59 Marketing Diagrams and Charts that Explain Digital Marketing

When concepts get tough, content gets visual. Marketing diagrams are a fast way to explain complicated topics and tricky ideas. Nothing makes a muddy post clear like a good visual.

So for this post, we’re stacking up the best charts and diagrams from 15+ years of publishing digital marketing articles.

Here are 59 diagrams and charts that explain big marketing concepts fast.

Note: You are welcome to use any of these images in your own marketing. Please just cite the source and link to the original location of that image!

Content Marketing Diagrams

The diagrams and charts in this section make content marketing concepts visual. Some are research, some are flow charts, others are simple tables that compare and contrast ideas.

1. How long does it take to write a blog post?

This is one of many charts from our annual blogger survey. It shows the average investment of time in a single piece of content:

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2. Time required to create a long-form search optimized article

This is a more specific look at the same question. It shows how much time goes into which categories for a single piece of content for this blog.

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3. Content promotion channels and the funnel

Ultimately, content marketers do three things: create content, promote it and then measure results. Here is a top-view look at the funnel, showing how the three different promotion channels affect the funnel in different ways.

Search = Awareness

Google is a discovery engine. High rankings for a relevant phrase can have a dramatic impact on awareness.

Social media = Awareness and consideration

Social media also increases awareness, since it makes you visible to friends of friends. When they interact with the content, it indicates stronger connection and consideration.

Email marketing = Consideration

Email signup requires a higher level of trust. But when they subscribe, you can reach them consistently. You’ve moved beyond simple awareness and toward greater consideration and action.

4. How content aligns with website pages

Funnel stages can also be aligned with pages on a website. Here in one diagram, you can see which pages on a site align with the psychology of visitors on their path toward conversion.

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5. The virtuous cycle of blog traffic …and eventual demand

Regardless of the traffic source, some visitors may subscribe, follow and link, which then helps power the next visit through email, social and search.

Eventually, a small percentage of visitors move through to the rest of the pages and a lead is born.

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6. Website traffic sources

Traffic flows into websites through channels. Some require money (paid advertising) while others require time (content marketing). Some require ongoing activity (email and social) but SEO becomes a durable source of traffic over time. Together, they are the oars, sails and motors.

And of course, famous brands drive tons of direct traffic.

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7. Two types of offers: transactional and consultative

They require two different types of marketing. Understanding the difference unlocks quick insights into the types of content and calls to action that will work for any brand.

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8. The Periodic Table of Content

There are so many different content formats in digital marketing. Repurposing content is about moving the material from one format into another. This little chart shows all of the possible formats and triggers repurposing ideas.

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9. Content Formats and the Funnel

If you consider those formats and their abilities to attract visitors and/or build trust, you begin to see the strengths and weaknesses of each format. With all of this in front of you in one diagram, you can strategically add formats to your content mix to drive specific results. When it works well, it’s like magic.

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10. The three types of marketing videos

Speaking of formats, video is one of the most powerful and versatile. Videos have different outcomes, depending on where they are and who views them. There are really three types of videos, each aligned with a different stage in the funnel. This little chart explains.

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11. The content marketing promotion cycle

Regardless of the format, success of a piece of content depends on how well it’s promoted. The best content doesn’t win, the best promoted content wins.

This diagram shows the cycle of promotion, which starts with research, before the content goes live.

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12. What happens when a potential visitor sees your headline?

With a great headline, promotion is easy. With a bad (or boring) headline, promotion is almost impossible. The key is to understand that the reader of the headline does a split-second cost benefit analysis before they decide to click. This chart explains.

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13. What and where is a headline in digital marketing?

Actually a headline isn’t one thing. It’s different things in different places. In email it’s a subject line. In search it’s a title tag. On the page is an H1 header.

The “headline” can be aligned with the opportunities of the location, depending on where it appears. This chart shows the various locations and success factors of each.

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14. Topics and focal distance

Zoom in or pan out. Cover the topic in detail with a long-form search-friendly post. Or stay high-level and cover a range of related items. Every topic in the universe can be organized on a fractal. You can find great ideas at any focal distance.

15. Content quality and longevity

Some content makes a strong impact. Other content lasts a long time. Unfortunately, they’re usually not the same piece.

• Content quality
• Face-to-face interaction is ideal, forming the strongest connections and building the greatest trust. Text is sadly the weakest format at conveying tone and nuance.
• Content longevity
• Some last just for that moment, passing in real-time. Social posts are visible for hours or days. Search optimized articles may be visible for months or years.

