7 Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics Online

Internet Surfers today are incredibly visual. Most of them would rather look at a graphics than read an entire article or report. Fortunately, there are now ways to fit just as much information into n graphic as there would normally be in a text article.

For all the importance we place on text, it's an undeniable fact that graphics is processed in the brain faster than words. Henceforward the rise of the infographic which, at its best, transforms complex information into graphics that are both easy to grasp and visually appealing. No wonder magazine readers and web visitors love them.

The days are gone where you need an entire graphics team to create them. If you have information to present, there are tools for creating infographics and charts that help you to visually bring it to life.

Here's a list of Best Free Tools for Creating Infographics.

Canva (canva.com)

Canva is filled with options, whether you are working on a project for work, personal, or social media. Each new project comes with a template for the project you choose to work on. With the dimensions done for you, you can focus your attention on creating beautiful designs in seconds.

Easel.ly (easel.ly)

Easel.ly has Very basic design layouts and assets. You can drag artwork onto the canvas, and move around or add different elements as needed. New charts feature allows some basic editable charts in your design and Easy downloads for JPG and PDF versions.

Piktochart (piktochart.com)

Piktochart is one of the best looking programs on this list. This grid-based infographics tool features pre-designed themes that you can customize with text, colors, and various shapes and design elements. Pictochart offers a free version with 7 different themes, along with pro versions that have more than 100 themes and don’t include any Piktochart branding.

Their intuitive user interface is where Piktochart truly excels. All the tools you need to create are laid out intelligently, making your new job as a “designer” so much easier.

One of the coolest aspects of this program is that they show how versatile infographics are for different projects. Whether you’re creating for a classroom, office, website, or social media setting - Piktochart gives you the heads up on how to use infographics effectively.

Infogr.am (infogr.am)

Infogr.am has got the best charts. For illustrating data, there are more than 30 different types of charts to choose from. Anything from bubble charts and tree maps to simple pie charts.

You can use Infogr.am to create infographics from scratch, or you can import existing CSV or XLS files to simplify the process. The site also includes built-in sharing and embedding features so that you can make sure your graphics end up in the right place.

Vizualize (vizualize.me)

Vizualize.me is one of these services, an app which allows you to produce an infographic style resume. You start by filling in the sections present in the app (things like education and skills), then choose a theme and save. It’s a simple and straightforward service with some fun customization options and pretty cool results. Stick with me after the jump to see the kind of things you can create with Visualize.me.

Venngage (venngage.com)

Venngage tool developed by the team from Visual.ly – an online dataviz sharing community, which aims to make reports easier for analysts who don’t want to install expensive software. There’s a free demo mode with most functionality, but the Professional version offers export options and the ability to publish documents privately. It also allows you to use connections to Social Media analytics with some standard report templates set up.

Visme (visme.co)

If you’re looking for a way to bring visual content to life, then Visme could be the answer. Formerly known as Easy Web Content Presenter, the free browser-based tool allows marketers to easily create a range of visuals, including Web and mobile animations, Presentations, Infographics, Banner ads Graphs, and charts Product demos.



Which Infographic design tools have you tried? Which tools are your favorites? Post in the comments.

What are the Best Keyword Rank Checker Today?

Keyword Rank Tracking is an Essential part of every Online Marketing Campaign. It's especially important to all SEO Professional who work on Search Engine Optimization Project. Rank Tracker retrieves search engine rankings for pages and keywords, Some tools also track selected rankings over time to see which efforts are making the most impact on your SEO Campaign and show you the ranking changes.

Now, there are  a lot of free and paid rank checker out there that help SEO Professionals to track keyword rankings. Some tools that work great at certain tasks but terrible at others. Before Writing this post, I did a lot of Research to bring you the Best Keyword Rank Checker for your SEO Project.

