How to Get High Quality Backlinks with Infographics (and Boost Your SEO)

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How to Get High Quality Backlinks with Infographics (and Boost Your SEO)

Infographics continue to be insanely popular.

In 2012, the hashtag #infographic was shared 56,765 times on Twitter. A few experts back then believed it was just a fad that would self-destruct in a couple of years. 

Fast forward to today, infographics are more popular and stronger than ever.

According to HubSpot, infographics are liked and shared on social media 3x more than any other type of content.

According to HubSpot, infographics are liked and shared on social media 3x more than other any other type of content.

There is a reason why this is the case.

Eye-tracking studies have shown internet readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. And according to Search Engine Journal, an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a text article.

And, if you need more convincing, this article by SEJ makes a compelling argument for the inclusion of infographics and why they deliver great results for businesses.

Infographics are the perfect combination of visuals and text. Most infographics are visually appealing, often containing interesting information about a certain topic that readers can easily skim through. 

More importantly, good infographics have the ability to make your content go viral, generate tons of high-quality backlinks, and improve your site’s overall SEO.

Infographics that go viral have these 3 elements in common:

  • Amazing design. First and foremost, infographics that go viral are visually-appealing and are professionally designed.
  • Well-researched statistics. A good infographic, in most cases, contains interesting statistics or facts on a given topic.
  • Promotion and outreach. The above two elements are mostly useless if the infographic is not promoted well. Therefore, social media promotion and email outreach are just as important in order to make your infographic go viral.
Infographics that go viral have these 3 elements in common

In this article, I’ll show you how you can easily design an infographic on your own, promote that infographic effectively, and generate tons of high-quality backlinks for that infographic.

Ready? Let’s get started!

Side note: For even more in-depth information on building backlinks through infographics, we’ve created a whole eBook on the subject. Download it here for free.

Designing Your First Infographic

Before finalizing on a topic for your infographic, it’s important to do some keyword research and find out what topics are trending in your niche.

For instance:

If you’re running a blog on meditation, then you can start by doing a Google image search on “meditation infographics” to see what kind of infographics already exist.

Infographics for SEO: Designing Your First Infographic

Or…

You could use BuzzSumo to discover some of the infographics that have gone viral on social media.

Just type in the keywords ‘meditation infographic’ in the search bar and check out the infographics that have gone viral in the past year.

Pay special attention to ‘Pinterest shares’ because this is where infographics are the most popular.

Buzzsumo Infographics - High Quality Backlinks

And finally, you can use Pinterest itself to find interesting and trending infographics. You’ll find a deluge of infographics here on practically any topic.

Pinterest Infographics

Check out the stats (total number of pins) of these infographics to gauge their popularity.

Infographics for SEO - Pinterest Infographics

With the above three methods, you’ll find tons of infographics that are engaging and popular on social media.

Open a spreadsheet and note down each of the topics you find interesting. List down at least 10 topics that you think you can design an infographic on.

Once you zero-in on a topic you can design an infographic on, it’s time to start creating your own version of it.

But remember:

There’s no point wasting your time creating an infographic that is not as good as the original one. Your aim here is to create an infographic that is better in every way possible — better design, better information, and more interesting.

Bonus Tip: Need some more inspiration? Check out these 62 best infographics, a list curated by Creative Bloq.

How to Design a Good Infographic

Not all infographics are created equal.

If you want your infographic to go viral and get tons of authoritative backlinks, you’ve got to spend a considerable amount of time designing an infographic that is share-worthy!

While there are several sites that can now help you design your first infographic, I recommend the following resources:

1. Canva – Canva has several free pre-designed infographic templates to choose from and almost each one of them is professionally designed.

Canva Infographics

2. Piktochart – You can create high-quality infographics using Piktochart’s easy-to-use infographic maker.

While you may have to upgrade to one of their paid plans to get access to premium infographic templates, the free plan offers a few decent templates you can start with to familiarize yourself with the tool.

Piktochart Infographics

3. Venngage Infographics – Venngage will make you become a design wiz in a few clicks. With more than 500 professionally designed infographic templates for you to edit, Venngage is definitely an easy-to-use infographic maker you should consider.

