[Case Study] How To Use Infographics As A Local SEO Strategy For Backlinks

Local search traffic, without a doubt, can account for a significant portion of your overall sales and conversions.

Given that local searches account for 46% of all searches, it’s only natural that your company has a local SEO strategy in place.

When it comes to obtaining local backlinks, using infographics in your local SEO strategy can make your life a lot easier.

In a recent case study, I used an infographic to help Digital Ducats Inc. get local backlinks, which resulted in: A 63.64 percent increase in traffic

2. Getting a local pack spot for the highly competitive keyword “SEO services.”

Why “local backlinks”?

Obtaining linked, unstructured citations is one of the goals of a local SEO link-building strategy. These kinds of links connect your company to your city and help you rank higher in local finder and localized organic search results.

What is a structured citation?

When a website provides a specific entry to list the name of your business, address, phone number, and a link to your website, it is known as a structured citation. Because they are easy to obtain links, structured citations are considered table stakes in local SEO.

Structured citations can be obtained from sites such as Manta, Yellow Pages, and other local or niche directories where you can enter your NAP information (Name, Address and Phone number).

There was a time when the number of citations you had was a major ranking factor that affected your position in Google’s Local Finder. The widespread practice of obtaining a large number of citations resulted in the devaluation of these links, as it did with most easily manipulated ranking factors.

What is an unstructured citation?

Unstructured citations, on the other hand, are an invaluable resource for improving your local search visibility. Because they are instances of your name, address, or phone number found on another local website, blog, or app, these types of links are much more difficult to obtain.

Unstructured citations from companies in your industry (or a similar vertical) that are linked to your city via a physical address or service area are the best links for local SEO.

My case study

The objective of this local SEO strategy case study was to obtain branded links from Toronto-based companies to improve the local presence of Digital Ducats in both Google finder as well as the localized organic search results. 

As an SEO consultant in Toronto, it made sense to target Toronto web design companies for two reasons: 1) web design is within the digital marketing industry and 2) they operate in the same city. 

The strategy

It was much more efficient to publish a high-quality piece of content and ask other sites to link to it rather than reaching out to a number of sites individually with a tailored pitch to guest post.

Backlinks to infographics are typically 178 percent higher. My article became much more appealing for publishers to link to and share on their websites after I created an infographic.

The standard

Quality article writing is at the heart of content marketing, and whether you write on-site or off-site, it all boils down to providing value to your audience. Your content must be link-worthy in order for others to link to it. Backlinks to in-depth content are 77.2 percent higher than backlinks to thin content.

Food that has been half-chewed can be compared to thin content. It’s unappealing and difficult to digest, leaving users choking and looking for something else to drink.

It reflects an expert opinion, incorporates original data, and includes a visual element, to name a few characteristics of link-worthy content. People remember 65 percent of what they see, but only 10-20 percent of what they read.

The solution to publishing content for an effective outreach campaign was to combine these criteria.

The outcome

I was able to publish an in-depth article titled “12 Web Design Trends In 2020 By Toronto Experts” exactly 15 days after I started. The infographic includes 18 quotes from Toronto design firms that have resulted in 6 local backlinks, a 63 percent increase in traffic, and a placement in the local pack.

This is the reason why it works. We are social animals who have evolved to communicate as humans. People share content online primarily to delight others with valuable/interesting content, to identify and present ourselves to others, to foster relationships, for self-fulfillment, and to spread the word about issues or brands, according to one study. An infographic like the one above is useful to the target audience and thus a valuable marketing asset.

Now I’ll show you what I did and how you can use the same local SEO strategy for your business.

1. Choose a trending topic

Come up with a topic that will benefit all of the participants. You don’t have to invent the wheel in this case. Make your topic something that will pique people’s interest while also making an attractive infographic.

To make your content even more irresistible, choose a topic idea that is currently trending. Every year, web design trends are published, which resulted in an idea that any web design firm could support. If you’re stuck for ideas, look up Google trends or read the top blogs in your field.

2. Create a list of link candidates

Begin by making a list of companies you’re familiar with and believe will be valuable assets to your link-building campaign. Choose companies that are in the same vertical as you and are based in the same city.

Your outreach should target a large number of companies in order to generate the most opportunities for backlinks and receive enough qualified responses.

My plan was to send a mass email to every website listed on the first 25 pages of Google search results for the phrase “web design Toronto.”

Collect potential candidates

You can use a few plugins to help you quickly populate your list of potential candidates.

The first is G-Infinity, which is a plugin. This enables “infinite scroll,” allowing you to highlight multiple pages of results at once rather than cutting and pasting 25 pages separately.

Extract the URLs

After you’ve highlighted all of the pages, use the Linkclump plugin to extract the domain names from the highlighted search results. This plugin’s settings can be tweaked to extract the title as well as the URL.

Press “z” + the left mouse button to highlight the search results and select the links you want to extract.

Paste to spreadsheet

To get a list of every domain that appeared in the 250 results you highlighted, paste the URLs into a spreadsheet.

Eliminate duplicates

There will almost certainly be domains in your results that have multiple pages. Use the conditional formatting option to highlight and delete duplicate cells to get rid of them.

3. Find email addresses and contact info

There are a few options for automating this process, but the fastest options for bulk email extraction rely on paid software. Among the most popular choices are Screaming Frog and Hunter.

If you choose Hunter, you will be charged $50 per month at their lowest price point. By pasting or importing a list of domains, this allows bulk email extraction of multiple email addresses from each domain in one shot.

The crawler in the paid version of Screaming Frog is a second option for bulk extraction. To get the crawler to find and extract the email addresses within each domain, use the appropriate XPath query.

Finally, you can find a contact email address for each domain on your list by going line by line. This option has advantages because it allows you to vet and qualify your prospects as appropriate candidates for your list.

When you extract 250 domains from the search results, you’re bound to have some irrelevant sites on your list. It won’t take you more than an hour to complete the process.

If you come across a website that only has a contact form, use Hunter to look up the domain’s email addresses.

This is a quick extraction, and you can pick the best email address by looking at the confidence rating (hover your mouse over the coloured dot beside the email address) and the number of sources the email address was found in.

If Hunter fails to find any email addresses, your last option is to use social media.

LinkedIn is a good option because it can provide you with a list of people who have official job titles. To see a list of employees, go to LinkedIn and click the “people” tab.

Contact the company’s best representative, such as the CEO, President, Project Manager, or Content Manager.

Even if you don’t get an official quote, requesting connections can help you expand your network. Many people will agree to connect with you without actually responding to your request for a quote.

It obviously won’t help you achieve your current goal, but the connection could be useful for a future project. LinkedIn can also be used to locate email addresses.

This case study provided me with 21 new connections as well as three quotes for my article/infographic.

4. Craft your outreach email

Although it may seem self-evident to some, an effective outreach email should include the following:

• A topic heading that is correct
• a brief explanation
• Make your intentions known upfront.
• Give your prospect something of value.

Separate yourself from spammers with an original and accurate subject line that entices your prospect to open your email and read your offer. The subject line should clearly state what you’re offering, but feel free to include anything else that will make your email more appealing.

Here’s the email I sent out in the first place:

Within two days of sending the first email, I received the majority of responses. I followed up 5 days later with a second email and received three more responses.

Check your spam folder for any replies that may have gone missing. Two responses were rescued from my spam folder, one of which was included in the final list of quotes.

5. Create your content and infographic

Expert roundups are a great type of content to create because they’re informative, make for great infographics, and almost write themselves.