Lest we forget, the internet was designed as a visual medium. Although there is certainly a lot of textual information presented via online platforms, people who want to read can pick up a book, a newspaper, or a magazine. They can use the internet, too, but if every page of your website is laden by dense bodies of text, it might not hold much visual appeal for your visitors.

In fact, it can be downright alienating, which is definitely not what you want. Even prestigious online journals, which are expected to be heavy on text, still break up the visual plane by adding white space, headers, and graphics, or by posting only a portion of an article text with a link to the full page, for example.

The point is, you no doubt want to provide your visitors with specific information, but you also want to make the layout of your pages visually appealing so that viewers aren’t put off by the sea of text. And, infographics are one good way to convey information in a visually friendly manner. But, you can also use them as part of a marketing strategy to drive traffic to your site.

Let me explain…

Infographics, in and of themselves, won’t necessarily bring traffic to your site. You can certainly use them to improve the overall look of your design, and many viewers will find them appealing (not to mention preferable to slogging through reams of text). In addition, visitors may be more likely to share, send, and re-post humorous, shocking or informational infographics than straight text, and this is where you can formulate a strategy that will make your infographic content do the heavy lifting for you.

You’ll find that it’s simple enough to add links to the embedded HTML coding that makes the framework for these graphic boxes. In this way, you can ensure that no matter where they travel on the web, anyone who clicks them will be taken directly to your website, thus increasing your traffic.

The trick is to create infographics that people want to share. Already these graphic images, complete with whatever information you’re looking to impart (generally in some kind of bullet point format), are more attractive to viewers than straight-up text.

For the most part, they offer a bite-size way to give your viewers what might otherwise be a sizeable chunk of gristle to chew. In the online arena, expediency is a valuable characteristic, so viewers are far more likely to share infographics than a full-text article. And, you can use graphics to convey all kinds of meaning that would be lost in translation without a tone to signal intent. For this reason, it’s easy to imbue your infographics with humor or shock value, both of which may help them to go viral (creating backlinks along every step of the way), or at least get shared more.

You might want to hire a professional infographic designer to help you out here, since the best overall value will come from a product that is not only informative and visually appealing, but also attractive in a way that makes viewers want to share it. Unless you have a background in layout and design or marketing (or both), it is in your best interest to let the pros do what they do best. If they’re good at their job, you’ll end up with some killer infographics, a more engaging website, and an increase in traffic that’s bound to do good things for your online business.

Still not convinced? Here’s an infographic to help explain it better:

Source: Web Marketing Group

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Filed under: Internet Marketing • Link Building • Web Traffic

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