Venngage Infographics

4. Fiverr – Want to outsource the design of your infographic? Fiverr is your best bet!

Fiverr has many designers who can help you design a good infographic. While you can get a decent infographic designed for $5, you may have to spend a little more to get a high-quality infographic.

Fiverr Infographics

If you have a bigger budget, you can hire designers from sites such as Upwork, Growth Geeks, or my personal favorite, Design Pickle.

Promoting Your Infographic (and Generating High-Quality Backlinks)

Stand-alone infographics rarely perform well in search engines.

Therefore, spend some time creating good, engaging content with your infographic. This will increase the chances of your article being noticed by search engines and help you rank higher in SERPs.

You can either have the infographic at the start of the article or at the end.

Once your infographic is published, it’s time to promote it.

Follow these steps below:

Step 1. Make Your Infographic Easily Shareable with Sumo’s Image Sharer Plugin

It goes without saying that your visitors should be able to share your infographic on social media easily.

I recommend you install Image Sharer plugin by Sumo.

With this free WordPress plugin, when someone moves their cursor over the infographic, they’ll be shown social media sharing buttons, as shown in the screenshot below, making it super easy for them to share your infographic with their network.

Infographic Image Sharer App

Step 2. Generate an Embed Code for your Infographic

By generating an embed code for your infographic, you make it easier for others to share and embed your infographic onto their own site.

You can do this by using Siege Media’s Embed Code Generator.

Siege Media Embed Code Generator

But here’s the best part…

Every time someone includes your infographic in their content, you get an attribution. And just like that, you get a high-quality backlink.

Step 3. Submit your Infographic to Infographic Submission Sites

There are tons of infographic submission sites where you can submit your infographic for free or for a small fee. Here are just a few of the popular ones:

Here’s the full list of 40 infographic submission sites where you can promote your infographic and generate contextual backlinks.

Step 4. Promote Your Infographic on Reddit

Infographics are quite popular on Reddit. There is even a subreddit dedicated to infographics with 160,000+ members. You can share your infographic here and get tons of upvotes.

Infographics on Reddit

You can find other smaller infographic-dedicated subreddits as well. Just make sure you read the submission guidelines of each subreddit before sharing your infographic.

Pro Tip: Check out these 25 best marketing subreddits where you can promote your infographics + other marketing content.

Step 5. Try the Guestographic Link Building Method

The guestographic link building method, spearheaded by Brian Dean, is one of the most popular and scalable white hat link building methods at the moment.

To learn this method fully, I’d urge you to check out this article by Brian Dean.

In short, the guestographic link building method goes something like this:

  • Publish a high-quality infographic
  • Find other interesting sites that write on the same topic
  • Send them your infographic
  • Offer them unique content
  • Get your contextual backlinks

You can use a tool like Ninja Outreach or BuzzSumo to find influencers in your niche. Once you have a list of people you can reach out to, send them an email using the script below:

Subject: New Infographic on (TOPIC)

Hi (NAME),

I was checking some articles on (TOPIC) today when I came across your article: (ARTICLE TITLE).

Excellent stuff! 

Actually, I just designed an infographic on (TOPIC). As someone who shares a common interest in (TOPIC), I thought you might like to check it. 

Let me know if you’d like to check it out and give your feedback.

Thanks, (YOUR NAME)

When people reply to your email showing interest, you share the infographic with them and offer to write a short 150-300 word introduction if they are willing to share the infographic on their site.

And just like that, you have an authoritative, contextual backlink.

Once again, a shoutout to Brian Dean for sharing this excellent link building tactic.

The key points in this article have been highlighted in this infographic – A Beginner’s Roadmap to Building High-Quality Backlinks with Infographics.

Infographic: A Beginner's Roadmap to Building High Quality Backlinks with Infographics

Over to You

Link building is one of the most challenging aspects of SEO.

Well-designed, informative infographics can help you get a boatload of backlinks, helping you rank high in search engine rankings. Just follow the steps outlined in this article to create and promote a killer infographic.

It’s totally worth the time and effort.