Moz Pro

In the Moz Pro plan, you can run up to five different campaigns at the same time. Because Moz limits the number of keywords you can track per campaign to 60, that totals 300 keywords you can track overall five campaigns, which can be limiting if you're running campaigns with different themes or that span multiple verticals. Rank tracking is thorough, though, with competitive analysis baked right in; you can see where you rank for your top keywords as well as where your top competitors rank.

Price: Moz Pricing Plan Start From $99 to $499 /month and the also offer a 30-day free trial.

SEMrush

SEMrush's Pro version offers keyword suggestion and keyword rank tracking. Using SEMrush, you can track up to 500 keywords over five campaigns. The tools available for keyword research can display a keyword's search volume and help you gauge how well a keyword will perform on your site. The phrase match report will show you keywords related to prime keywords that can also help drive traffic to your site, but they may be less competitive, so it will be more possible to rank with them.

Price: $69.95 – $549.95 / month

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking allows you to closely monitor your keyword's performance and Rank Tracking from three different search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo. You can easily sort your keyword information to see how each of these search engines views your keywords. This is useful because, while you may be hitting all of Google's targets, you may be weak in Bing's search results and missing key traffic flows from them.

Price: $49 – $499 / month, also offer FREE 30 day trial on all plans..

Ahrefs

Ahref's provides estimated keywords ranking data for keyword sets on both Google and Bing/Yahoo in multiple countries (US, UK, AU, DE, FR, ES, IT, BR, RU). The tool shows following information:

• Position 
• Keyword 
• CPC 
• Estimated cost 
• Ranking URL 
• Global search volume A
• dvertiser competition 
• Last date checked 
• Rating (estimated visitors per month based on assumed traffic distribution)

Price: $79 – $1,299 / month, and the also offer a free NEWBIE plan.

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker

Link-Assistant Rank Tracker Feature:

• Automatically check your search engine rankings.
• Show if your site moved up or down in search results: Every time you check your keywords search engine rankings, Rank Tracker will conveniently show you the ranking difference so you can easily see if your site has moved up slipped for whatever reason.
• Collect data from 456 different search engines: Rank Tracker supports 456 international and local search engines so you can track your rankings using the ones that matter most to you. The currently supported SEs include Google, Yahoo! and Bing with their localized versions plus hundreds of others!

Price: Free – $124 - $299 / month (one time cost – this is desktop software)

WebCEO

WebCEO Rank Tracker Feature:

370+ Global & Local Search Engines Rank Checking: You'll be able to check keyword rankings on more than 370 global and local search engines, including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Goo, Voila, Seznam, Rediff, and more.

Search Engine Mobile Rankings vs. Desktop Search Results: Set Web CEO Rank Tracker to monitor both desktop and mobile rankings: go to settings and add the mobile versions of every search engine that you target.

Automated Rank Checks on Schedule: Automate your rank checks with Web CEO: have them monitored quarterly, monthly, weekly.

Email Alerts about Website Ranking Changes: Set email alerts regarding website ranking changes that occur above configured levels. You can be notified if one of your keywords left the top positions, a keyword lost more than a specified number of positions, your competitors' positions improved, etc.

YouTube Rank Checker: You can add YouTube.com as a standalone search engine in your WebCEO Rank Checker settings and start tracking your YouTube rankings.

Competitor Ranking Analysis: See if your competitors have better search engine rankings for the keywords that you target. Just add the URLs of competing websites in the Competitor section of the WebCEO Rank Checker settings.

Price: $75 – $375/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

AuthorityLabs

What Does Authority Labs Do?

• Tracking keywords daily 
• Tracking Google, Bing, and Yahoo SERPs 
• Viewing estimated search volume (via a bar graph) for your tracked keywords 
• Selecting a location all the way down to the zip code 
• Viewing daily ranking charts for a selected keyword 
• Exporting PDF reports for monthly, weekly, quarterly, *since added* date, and/or daily 
• Comparison reports Comparing rankings against a competitor 
• Sharing a public URL with a client for their project 
• Exporting one domain or an entire account history in CSV format as part of a backup process 
• Producing white label reports

Price: $75 – $99/ month (Discounts available), also offer a limited free plan.

