Make Embed Codes for Infographics for Effective Linkbaiting

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Guest article written by: Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media, a Vancouver based SEO company. Pitstop Media has been helping businesses across North America successfully increase their search visibility. If you want to invite the author to guest post on your blog please contact www.pitstopmedia.com

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Guest article written by: Emma-Julie Fox writes for Pitstop Media, a Vancouver based SEO company. Pitstop Media has been helping businesses across North America successfully increase their search visibility. If you want to invite the author to guest post on your blog please contact www.pitstopmedia.com

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Infographics have grown very popular today because of their linkbait value. They are very good at capturing searchers’ attention because of their visual appeal. They are more fascinating, for example, to people with short attention spans who tend to simply skim through the remaining paragraphs of a long article. With infographics, all the important information and supporting statistics are presented without any wordy introduction. They are very direct to the point, and that’s why users like them because they can get a ton of the information they need in just one image presentation.

Effective SEO services typically have very creative and talented graphic editors and researchers who can create this type of visual-information content. Search engine algorithm updates are constantly raising the standards of website content that will be shown in the first pages of the SERPs. This prompts websites to be constantly on the lookout for new content material, including infographics.

What’s an Infographic?

Infographics are basically poster-like images that are not only filled with images but also tidbits of information and data. Statistics are accompanied with attractive visuals, which could be 3D pies, graphs, charts, and other figures. They are extremely easy to share in social media networks like [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]Pinterest[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]Pinterest[/tp] or embed in blogs and websites. Since they are not only appealing but also informative, they are considered as excellent content by users, webmasters, and even by search engines.

All these qualities make infographics the ideal tool for linkbait. Users who are impressed by the content they see in an infographic are usually compelled to look for the source in hopes that the website will have more infographics they can use. Webmasters can even capitalize on the usefulness of infographics and viewer behavior by embedding codes on the visually arresting pieces of content.

How to Create Embed Codes

Creating an embed code is actually very easy since it’s all HTML coding. It’s creating the infographic that will take much of your time. Once your infographic is ready, do the following:

  1. Load the infographic in your site or any image-hosting service you are using for your website.
  2. Create the embed code for your infographic. It should have the following components as well:
  • title tag
  • alt tag
  • infographic URL link
  • source website URL link

You may also include tags for the width and height of the infographic, but make sure that the proportions of the width and height are maintained even if you resize them. This prevents your infographic from looking warped.

Other Tips:

  1. Make your infographic around 1800 pixels wide. It is always better to have to reduce an image rather than enlarge it and still be unable to read the contents because the pixel size is too small.
  2. Another option for WordPress users is to use the Embed Code Generator plug-in. It will include all the components above in your embed code. The best part here is you can include “Courtesy of [your site name]” and “Courtesy of [your site URL].” The first will automatically site your website name each time the infographic is used by another website, and the second will make that a clickable link.
  3. Implement measures to discourage people from simply copying your infographic and using it without giving your website a referral or due recognition. Watermarks are commonly used by websites selling stock images, but since the same cannot be done on an infographic, you can block the right-click mouse function on your page. Although not foolproof, precautions like this will deter the casual users and hopefully prompt other websites to ask for your permission or at least cite your site as its source.
  4. Give other websites permission to post a “teaser” version of your infographic. Use maybe the top one-third of the image and request people to simply click on the link back to your website if they want to view the entire thing. It would be better to choose a portion that contains vital information and partially show it in your teaser thumbnail.
Tease people with a glimpse of what they can get if they click to your site. Image source

A Warning

Take advantage of using infographics as linkbaits now that it can still bring valuable link juice. Rumor has it that they will no longer be as valuable in the future. Matt Cutts said in an interview with StoneTemple.com’s Eric Enge back in July 2012 that Google may have to devaluate infographics. Although infographics are excellent content because they present data and facts in a more engaging and attractive manner, they are also have high potential for linkbait abuse. It’s too easy for infographics creators to insert irrelevant links or include false data. Given that Google is always geared towards providing users with the best information and user experience possible, it is understandable that they would want to set precautions against any avenue that may be used to fool users.

Image source
In defense of infographics, the possibility of a content creator to publish erroneous information is not lost nor reduced in textual content. We don’t see search engines devaluating articles and textual content just because they may be erroneous, do we? Unfortunately, the decision is not in the SEOs or users’ hands. The only thing people can probably do at the moment is to milk it for what it’s worth. It is possible though that regardless of whether or not infographics will be devaluated in the future, people will still be looking for them—after all, you can’t deny that most people would prefer looking at them than reading very long paragraphs and checking plain tables and graphs.In conclusion, it will benefit you to use infographics for inbound link-building now when it’s still valuable for your link profile. Even if they do get devalued, you can still circulate them in social media sites; searchers will still be attracted to them.

3 thoughts on “Make Embed Codes for Infographics for Effective Linkbaiting”

  1. Pingback: Pitstopmedia
  2. I have started making infographics past 3 months, but have never came across this idea of embedding the code in it. Really great stuff i got from u here. Thank u very much.:-)

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