that remember best what they see (e.g. Pictures, diagrams, flow charts, time lines, films, and demonstrations).
- Verbal learners, that gets more out of words (e.g. written and spoken explanations).
Having said this, considering the frantic world we live in - where everything should have been ready for yesterday - who do you think it would get the most?
In my opinion, visual learners is the right answer.
Images transcend linguistic and cultural barriers faced by text. There is no need for machine or human translation. It is a pure exercise to interpret the message transmitted by the image and eventually memorize it for later use.
After all, visual communication it has been one of the first methods used by ancient population to pass information. Just have a though on hieroglyphics or cave paintings in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ago.
At that time they were paintings, today they are called Infographics.
Time lapsed, and we move forward from chalk to computer graphic. However, the principle is the same.
Unique, original images can attract the audience. They are not only high quality content for an interested readership, but they can be useful promotional tools for anyone interested in gaining more attention.
For this reason infographics (IG) should be part of any online marketing agency offering that stays abreast of the latest and greatest trends, and they can certainly became part of the SEO offering too to support the link building.
How much complicate should my infographic be?
Well, if you read my job title, I’m a SEO so I know very few about the rules of thumbs for a good infographic. And in this case, I will consider myself purely a visual learner. I know what I like and what I don’t like, but anything more than this.
In the past few years, I saw many different infographics popping on the net. Some of them were good, some not. I’ve been not able to identify a pattern on my preferences and having a chat with my colleagues it has emerged that everybody has its own opinion.
What we all agree is that an infographics should tell a story, communicate a message. But what I’ve seen so far is that most of the time, infographics literally went boundless in long images dense of concept which I ran away after a couple of second.
Instead, I can suggest you a resource that I found particularly interesting in the way how it explains the principles.
Infographics and linkbaiting
Links drive their own traffic, but they’re also a critical component to search engine ranking algorithms. The idea is the more high-quality links to your website, the more likely you’ll experience higher rankings.
Therefore, regardless its complexity, with a beautiful infographic, swirling gradients of colour form into tangible shapes, contextually arranged to give a sense to the data, it would be extremely easy to catch users interest at a glance.
Users will probably interact with the infographic, and they will be absorbed in its layout and images.
As a result, after looking, they will probably be tempted of sharing it. Maybe save the image, attach it to an email and send it to a friend. Maybe, they will include it in their latest blog post or tweet it. Or perhaps you can promote it straightaway logging into your favourite forum and dropping a line and see what everyone else thinks.