Infographics are an extremely popular content marketing tool and it is not hard to see why (no pun intended!). A well-made infographic shares important information in an appealing manner and generates more shares and likes than other types of content. It also impresses potential clients and business partners with your knowledge and expertise. At the same time, infographics are not the one and only perfect marketing tool as they do have a number of pitfalls and disadvantages. Read on to learn the pros and cons of using infographics as a part of your content marketing strategy, and to discover if integrating infographics is the right move for your company.

 

The Advantages of Infographics

 

Share Complex Information in an Appealing Manner

Infographics make it easy for you to share complex information.

Instead of listing a bunch of statistics that would not be interesting to anyone but an industry expert, you can make your facts and figures appealing with a variety of images.

Help People remember Important Information

It is far easier to remember visually appealing information than it is to remember regular charts or a list of numbers. Infographics help people remember important points about your industry, products, and/or services.

Effective Branding

Infographics are an effective branding strategy.

They help people get to know who you are and what you have to offer. The fact that they are shared three times more frequently than regular blog posts can help your company name become a household word. Make sure you use your logo on all of your infographics!

Setting Yourself Up as an Expert

A good infographic shows people that you know a lot about your industry. This encourages people to want to do business with you as they feel they can trust you.

Additionally, companies looking for someone to partner with in business are more likely to seek out an expert instead of an industry newcomer. Showcase your intelligence with an infographic to attract companies that can help promote your business.

Build Links

Infographics are easy to share, which means that many individuals, as well as companies in your industry, are likely to embed or link to them. These links are invaluable because they boost your standing in Google's search engine. The link building aspect of infographics is probably the biggest “pro” of this list of “pros and cons of using infographics as part of your content marketing strategy.”

 

The Disadvantages of Infographics

 

Poor SEO

The text in your infographic is part of the image and not read as text by Google's search engine. This means that creating an infographic will not give you the immediate SEO boost that your new company needs. While future links generated by the infographic will eventually give your site a boost, you will need more than infographics to help Google understand who you are and what you are offering.

Time and Cost

You can't simply slap together some images and text and hope that your infographic generates traffic and sales to your site. You will need to do extensive research to make sure your facts and figures are accurate. You will probably also need to hire a designer to create custom images for your infographic to ensure that it looks good and stands out from other infographics made by competitors. Creating an infographic will take both time and money no matter what industry you work in.

There is a Risk of Getting Bad Links

You can't control who will embed or link to your infographic. There is a very real chance that spammy websites and/or companies not related to your industry will either embed or link to your infographic; this results in bad links that can bring your site down if you get too many of them.

 

Pros and Cons of Using Infographics – What is the Final Verdict?

 

Given the above information, it is clear that:

  • Infographics are a valuable branding tool.
  • Infographics are an effective advertising technique because they generate more social media shares and likes than regular blog posts.
  • A good infographic can set you up as an industry leader; this in turn can open up various potentially profitable business opportunities.
  • It will take time to prepare a good infographic and you will need professional help to boot.
  • Your site must also have plenty of great text in addition to infographics if you want to boost the website's standing in Google via search engine optimization.

You cannot rely on one tactic alone to generate the traffic and sales your business website needs. While the advantages of creating a winning infographic outweigh the disadvantages and risks, you need a well-rounded content marketing strategy that will generate short term and long term traffic.

If you need help creating infographics Fiverr is a great place to get started. They have infographic designers at all price points that can generate quality products. Good luck!