Last week I wrote a post revealing one of my little secrets for creating an infographic-like image in about 1/10th the time it normally takes. In short, rather than doing a bunch of research on statistics, conducting polls and surveys, or crunching data, we simply identify a simple process and create a graphic out of the process steps.
For example, one of our clients is Moxie Pest Control. The first infographic we did for them was fairly traditional. We chose bed bugs as the topic and created a graphic detailing why they are a rising problem in the US, how many people deal with the problem, treatment options, etc. This is all typical fodder for an infographic, and it turned out fine.
However, with our second graphic for Moxie, we went the instructographic route and created a graphic entitled “How To Check Your Hotel Room For Bed Bugs”. Because bed bugs are a key part of Moxie’s business, they were able to easily define a 7 step process for sweeping a hotel room for these little pests. From a single conversation, we were able to create the outline needed for this infographic and get rolling.
The time savings on this was huge, and we ended up with a graphic that many more websites would find useful. For instance, we’ve reached out to many travel websites and blogs who have responded positively and shared it with their readers.
This is the graphic:
The great thing about instructographics is that most of the knowledge is probably already in your (or your client’s) head. Meaning you don’t have to track down past studies or data sets and do a lot of research on your own. You can simply brainstorm for 10 minutes or so, write up a brief outline, and then get it over to your designer to start making it beautiful.
One of our first instructographics was this one, which included 10 ways to give your child an academic advantage during their formitive years. We simply brainstormed that top 10 list as a group for about 15 minutes and the content was complete. From there we got it to our graphics team and it was done 2 days later!
I hope this post, plus my last one on the topic, are enough to inspire you to try out an instructographic the next time you need an awesome piece of content for SEO.