Problems are solved by outstanding link builders, since problems are produced by links. Deciphering data is a huge problem for publishers both in the present and in the future. Changing blocks of data into understandable charts and infographics is a valuable skill.
Mankind produced more data last year than in all of the last 5,000 years together. Link builders can turn this problem into an opportunity and soar by their challengers, because the limits of visualization for links are still very unknown.
Simultaneously, link building is evolving into a content marketer’s challenge. In reply to the inquiry of how they build links for their customers, the people at BlueGlass responded that they don’t and only focus on content marketing. The reason for this is that you can’t expect someone to accomplish in a day what is needed after being given only a spreadsheet and some tools without access to a customer’s site. It’s necessary to assimilate link building tactics with content to expect serious, long lasting positive results.
Visualizations are a content marketer’s closest buddy. Splendidly designed graphics which are easy to comprehend are very attractive to the viewers. This explains how Amanda Cox, a graphic designer for the New York Times, only produces data visualizations like this & this as a full-time job.
Here is the visual interpretation of this article.
If you’re still not sure how strong visualization tools are, you can check Google.
Types of Visualizations
We are certain to consider embeddable infographics when someone uses “visualization” and “links” in the same phrase. You should realize how the term “visualization” has been used in place of “data visualization” in most of this post. The reason for this is that data is only one of six varying kinds of effective visualizations which content marketers employ to impress their viewers. Below you can find the other five kinds of items we can visualize:
- Information
- Concepts
- Strategies
- Metaphors
- Compounds
Rather than being specific for each of them, what makes them different and varying ways to visualize each, look carefully at this periodic table of visualizations. You can hover above each element to be impressed. Keep this with you always.
The myths of Visualization
It’s important for you to be aware of many mistaken ideas that are found in the link building brotherhood concerning visualizations.
“It takes too much time to learn how to produce great graphics!”
My initial consideration was this ahead of researching the subject as carefully as I have. My constant impression was that large publications have the time and resources to produce great graphics, but it’s not possible for small business owners. Still, this change is taking place right in front of us. Presently, we can find such a variety of outstanding, user friendly tools which allow us to easily create impressive visualizations.
There is just one way to build visualization links like Budget Forecasts compared with Reality, since they aren’t embeddable, and that is through others linking directly to it. We can still build links we can use it for strategic outreach, so that even though they aren’t able to add it to their site, they can still link to it.
It’s frustrating when some insist that an infographic has to display date to be an infographic. Data is only a single type out six of types of visualization. Wikipedia even tells us that“infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge”.
Let’s be sure to remember that spam is the weakest type of all link building methods on the Web. Still, even though a majority of directory proposals are spammy, a few of them are of good value. This is also true for comment marketing compared to comment spamming.
Over time, a lot of infographics can be produced and may be spammy, but there will always be this type of visualization. It’s likely to take different forms as time passes, but all things do.
Changing data into an Infographic
As was mentioned at the beginning, there is a huge amount of data ready to be visualized.
There is even a conference each year which displays the top infographics, designers, and on data. Of the six basic forms of visualizations, surely the most powerful is data, since figures are more influential than words.
You should begin with some irresistible data to visualize. You can’t expect all data to be interesting or worth your time. Following are some open data locations to begin:
- Data.gov
- TheDataHub.org
- DataMarket.com
- Census.gov
- DataCatalogs.org
- Data.WorldBank.org
- Data360.org
- Google Public Data
- Freebase
Fortunately, a few of the bigger data hubs have a great deal of data which hasn’t even been thought of for visualization, so there will continually be fresh material, although some of it isn’t suitable or worth visualizing. Don’t move on until you have become knowledgeable about Open Data Commons, a series of legal tools for protection of those who supply open data.
You can also check out data from inquiries in Google. Following are some examples:
- keyword data
- keyword statistics
- keyword stats
- keyword data filetype:pdf
- keyword statistics filetype:pdf
- keyword stats filetype:pdf
- keyword data filetype:pdf site:.edu
- keyword study filetype:pdf site:.edu
You should observe that to discover a broader set of data, you need to employ your niche rather than your head terms. It’s possible also to plug your keywords into Google Scholar search. There are a few different possibilities for those not doing data.