Raven Tools

Raven's Rank Tracker lets you view average keyword ranking data that comes directly from Google and Bing. You have access to Impressions and Click Through Rates (CTRs), helping you to target high value keywords for a quicker SEO win. You'll be able to show clients progress over time as you work your way through the best keyword choices based on conversion potential.

Price: $99 – $249 / month, and offer a 30 day limited free plan.

Traffic Travis

Traffic Travis keyword ranking reports allow you to see how your site is progressing using graphs and charts. These reports can be viewed online or exported as CSV and PDF files.

Price: $97 / year, also offer a free plan.

Market Samurai

Market Samurai's rank tracker allows you to view your site's keyword progress as graphs, which clearly show increases and decreases in traffic. It also stores historical data on your keywords and your URLs so you can continuously view their progression. After viewing your reports, you can export data about any of your keywords as a CSV, where you can analyze it using Excel.

Price: One Time Fee $149 and also offer a free limited edition.

Positionly

Positionly Track your keywords ranking results on the local or global market, depending on your needs. You can track everything in the most popular search engines - Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex.

Analyze your progress on a daily basis and understand how rankings affect your growth.

Price: Plan starts from $16 - $84/month, has a 14-day free trial.

SERPs

International keyword rankings: SERPs Check keyword rankings positions in Google or Yahoo from over 100 country and language combinations. SERPs free rank checker can lookup rankings in dozens of countries. Use it to spot check keyword rankings anytime.

Mobile keyword rankings: Select mobile or desktop rankings. If mobile is selected, SERPs also highlight if Google is showing the "Mobile-friendly" tag next to a URL. If you want to track mobile rankings at a larger scale, read more about our mobile rank tracking solution.

Local keyword rank checker: See rankings from specific cities or zip codes. Check one keyword in a hundred different cities.

SERP checker: SERPs tool will return the top 250 SERP results for any given keyword if the site field is left blank. That way you can see what sites rank in the top 250 for any SERP.

Price: Plan starts From $497 - $1,997 / month and a Full Featured 30-Day Trial.

RankWatch

RankWatch Rank Checker calculates all your keyword rankings accurately and in an instant, whether you have 50 or 50,000 keywords, we will display your current rank, highest rank and Initial rank along with search volumes in top 100 serps.Trackers Track your site rankings on 177 search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing and more using Rankwatch Rank Checker.

Price: Plan starts From $29 - $449 / month and a 14 days free trail.

SERP Scan

SERP Scan Automatically Generates Search Engine Ranking Reports Clients want proof that search engine optimization works for them. Increased rankings are the best way to prove to your clients that your hard work—and their money—is making a positive impact and return on investment for their business. SERP Scan also offer Local Rank Tracking and YouTube Rank Tracking.

Price: Plan starts From $99.99 - $399.99 / month with 30-day money back guarantee.

RankScanner

RankScanner Keep track of your search engine rankings through time, and quickly get an idea of which SEO tactics work the best.

RankScanner Track up to 500 keywords per domain, for an unlimited number of websites. Even monitor your competitors' SEO rankings as well.

Price: Plan starts From 9€ - 49€ /month and FREE for Up to 30 Keywords.







What Keyword Ranking Tools do you use? please drop your recommendation in the comments and I'll add in this list.

About Internet.org

84% of the population who are not experiencing the virtue of internet - Internet.org is a joint initiative of Facebook and six companies (Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm) that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access.

It has been criticized for violating net neutrality and favoring Facebook's own services over its competitor. Until April 2015, Internet.org users could access (for free) only a few websites, and Facebook's role as the gatekeeper in determining what websites were in that list was criticized for violating net neutrality. In May 2015, Facebook announced that the Internet.org Platform would be opened to websites that met its criteria.

