Creating content and setting up your website is like renting a store at the mall and stocking it with items.
Now comes the bigger challenge, how do you actually get people to your store?
The good news is that literally millions of people can visit your website, whereas if you had brick and mortar store, your traffic would be limited to those in your city.
How do you drive traffic to your website without constantly writing new blog posts?
Is there a way to repurpose good content and drive traffic faster?
The answer is yes! Over the past three years, I have used and refined this method on my blog to grow my traffic to half a million readers and over 50,000 email subscribers, and all of this on a mom blog.
The method is simple. Take existing great content and create an infographic or printable. If done right, this can easily double your traffic to a post. Below I’ll show you the exact steps I use to create infographics for free, or almost free.
Two Different Types of Infographics
I would like to introduce you to two different types of infographics. The traditional infographic and an action based infographic.
Traditional Infographic
A traditional infographic is a visual image that summarizes a complex problem and breaks it down into easy to comprehend sections.
Action-Based Infographic
An action-based infographic is much more of a blueprint. It’s a single page plan of action to solve a complex problem broken down into an easy to follow step-by-step plan.
Based on your goals, each infographic can work differently.
The traditional infographic is great for increased traffic and organic backlink growth. Content creators always appreciate a well thought out infographic that adds to their argument.
If your goal is to increase your email list, the action-based infographic performs better. It results in higher conversions to email subscribers and more loyal readers. Many of your readers will print out the plan and use it. It’s not just visually appealing, it’s also helpful.
Design Elements of a Great Infographic
Great infographics come in different forms and sizes. Your amazing infographic could be as simple as a 5 column bar chart. Or it can be as elaborate as a year long business plan broken down by month and category.
Take into consideration your audience. What appeals to them?
Do they like simple black and white charts and facts? Or do they need something a bit more visually appealing?
Visit the brick and mortar stores where your audience shops. Look at the magazines your audience reads. Study the fonts, graphics and layouts of sales copy that appeals to your audience.
Once you understand what your audience likes, it’s easy to structure your infographic in a similar way.
For example, since my audience is made up of moms, I visit stores like Target and Hobby Lobby for inspiration. My best infographic was inspired by a greeting card I saw in the Hallmark store.
Remember to step outside of the online world once in a while for real world inspiration and market research.
Repurpose Created Content into Visual Content
You’ve spent time and effort learning how to start a blog and write great posts, now how do you maximize the reach of each piece of content. You can do this by creating both a traditional and action-based infographic.
For example, if your post is about “How to potty train a two year old,” you could add a chart showing the statistics of when children are ready to be potty trained. This traditional type of infographic would be shared by other websites in your niche who have similar content.
For your action based infographic, you can create a step by step plan for a mom to use so she can potty train her child in seven days. This will result in email subscribers and loyal followers.
Both types of infographics work well together to bring you more traffic and email subscribers.
Where to Market Your Infographics
The best place to market your infographics are the places where your audience hangs out. But since infographics are very appealing, I would encourage you to experiment with different social media and search platforms.
If you haven’t tried out the social media platforms below, you could find great success with them especially with infographics.
Pinterest is a visual search engine and is a fantastic place to market your infographic. About 80% of Pinterest users are female. If your infographic appeals to a feminine audience, Pinterest could easily double your website traffic.
Twitter or LinkedIn is a great place to promote your smaller, more traditional infographics. Images like charts and bar graphs are great to share on these platforms.
Your own website. Of course you’ll be placing your infographic on your own website as well. But be sure to add embed code underneath it to make it easier for other websites to share your visual. You can use this embed code generator to help!
How to Create Infographics for Free
I use multiple different programs/tools for creating infographics. It all depends on which type of infographic I want to create.
In the video below I’ll cover each of the four programs I use frequently to create infographics. From this 20 minute tutorial you’ll discover how easy it is to repurpose existing content in new ways to increase your website traffic.
4 Tools for Creating Infographics
PowerPoint / Keynote
Since I’m a Microsoft girl, I love PowerPoint, but you can do similar things with Apple’s Keynote program. PowerPoint gives me the most control over the creation of my infographic. And with it’s Smart Art ability, I can create infographics that look professional quickly.
Google Slides
If you don’t want to pay the yearly subscription to Office products, you can use Google Slides. It’s a fast and quick solution to create infographics in a snap.
Canva
If you’re designing infographics and need a bit of help, Canva is your go-to solution! It’s great for traditional infographics and already has templates you can use right out of the box.
Piktochart
For content creators that don’t have a creative bone in their body, Piktochart is your go-to solution! Its main goal is to help you in creating infographics, flyers or presentations. It has drag and drop capabilities, professionally designed color palettes and hundreds of icons to choose from.
Where to Get Icons and Flat Images for Infographics
For creators who want more control of their infographic design, there are multiple websites to use for icons and flat images.
Noun Project: For a small yearly fee you can have access to millions of royalty free icons directly on your computer. Noun Project integrates with Microsoft, Mac, Google, and Adobe programs. This makes it a breeze to create infographics directly on your native device.
Flaticon: You can use the icons and vector images on Flaticon for free if you credit the author. For less than $10 per month, you’ll have access to over a million images with no attribution necessary.
Iconstore.co: Iconstore is a resource of free icons by first class designers. Each icon pack published on IconStore can be used in personal as well as commercial projects, with no attribution required.
PowerPoint: Not truly icons or images, but Powerpoint’s Smart Art can make any infographic look professional. You also have the ability to save color palettes and quickly preview different styles to find the one that works for you.
Use Infographics to Double Your Website Traffic
The hardest part about building the best blog site is not growing a profit, it’s growing an audience. Once you have a following and consistent traffic to your website, you’re golden.
When you consistently create great content, repurpose it into visually appealing infographics and market on different platforms, your traffic will soar.
Suzi Whitford is a mom marketing coach who has helped over 41,000 moms start and grow their blogs. When she is not making snacks for her three little ones, she is helping moms build their side hustles by applying her corporate knowledge of Lean Six Sigma to simplify the blogging process.
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