Lists – If you can come up with a list of items, tips, or something else which is the appropriate size for an infographic, you just have to be sure that it isn’t too long or short.
Concepts – If you have difficulty relating a concept using basic text, a graphic could be ideal for you. You can find a good example of a simple video about Ponzi Schemes illustrated without using elaborate video software or one which is more advanced.
Events – In order to give your viewers a better realization of what took place, you can develop a visual timeline of a series of events.
Relationships – Visualization techniques such as venn diagrams and mind maps can ease the difficulty of relating connections between many varied items.
Comparisons – You can illustrate the likenesses and contrasts between two things by using a flashy graphic.
Processes – An effective method for relating particular operations to beginners is by using flow charts and other like visualization techniques.
Selecting a Visualization Technique
Once you find an item which you desire to visualize, you’ll need to decide precisely what method you want to use to visualize it. You have to choose from an infographic, an interactive graphic, an image which provides a lesser function, or something else.
You can find some good ideas from the following effective methods.
Video – This one’s a video about vampire energy, an odd phenomenon best told with some eye opening numbers.
Interactive Graphic – Here we have a data driven document about how Facebook compares to past IPOs.
Infographics – Finally, instead of taking up a ton of space in this post by embedding a few infographics check out this impresive list.
Static Graphics – Here’s Eric Fischer’s mappings of Flickr & Twitter posting locations: See Something or Say Something
Quick tips
- Be sure to commit certain tips to memory before you move on.
- Relate a tale – You need to do more than present a lot of data points.
- Don’t make it too complicated – In general, you will only have 4-5 seconds to inform your viewers about your item.
- Don’t expose excessive information – While not being too complicated, be sure the material is clear and doesn’t steal from the presentation by not expanding the essence of the story.
- Make a determination – In order to be sure that your viewers will share or link to your point, you should give a sense of closure at the end of your content.
Planing it
Now you need to determine the specifics. Attempt to answer the following questions:
- What color pattern do you want?
- How do you want to lay out your various items of information?
- What display form will the graphic take?
- Which kinds of charts will you employ?
While organizing your thoughts, it will be a good idea to write your ideas down. If you have difficulty understanding the way to quickly develop your thoughts with the means I discuss below, you’ll forget your idea. The most effective approach is to build a sketch and then move on.
Visualizing it
Let’s get on to something we can enjoy. You can give your idea to your design team, if you have one. Most of us don’t have a design team, so you can follow me through some helpful means. First, you need to recognize that professionals employ Adobe Illustrator to develop their infographics.
Infographics tools
Not being a designer, but desiring to develop an infographic yourself, you can use the following means to succeed.
Piktochart
To start with, Piktochart is a complete infographic creation tool which allows you to choose from 125 templates, with more being developed. You can use its drag and drop features to claim. Although it’s not free at $29/month, it is less than most quality infographics and worth exploring. Since it’s still developing and adding new features and enhancements, you should keep up with its progress.
Visual.ly, Easel.ly & Infogr.am
These are great for creating infographics, but they are fully developed (at least Easel.ly is still in it’s beta phase). They are simple and yet very effective, but for now they each have fewer templates available, so there is less customization for your benefit.
There are also many other tools of this kind you can find on the internet like :
Google Fusion Tables – This one has some amazing visualizations, but I haven’t really used it.
Hohli – You can use this very uncomplicated means for developing many kinds of charts.
Diagram.ly – An object editing tool that is free and simple.
Tableau – For your desktop this is a progressive and useful data visualization tool.
Stat Silk – Use this implement series to develop interactive graphs, maps, and charts.
Wordie & Tag Crowd – You are able to visualize many words.
Creately – You can simply develop a large variety of online diagrams using inexpensive paid plans.
