Creating and publishing infographics has become the new fad for attracting linkbait and traffic. In the last year, we’ve watched the craze for infographics skyrocket as can be seen by this screenshot from Google trends below for the keywords ‘infographic’ and ‘infographics.’
Not only have social media marketers taken up the infographic craze, but SEOs as well. Infographics, done well, can build a large portfolio of quality links. I’ve since noticed many SEO companies who are developing infographics for their clients and pushing them in the social media sphere.
When I discovered that so many SEO infographics already exist, I decided to rate them. David McCandless, at informationisbeautiful.net, revealed four criteria when evaluating information design:
- Interestingness - Is the content relevant and original, such that the viewer sees value in it?
- Integrity - Can I trust the content?
- Form - Is it pleasing to the eye?
- Function - Is this information useful and useable?
Take a look at his infographic about infographics:
Below, you’ll see some of the best infographics I could find about online marketing. I’ve rated them by giving pluses (+) for each category discussed above.
SEO Infographics
Elliance has, by far, the most search marketing infographics. The infographics cover everything from PDF Optimization to Keyword Clustering. I found most of the infographics contained quality graphics and interesting ideas, but they slightly lacked in functionality — meaning, most of the concepts presented are low-level, basic concepts that most SEOs should already know.
SEO Factors
- Interestingness: +
- Integrity: +
- Form: +
- Function: +
Long Tail SEO
- Interestingness: +
- Integrity: +
- Form: +
- Function: ++
Link Juice
- Interestingness: +
- Integrity:
- Form: +++
- Function: +
Google PageRank Explained
I found this infographic very beneficial in visualizing the Internet in terms of PageRank. PageRank is valued exponentially. While it’s easy to increase PageRank by 1 at the bottom of the mountain (e.g., from 2 to 3), it becomes much harder to increase by 1 (e.g., from 6 to 7) as you move up the mountain.
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: +
- Form: +
- Function: +++
Wired Magazine published an interactive infographic about the life of a blog post. With a flash-based, interactive spin, Wired has covered all the avenues of blogging as it moves around the Web, being picked up by search engines, data miners, and social bookmarks. If you haven’t seen it I suggest you check it out.
The Life Cycle of a Blog Post
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +++
- Function: +
Similar to Wired’s infographic above, The Social Media Effect by Infographicworld.com, shows the travels of content as it makes it’s way through the social media world. My favorite part of this particular infographic is how all the arrows, eventually, point to a Google search engine result for that story. It’s a nice way of showing that great content will bring in lots of quality links.
The Social Media Effect
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: +
- Form: ++
- Function: +
Rank Fishkin, from SEOMoz.org, created some pretty creative infographics. Although they are not the most visually appealing, they share some really creative insights about SEO. Great job, Rand.
Professions at the Intersection of Technology, Marketing & Statistics
This is true that SEOs need to wear many hats.
- Interestingness: +++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +
- Function: ++
How SEOs Spend Their Time
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: +++! Those of you working directly with clients know how true this infographic is
- Form: +
- Function: +
Scatterplot of SEO Tactics
This is one of my favorite infographics as it is really helpful for SEOs to know how to spend their time.
- Interestingness: +++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +
- Function: ++
The Size of the Mobile Market
We’ve seen the mobile market skyrocket in the last few years. Astonishingly, there are only 1.4 billion internet users compared with 4 billion mobile phone users. Any business would do well to understand how to tap into the mobile market. With the influx of smart phones, we’re making sure our clients show up on mobile searches.
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: +
- Form: ++
- Function: +
Individuals and Their Online Identities
Flowtown created an interesting infographic about how people utilize the Internet to manage their personal identities. Interesting quote: “Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one’s identity online.”
- Interestingness: +++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: ++
- Function: +
Google Facts and Figures
Although Pingdom’s infographic about Google doesn’t entirely pertain to SEO, I thought it was a great visualization of numbers. It is interesting to note how Google’s innovative search technology has made it the leader among search engines.
- Interestingness: +
- Integrity: ++
- Form: ++
- Function: ++
DIYSEO has, by far, some of the most visually creative SEO infographics out there. Most of the infographics show how SEO is a must-have in Internet marketing. While I’m only showing three here, DIYSEO has lots more. Go over to the site to check them out.
