Now that you’ve created a potent infographic that tells your story within a 30-second glance, how can you make sure that search engines will actually find your epic infographic?

The infographic’s visual appeal is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because people love sharing infographic images and understand them easily, but it’s also a curse because search engines like Google cannot pick up any of the valuable text information within your infographic image.

Without the right text in the right places, your infographic will look the same as a photo of your last family reunion in a search engine’s eyes if you describe it with the same words. Therefore, you need to know how to optimize your infographics for search engines using these following four tips:

seo-process-infographic

seo-process-infographic

How to optimize your infographics for search engines using these following four tips:

  1. Start with the obvious: Tell search engines that your page contains an infographic in your title.
    John Souza, founder and chief strategist of the Social Media Impact website, explains that you must always add the word “infographic” to the title of your post or tweet that features your information-rich image. Your post title should also contain the main keyword related to your infographic.
  2. Give your infographic the “backup band” of good written content that it needs.
    No matter how great any lead singer is, they’ll never sell an album with only their unaccompanied voice on it. Similarly, your rock-star infographic needs the accompaniment of high-quality text with a good range of keywords on the same page in order to direct the attention of search engines to it.Mr. Souza goes on to explain that this tactic is also important in order to communicate to Google what makes each infographic you publish different from the next one. What you need is highly specific keywords to describe each image in your page’s text.This point is important because if you publish multiple infographics with very little text that all say basically the same thing, Google can assume you’re publishing duplicate content and penalize your website.Plus, don’t skimp on your written page content either.Infographics aren’t actually a substitute for good written content. Yes, they contain lots of great data in a beautiful package, but you’ll get more benefit out of them if you use infographics as a supplemental enhancement for the great stories on your website.Digital marketing strategist Mr. Suthar, chief editor of thenextscoop.com, reported that longer content ranks much higher in Google; therefore, post your infographic at the top of your page and take the extra time needed to write out all the details and explain it in depth below.You’ll want to try and reach around 1,500 words or more of written content for better search-engine result rankings. This way, you have a post that’s more shareable and interesting, visitors will stay longer on the page to help boost your ranking and Google will use the great keywords in your written text to understand exactly what the infographic is about.Mr. Suthar shares this example of his own infographic.
  3. Your dogs aren’t the only things that need tags …
    Another important factor to remember is that you need to put “ALT”-tags on your infographic images and name them well. These are your digital dog tags to identify your graphics for Google so that they become discoverable within a Google image search.Remember that file names are also just as important as ALT tags.ALT tags are web-design code that is necessary for explaining an infographic in text to search engines. That’s why using major keywords in your infographic’s ALT tags and the image’s file name is critical for your overall “SEO,” or search-engine optimization, strategy. For example, don’t upload your infographic image with the file name as “info2.jpeg.” Instead, use descriptive words like “2015-marketing-trends-infographic.jpeg.”
  4. Socialize your infographic.
    It goes without saying that you should add the usual social-media sharing buttons to your infographic so that it’s easier for others to share on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, what good is all that sharing if others aren’t linking this smart image back to you to help you get better rankings and more Internet traffic?To solve this dilemma, always post an HTML embed code for your information-rich visual that links back to your post along with your infographic.If you’re not familiar with HTML codes and want to get this over with as quickly as possible, try SEO Gadget, which is the most straightforward embed code generator.Some people will just copy and paste the image, so it’s important to make sure that your infographic is heavily branded and that it includes a link to your website so you don’t lose the credit.For an image of how to use embed codes with infographics effectively, go to:
    http://www.copyblogger.com/ingredients/ and scroll down to grab a screenshot of how they did it perfectly below the heading “Want to publish this infographic on your own site?”With these essential SEO-optimization tips for your infographics, you’re well on your way to reaching a bigger audience faster.These tools not only put the power of Google search rankings behind your image, but they also help you answer any questions people may have about your infographic when they see it and let you raise new burning questions on the topic. Just think: What intriguing queries could you ask to get them talking about your latest infographic?