Promoting your infographics
You should use an adequate promotion tactic if your visualization is more than a short piece adding to your blog post. Since an outstanding visualization requires much time, don’t waste the possibility by failing to promote it sufficiently.
Ask your existing fans to promote you
You can confidently use an email list, a following on Twitter, or a fan base on Facebook to let people know. Although this may be obvious, you shouldn’t hesitate to use all of your means to promote an excellent graphic.
Take advantage of your current relationships
Since you often receive advice about building relationships, it’s nice for you to receive a workable sample of link possibilities through these relationships. Be sure to inform people you already know in your industry about your graphic, whether by DMing, emailing, or PMing, and let them take it from there.
Translate it for International Readers & Bloggers
Translation is a very seldom used promotional tactic for infographics. Ask your readers that are not native English speakers can help you translate your content and they will appreciate that you want to translate into their native language.
Seek any who have similar content in common
Now you can employ a little used tool, Topsy. It will categorize content by its popularity on Twitter and then provide you with a list of all those who shared that content. As a sample, we can consider a new item of content on link building, a graphic here. Follow these steps:
- Input the phrase “link building” into the search bar (no quotes)
- Click “All time” in the left sidebar
- Click the “468 More” at the bottom right of each piece of content
- Reach out on Twitter to any of the influencers listed
For content that is decent, most will be glad to tweet and promote it. Although you don’t get an instant return on links, it does help reveal your content to possible linkers.
Ahead of developing the content considering this promotion tactic, look for the influencers you’ll be seeking and actively pursue them. Referring to the earlier pro tip, you should try beforehand to make contact with the webmasters and bloggers and then develop and promote the content. After developing an embeddable infographic, you should look for those who shared it, so you can get them to embed it.
Resources
Data Journalism at Stanford – This post was inspired by this hour long series on journalism in the age of data. Although it’s a couple of years old, it is still quite relevant.
Visualizing.org – This is a community of data visualizers which has data sets and other designers’ work.
The Flip Side
Although we’ve discussed utilizing data, we should also consider creating it. A lot of the data hubs which were listed permit user submissions of data. Also, you can obtain a link back as the source on your data set’s information page. That means you should develop the data you need, visualize it, and then allow others to do the same in order to receive a few links!
While developing data, you shouldn’t submit them only to the sites which permit links back as the source. You should circulate your data all over. When using your data, people will recognize you as the source. It’s always possible to expand your space to include people building links for you.
If you have a little time to be amazed and are seeking inspiration, following are a few good examples:
Blogs & Sites
- Cool Infographics – A blog full of more awesome infographics.
- GOOD Magazine Infographics – Even more awesome infographics (if you want the RSS feed, usethis one, not the site’s main one).
- Data Journalism Awards – The best of the best when it comes to data journalism. It only updates yearly, but this is the world cup for data junkies.
Interactive Infographics
- Intacto’s 10 Years of History – Get ready to be blown away.
- Future of Car Sharing – Horizontal parallax scrolling at its best.
- Dangers of Fracking – Vertical parallax scrolling, also at its best.
- How many slaves work for you? – The content is powerful beyond its design, making it even more effective.
- You vs. John Paulson – Think you can’t build great links in a spammy niche like Forex? Think again.
Others
The Print Effect – See how much paper & ink it would take to print your Twitter timeline. The little amount of data needed to make a really cool, niche focused project like this is just smart.
Pedestrian Crashes in Novosibirsk – Although in Russian & you’ll have to translate it, this is a map showing all of the pedestrian injuries in this city.
In the End
It depends on you to put in the time and effort to develop outstanding visualizations. The bottom line is the amount you want to contribute, how much you will drive yourself to be creative, and how great is your desire to achieve it. Exceptional content marketing involves visualizing WiFi strength, viewing the history of our world in 100 seconds, understanding human emotion, or stating address is approximate. You should spend at least the same amount of time on your content as you spend with other areas of your link building process. Although there won’t be immediate results. eventually you’ll be amazed by the rewards.
