Infographics are an excellent way to present information to your customer base. They’re easy to read and they’re highly shareable.

Infographics are graphic representations of information or data that is presented in an easy-to-read format.

When properly developed and promoted, infographics have the potential to generate a lot of website traffic.

Many companies design beautiful infographics only to see them get little attention because they didn’t properly market them. If you want lots of eyes on your infographics, here are the most important marketing steps.

1. Optimize Infographic for Search Engines

If you want people to find your infographic on search engines, it has to be optimized. This involves:

• Including important keywords in file name – For instance, don’t name the image file of your infographic as “Infographic1.jpeg.” Include some keywords such as “2013-Shopping-Staticstics-Infographic.jpeg.”

• Using an ALT Tag – An ALT tag is web design code that explains the image in text form. For instance, a web image of an infographic on sports cars might have the ALT tag as “Sports Cars Infographic.” Search engines rely on ALT tags to help categorize and rank images in search results. Including important keywords in your ALT tag is important to improve visibility on search engines.

• Providing a Title and Supporting Text – Don’t just post your infographic on a website or a blog. Include a headline and some supporting text that explains the infographic. It’s an excellent way to add some keywords to the infographic to boost the visibility on search engines.

These three steps will help to optimize your infographic for search engines.

2. Make Infographic Shareable

People love sharing infographics on social media. Including social media share buttons near the infographic will help spread the word. Some popular social media share buttons include:

• Facebook Like Button
• Pinterest Pin It Button
• Twitter Tweet Button
• LinkedIn Share Button
• Google +1 Button

You will need some programming help to install these types of sharing features. Additionally, you’ll want to create embedded code that allows people to post the infographic on their website. SEO Gadget offers an infographic embed code generator. You can see an example of embed code below.

3. Share Infographic on Relevant Channels

Besides posting the infographic on your website or blog, you’ll also want to share it on other company marketing channels. This can include:

• Social Media: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+
• Photo Sharing Websites: Flickr, Picasa
• Social Discovery Websites: Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit
• Email: Newsletter, stand-alone emails

You might even want to distribute a press release on the infographic if you think blogs or news publications might publish it.

Another idea that is gaining popularity is to create a YouTube video of your infographic in which you explain key points.

4. Be Proactive With Outreach

If you really want to get people to share your infographic, reach out to relevant blogs, websites and even influencers on social media that might be interested in publishing your infographic. Contact them and let them see your infographic. Let them know why their readers/followers would be interested in it. If you created a press release on the infographic, share it with them.

5. Learn From Experience

After you have marketed your infographic, take a look at the analytics. See what worked and what didn’t. Identify areas for improvement. Key data points to examine include:

• Infographic page views
• Infographic page view duration
• Number of infographic shares
• Top infographic share sources

Paying attention to your analytics is how you get better at marketing infographics.