There is a plethora of ways to increase traffic to your blog. You can invest time and money in search-engine optimization, take the time to comment on others’ sites, increase your offline profile to drive people to your site, write longer and more in-depth posts or publish more frequently. However, most of those strategies require a huge time investment and may take months to show returns.

If you’re looking for a more immediate surge in traffic, consider adding infographics to your site. Infographics are basically stories told in visual form. They focus on a singular subject, whether it’s sports, alcohol, photosynthesis or dog bones, and deliver all the relevant facts and figures with visuals to keep the reader engaged and interested.

Best of all, infographics are a proven traffic builder. Below is a guide on how to boost blog traffic using infographics.

Why Infographics?

First, a quick primer on why infographics are effective at driving traffic. Studies have shown that:

1. Visual content is more engaging that just words. Photos and video drive more engagement on both blogs and social media sites.
2. Infographics are highly shareable. When people share your infographic, your site gains more traffic.
3. Content that is presented in a new and original way is more interesting and more likely to receive comments and go viral than plain old text.
4. People love infographics. Here’s a great infographic that explains why.

Making an Infographic

For anyone who isn’t a graphic artist, producing your own infographic may sound intimidating. It’s not hard when you know where to look for resources. Perhaps you have a graphic artist on staff or you know one from work. If not, don’t fret. There are all sorts of (free!) sites that can help you turn your idea into a story with pictures.

A few sites to try out: Mapbox, Lettering JS, Piktochart, Info.gram and Visual.ly. Play around with different sites until you find something you’re comfortable with.

Gather Your Information

Remember, an infographic isn’t just a picture. It’s a collection of data that serves to make a point. The best infographics serve up in-depth research and turn it into a story of sorts, with an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

For instance, this infographic on sports injuries produced by the law firm KBG starts off by introducing the six most common forms of sports injuries. It goes on to examine injuries sport by sport, then gives an example of a courtroom case pertaining to each one. The ideas are easy to follow, and the graphics show imagination. A reference to the force of a boxer’s fist being as strong as a bowling ball is illustrated with a photo of a bowling ball.

Promote Your Infographic

Now that you’ve posted your infographic on your blog, it’s time to drive that traffic. Focus your promotional efforts on this page. Link back to it across future blog posts, and reach out to other bloggers to see if they will consider running your infographic with a linkback to your site. Offer to guest post for them on the subject; this is a win-win for both of you, because they get a free blog post and you get some extra traffic.

Target a site that is outside of your industry to get the biggest possible traffic gains. For example, Clarity Way, a rehab center, made a video infographic about rock stars who have died at the age of 27, with drugs and alcohol playing a role in all of the passings. Promoting this infographic on a drug-, alcohol- or health-related website seems logical, but why not reach beyond that audience to a site with a focus on music? That will bring a fresh audience to the blog and increase the amount of exposure the video gets.

Use Social Media

As mentioned above, social media is a terrific way to spread the word about your infographic. Pay particular attention to visual sites such as Pinterest, where infographics are very popular. Eighty percent of pins on the site are actually repins from other boards, so the more boards you get your infographic on, the greater the chance it will be repinned.

Facebook is also a good place to share your infographic. You can spark good conversations and get a lot of shares by posting an infographic with an interesting theme. LinkedIn can also be a valuable tool for your infographic if you start a conversation about it in a group and link to your blog.

Seeing a Traffic Surge

Your best hope is that your infographic goes viral and brings a ton of traffic with it. You can also help it along by sending the infographic to other bloggers and journalists in hopes of gaining coverage. At the least they may tap you as a resource, which will increase your credibility as an expert and send people to your site hoping to get more information.

About the author

Courtney Gordner, founder of talkviral.com and contributing blogger for socialfresh.com graduated from Penn State with a degree in Communications. Her two favorite people in the world are her niece and nephew, Raegan and Lucas. When she’s not playing World’s Greatest Aunt, you can find her watching her favorite shows, sometimes on DVD if they’ve been canceled, (Homeland, SOA, The OC, One Tree Hill, Friends and many more).

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