An infographic is a single visual that explains information, such as figures, a process or a comparison, through charts, icons and short labels instead of paragraphs. A good one lets someone grasp in seconds a point that would take several paragraphs to read.
How an infographic works
Most infographics follow one of a few patterns: a statistical summary built from a handful of numbers, a process or timeline shown in order, a side-by-side comparison, or a map. The layout groups and orders the information, so the reader sees how the parts relate before reading a single label.
On a website, an infographic is usually an image inside an article. Search engines rely on the file name, alt text and surrounding copy, not on words drawn into the pixels, so the text version matters as much as the graphic. Accessibility points the same way: people using screen readers need the information in text, either in the article or in a linked description, as WCAG expects for complex images.
Infographics can also earn links. Journalists, bloggers and teachers embed or cite a clear visual when it saves them explaining something themselves, and each citation can bring a backlink to the page that hosts the original.
Why it matters
For a UK business, the value lies in what the infographic says rather than in the format. In the early 2010s, generic infographics became a cheap link tactic and the web filled up with them, so editors now pass over most. What still gets picked up is a visual built on information nobody else has presented clearly: your own survey, anonymised figures from your customer records, or public data made useful for your sector.
Public data is a good place to start. ONS statistics and much other UK government data can be reused, including for commercial purposes, under the Open Government Licence, as long as you credit the source in the form the licence asks for. A builders’ merchant charting regional housebuilding figures, or an accountant mapping the Self Assessment year onto one page, gives trade press and local news desks something they can use with a credit.
Infographics help sales conversations too. A visual explaining your process, how your pricing is structured or what happens after someone enquires answers questions before they are asked, whether it sits on a service page, in a proposal or in a social post.
Common mistakes
- Putting all the information inside the image, so search engines, screen readers and phone users squinting at tiny labels get nothing.
- Uploading a very tall PNG of several megabytes that slows the page. Apply image optimisation or split the graphic into sections.
- Quoting statistics without a named, dated source, or taking figures from a blog that copied them from somewhere else.
- Using icons, photos or fonts without checking their licences.
- Designing for a desktop screen, so the graphic becomes unreadable on the phones where most social viewers will see it.
- Making a visual about a subject nobody is searching for or writing about, then wondering why it earns no links.
How to act on it
Begin with the information, not the design. Ask which question your customers or the press in your sector keep asking, and whether a visual would answer it better than text. If it would, gather the data from a primary source, write the copy first, then brief the designer.
Publish it on a page that stands on its own: a short introduction, the graphic, the full text or a data table, a list of sources, and a note inviting others to reuse it with a credit link. Size it for mobile, write descriptive alt text, and consider a version cut into square panels for social channels.
Then tell the people who would find it useful: trade publications, local newsrooms, membership bodies and bloggers in your field. That outreach is where digital PR comes in, and planning the data, the page and the pitch together is the part of link building where an infographic earns its cost. Without outreach, it is just a picture.