Hope you found this article useful. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter using the link below:

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on April 4, 2017 and has been updated regularly since then for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

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Sandeep Mallya
Sandeep Mallya is the Founder & CEO of Startup Cafe Digital, an award-winning digital marketing agency in Bangalore, India. He is an active member of the startup community, having worked with several early-stage startups and accelerators. 99signals is Sandeep's online marketing blog. The blog currently features 200+ in-depth articles, how-to guides, and hacks on a wide range of online marketing topics such as SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, blogging, and more.

45 COMMENTS

  1. […] of the blog’s must-read articles include “How to Get High Quality Backlinks with Infographics (and Boost Your SEO)” and “15 On-Page SEO Techniques to Increase Organic […]

  2. […] As you know nowadays the most important To get Google ranking backlink is a powerful way to increase search engine ranking but there are several companies who are offering low-quality spammy backlinks but if you need quality backlinks for your website so you need to build relationship building in your niche. You can get an idea that how to build high quality backlinks by using infographics. […]

  3. Great share, After reading this article I got some ideas about creating infographics because I have knowledge of DDP and other art categories. So now I am going to start infographic presentation with my article. Thanks, Mr.Sandeep Mallya

  4. I’m a great fan of infographics and think they really make a post looks better and engage with the reader.

    Thank so much for a really good post!

  5. Hello Sandeep,
    You’ve really done a good job by taking me through these steps. And even better, you showed an example with your beautiful infographic.
    I think an infographic is one way of exploiting people’s preference for visual content.

  6. Really I was looking this kind of stuff , I have created several infographics but don’t know how to promote them , finaly i got your article and this help me a lot.

  7. I used method 5: the Guestographic Link Building Method. I had already written an article, but I searched for like-minded articles.
    -I designed my first infographic
    -Reached out to the webmaster with a short email using suggestions from your script (personalization and personality are key!)
    -Got a response. Sent them to my blog post with permission to use the graphic (with a request for attribution via dofollow link)
    -Got a confirmation that they are going to use it
    -Received two (2) dofollow backlinks from their site. PA: 47 DA: 59

    Thanks for the technique.

    • Hey Jerome – That’s incredible. Well done! Glad to know the Guestographic method worked for you. And congrats on getting two high DA backlinks; the infographic must have been really well designed…🙂

      — Sandeep

  8. I have been creating and using amazing detailed infographics on my website but didn’t know why am I not getting traffic. Thank you for sharing a small tutorial into promoting my infographics. This article helps a lot. Most comprehensive article. Well done!

  9. Hi Sandeep,
    Good to be here today to read this post on Infographic.
    Yes, as the age old saying goes, an image can speak a thousand words. No doubt Infographics are one of the vital thing in Link building which ultimately helps in SEO.
    It is really interesting to know that a well made infographic filled with a lot of useful information can get a lot of backlinks.
    The steps you brought out in this regard is worth following. Though I am using canva for making my images I never thought of this strategy. I am bookmarking it and will try to follow the guidelines.
    Thanks Sandeep for this wonderful share.
    Keep sharing.
    Best Regards
    ~ Philip

  10. I’m trying to focus on writing great content but it seems that my site is not ranking without backing. or maybe I’ve to be patient. you really did a great job with this infographic

  11. […] How to Get High-Quality Backlinks With Infographics (And Boost Your SEO): This resource offers a step-by-step guide on creating infographics that add value to your audience and generate high-quality links from other bloggers. […]

  12. I was searching for infographics information and found your article on Google. Really worth reading it and very insightful knowledge and special tactics by Brian Dean.

  13. Gotta love an all in one article that covers exactly what you’re looking for in such detail. This was awesome. I actually used the embed code tool and placed that at the bottom of my little blurb that is below my infographic on my site. I think I did it right at least! I went ahead and submitted my metabolism infographic to a few of the sites you mentioned as well but find that most are now paid even though they say free submission. I’m not sure if I’ll get accepted with my pretty simple metabolism design but it was worth a shot I think. I think if I see any traction at all with this method I’ll go with the Brian Dean approach you highlighted because it seems like a pretty simple way to get great whitehat links right? Just spend the time or money to get a clean, informative infographic created (mine is too simple I think) and reach out to sites in your niche that need content and would post the graphic. Super smart. Thanks again for the post!

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