Is Infographic Distribution Still OK?

[OctopusHR]

Hi Mozzers.

I'm designing an infographic to be used in conjunction with a report we've compiled. It's a really strong story backed up with good data. We're planning to do a bit of PR activity around it to hopefully get it in some very authoratitve publications.

On top of this, to maximise the backlinks that we're able to build I've been considering posting it on some (possibly all of the infographic sites) listed on Paddy Moogans blog post about infographic distribution.

• Would this provide any benefit or is it likely to get me penalised in some way?
• Are there any tips/advice you would give to do this? i.e. link to a mixture of different pages, use non spammy anchor text?
• Should I limit how many infographic sites I distribute it too? Is there a maximum total I should consider or even a maximum number of infographic links I should build per week/month?
• Anything else I've not considered?

Thanks in advance

David

[GPainter]

you may find the following white board Friday helpful -http://moz.com/blog/why-visual-assets-are-better-than-infographics-whiteboard-friday

Personally i'm not a big fan of infographcs there are loads of poor quality ones and they don't tend to get the results back for the effort you put in.  Hope the link helps you a bit more.

Good luck though.

[Felip3]

Infographics have been used as a super effective online marketing tool for years and they're still working great, in fact, it's just a little harder (as it should be) to get them noticed… A few years ago, you could pop up any old ugly infographic on whatever old thing, and it would get hundreds of social shares. Nowadays, you have to ensure the data in your infographics is really good, and that the graphics themselves are aesthetically pleasing and relevant.

[Paddy_Moogan]

Hi David,

Thanks for the question and I'm glad to see that you found my list of infographic sites

I think that infographics can still be a good way of marketing your website and getting links, the key really is to make sure that you're not just doing an infographic for the sake of doing an infographic. To be more specific, it shouldn't just be created in order to get links. There needs to be a solid, accurate story and data behind it as well as a nice design. Too many infographics these days are thrown together very quickly and shouldn't even be infographics! These are the ones that are probably not going to help very much in terms of links or traffic.

I believe that this is what partly led to Matt Cutts saying back in 2012 that Google may seek to discount links generated by infographics at some point.

It sounds like you don't need to worry about this but I wanted to point it out anyway.

Re your questions - I would avoid using commercial anchor text and stick to branded anchor text - this helps reduce the chance if the activity being seen as spammy and causing you problems with Google. I'd certainly recommend linking back to the original source of the infographic or the data behind it, I'd avoid linking back to commercial category pages because this can also make it look a bit spammy.

In terms of how many you should distribute to, it is less about the number and more about the quality of the site. The list I provided was put together over two years ago now (I need to update it!) so I'd recommend you review the sites and make sure they're of a good quality before submitting to them. Ultimately, you want your infographic to be covered on good quality sites that have the potential to send you quality, relevant traffic. If you use this as your benchmark, it will mean that you should end up going for good quality sites.

I hope that helps and best of luck with your infographic!

Paddy