This chart shows the quality and longevity of various types of content:

16. Solo, lonely blogger vs collaborative marketer

Before we called it “organic influencer marketing” we just called it content collaboration. The idea is to include others in your content, through contributor quotes, roundups and interviews. It improves the quality of the content, but also the traffic.

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17. Post and pray vs Zero waste marketing

Even better than including influencers is including your audience. When you involve your actual prospects in the process of content creation (interviews, contributor quotes), the post is guaranteed to reach its target. This is known as zero-waste marketing.

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Social Media and Influencer Marketing Diagrams

The charts in this section explain some of the biggest (and trickiest) concepts in social media. Some are obvious, others might seem new.

18. The social media “Rule of Thirds”

There are definitely three kinds of social media posts. They are never equal thirds in a social stream, but all great social accounts include all three:

• Creation: Posts with links promoting articles created by the brand
• Curation: Posts with links to news and articles from friends
• Conversation: Personal messages of thanks, hello, questions, answers and congratulations.

This chart shows the goals and the tools for each.

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19. The five types of influencers

This chart is taken from a page in Mark Schaefer’s?Marketing Rebellion.

Mark didn’t use the term “Nano Influencers.” There’s some debate on the use of that term. The idea is that?you can find influencers at all levels, and that anyone can be an advocate within their own networks.

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20. Influencer marketing strategy: formats and outcomes

Which influencers and which channels determine the outcome of the program. Some collaborations lead to traffic, others do not. Some can drive registrations and leads, most don’t.

This chart shows at a glance how different channels and formats support different marketing goals.

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21. How influencers affect search engine rankings

The “Links & authority” column in the chart above is an SEO thing. The ranking potential of web pages is partly a function of the links to that website and webpage. This is often called Domain Authority (more on that topic?here).

Influencers are critical to growing Domain Authority. Bloggers and editors create content, content often includes links. This chart shows how influencers, when combined with link-worthy content, lead to rankings.

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22. Costs for paid influencer marketing

The cost for mentions and endorsements from influencers varies across platforms. And it’s gone up over time. Izea is an influencer marketing agency that has tracked these things since 2014.

This chart shows the costs of paid posts on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Instagram and YouTube. Although it’s not recent, it’s their latest data.

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23. Social Media and Spam

Some social networks have more spam than others. Which ones top the list? We conducted a survey of 1000+ social media users and crowned Facebook as the king of spammy social networks.

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24. Should you add that social media icon to your site?

It should be obvious, but it’s not. Websites link to dead social accounts all the time. More common is for a website to include social icons to a social network where they drop links, but don’t listen or interact.

This simple diagram makes an important point: a site should only promote social networks when two criteria are met: they share content there consistently and they interact within that community.

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25. Profile picture best practices

Do a friend a favor and share this post and diagram. It’s a simple tip for the composition in headshot photography that will help them look more professional. A quick tour through LinkedIn shows just how many accounts seem to miss this basic idea.

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Search Engine Optimization Diagrams

This set of visuals all relate to SEO. There are a lot of deep concepts related to search. It would be impossible to teach this topic without visuals. There are some of the most useful we’ve created:

26. The three types of keyphrases

Every keyphrase indicates intent. And the strength of that intent varies widely. As searchers we are problem aware, some are solution aware, some are brand aware. In these moments we search for different phrases: KNOW, DO and GO.

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27. The two main search ranking factors

If you need to explain SEO in ten seconds with one visual, this might be it. The two most important search ranking factors (and types of SEO) are authority and relevance. Of course, there’s more to it, but this is 90% of the game.

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28. The three types of SEOs

Just as there are different search ranking factors, there are different types of SEOs.

• Content creators focus on on-page SEO
• Link builders focus on off-site SEO
• Technical SEOs are concerned with the crawlability, schema, site structure, etc.

It may be helpful to think of them as farmers, hunters and miners. Virtually every SEO specializes in one of these three aspects.

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29. Link reclamation flowchart

You don’t have to be a full-time link builder to capture those quick wins. It’s simply a matter of listening and outreach. The listening involves brand alert tools. The outreach is just a simple request to turn that mention into a link.

All the best SEOs follow this basic flowchart. It’s called?link reclamation?and it’s a close cousin to PR.

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Would you like to see the next 30 charts and diagrams? They're in the rest of the article. You can see them here in the original article >