The Case of Disappearing Ink
Interesting visual graph displaying search methods by demographic:
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +++
- Function: +
Value of SEO v. PPC
This quote emphasizes the importance of SEO: “When buying, PPC links produce 25% less conversion than SEO.”
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +++
- Function: +
SEO ROI is King
It’s nice to know that SEO holds the largest ROI.
- Interestingness: ++
- Integrity: ++
- Form: +++
- Function: +
SEO FAQs – A Guide
Datadial.net created the most comprehensive SEO infographic. While it doesn’t offer much original material, it covers everything from keyword research to SEO tactics. It’s a nice way to sum up the basics of SEO in one graphic.
- Interestingness: +
- Integrity: +
- Form: +
- Function: ++
Well, there you have it — a semi-complete list of the best SEO infographics out there.
WOW, Great “what a explanation”
Super SEO visualization! I’m thrilled you share this. Coming back to study the pictures!!!
Excellent eye candy. Some were spot on while others were very creative. Thanks for the fun read.
I shared this with my twitter friends, nice work centralizing this.
MaryBowling over at the Sphinn post, also mentioned that this infographic about local search would be a nice addition to this collection.
Nice graphs. Thanks for illuminating post.
Very usefull graphics! Super visualization!
Some of these look so good, any idea whats the best software to use to create your own? Feeling inspired!
SEO Doctor, Adobe Illustrator is probably your best option for software. Vector-based artwork will make your computer run a lot faster. Good luck! Be sure to tweet me your work–I’m interested to see what you come up with!
Most of us are very visual people and the examples you’ve shown demonstrate how one visual can communicate complex ideas. Great examples – thanks for posting…
What a great explanation – and a fantastic collection of SEO infographics.
Infographics are for sure becoming an even more debated issue within the last 6 months
Fabulous information. The scatterplot of white hat vs black hat tactics is simply brilliant and so clear. I particularly like the first Longtail SEO image too, again, just so clear.
cheers for these, to answer the seo doctor just use photoshop or illustrator. cheers again!
Ha, great collection. There are some really mental stats as well, like 7.2bn views on Google per day!
This is an awesome report for stats and summary of the most important parts of SEO. A definite bookmark and save for me.
Good Information about seo I like it…..
Wow these are great, thank you so much for sharing
Excellent Data analysis, this is more than just information.
I must take advantage of it. Thanks.
Excellent man… just great. Graphics and explanation. Just great
I have to say that the use of infographics to define the practical flair and appeal they have was an impeccable touch that made this post stellar.
Nice array of visual appeal as many of the variables are shifting in how prospects prefer to ingest data. While I am a firm believer in content, text, images, etc. 52% of the web’s consumption is currently video.
Just goes to show, as more options are available, the tendency for overload becomes more prevalent. I guess the Egyptians were genuinely on to something with hieroglyphs when they integrated both hemispheres of the brain in unison to allow subjective interpretation (which is based on each individuals past to present experiences) alongside a snippet of useful logical left brain data.
I am a fan after reading this of both the format and the amount of work it took to put this post together – bravo and kudos for the smashing presentation.
All the best ,
Jeffrey Smith
Great grouping of infographics! I really enjoy seeing them. So much so that I was determined to make one myself. The end result was like something a 3rd grader did with crayons. Needless to say, now I’m just jealous of people who are professional designers and can create these things.
Awsome! Love the information graph. will be posting all over. !!!
These are some great graphics, I especially like the “How SEOs spend their time” one. I was surfing the net yesterday and found a terrific and very creative SEO Infographic that compares the different types of links to beer! Naturally, they named it Linktoberfest. It shows you 9 different types of links in a beer stein and tells you how you can obtain them, how difficult they are to obtain, and a ton of other great stuff. I definitely recommend checking it out.
Wow.. Nice Tutor picture information and collection. Easily understanding the value of SEO and learning the SEO.
Thanks for sharing..
Great SEO infographics however i have just one more to add. My own SEO PacMan infographic! – http://www.searchmuse.com/blog/2011/2/5/pacman-seo-infograph.html
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These are very good infographics. I would like to share one that I designed about SEO vs PPC. It can be found at http://www.seoforidaho.com/seo-vs-ppc-infographic
Shawn
And another http://www.seoforidaho.com/online-word-mouth-infographic
Very Nice Graph Exellent !
Excellent work… great job. Graphics and explanation. its great