Internet.org Participants: 

Below is a selective history of launch dates, Country and participating mobile networks:

July 2014: Zambia
October 2014: Tanzania
November 2014: Kenya
January 2015: Colombia
January 2015: Ghana, with Airtel
10 February 2015: India with Reliance Communications
18 March 2015: Philippines with Smart Communications
31 March 2015: Guatemala with Tigo
20 April 2015: Indonesia with Indosat
10 May 2015: Bangladesh with Robi
13 May 2015: Malawi with TNM and Airtel
28 May 2015: Pakistan with Telenor Pakistan
5 June 2015: Senegal with Tigo
19 June 2015: Bolivia with VIVA
1 July 2015: South Africa with Cell C

Internet.org FAQ

Is Facebook app on my mobile also free of charge: Facebook browsing from internet.org is free of charge, but the Facebook app is not free.

Internet.org app: Currently only android app for internet.org is available which can be downloaded from Google Play Store.

How will I know if I am clicking on an external link and will be charged?: When you click on an external link a pop-up will appear informing you are going to be charged. If you click ‘Continue’ you will be taken to the next page where you will be given a choice to buy an internet pack, use existing internet pack or browse on pay per use.

This pop-up will still appear even when the subscriber has an existing pack.

About internet.org packs: Internet.org pack can also be used for browsing on other websites.

If subscriber purchase internet.org pack more than once, the volume will accumulate and the validity will increase to the validity of the newly purchased pack.

Internet.org packs can only be purchased through internet.org platform or app. Packs cannot be purchased through USSD or self-care.

If I browse the sites of internet.org by writing the URL in the address bar in the browser, will it be free?: No, the sites of internet.org are only free when subscriber browse on them through internet.org platform or app.

Video browsing through internet.org: Videos are not available through internet.org. On Facebook and Messenger, video upload will not be charged, but download (or watching) is chargeable, however, you can purchase internet pack to access the video.

Google Is Hiring An Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization

Google is Hiring An Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization, based on a recent job posting on the Google Careers portal.

The Google job listing is for a “Program Manager, Search Engine Optimization.” The description of the job makes it clear that this is about Online marketing:

As a Program Manager for Technical SEO, you will work with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Engineering and more to help drive organic traffic and business growth. You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites.

The Technical SEO manager will be required to work with many different departments within Google including marketing, sales, product development and engineering. "You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites," the job description reads.

The responsibilities include:

1. Architect, design, develop and maintain innovative, engaging and informative sites for a worldwide audience. 
2. Maintain and develop the web code to ensure quality, content and readability by search engines. 
3. Keep pace with SEO, search engine and internet marketing industry trends and developments and report changes as needed. 
4. Advise, collaborate with, and synthesize feedback from Marketing, Product and Engineering partners to push for technical SEO best practices.

The qualifications include:

1. BA/BS degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent practical experience. 
2. 4 years of experience developing websites and applications with SQL, HTML5, and XML. 
3. 2 years of SEO experience. 
4. Experience with Google App Engine, Google Custom Search, Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics and experience creating and maintaining project schedules using project management systems. 
5. Experience working with back-end SEO elements such as .htaccess, robots.txt, metadata and site speed optimization to optimize website performance. 
6. Experience in quantifying marketing impact and SEO performance and strong understanding of technical SEO (sitemaps, crawl budget, canonicalization, etc.). 
7. Knowledge of one or more of the following: Java, C/C++, or Python. 
8. Excellent problem solving and analytical skills with the ability to dig extensively into metrics and analytics.

For many working at Google is a dream job, and for those search engine optimisation experts who have always fancied a look behind the curtain, this could prove the ideal opportunity to get right to the root of the science of search. Well, that’s probably a given if Google needs help ranking itself in its own search engine.

Fundamentals of Responsive Web Design

Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation. The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and an intelligent use of CSS media queries.

Websites need to work across multiple devices, screen sizes, and browsing contexts. Web designs need to be responsive to these variables, providing an optimal viewing experience for each scenario.

This article covers Fundamentals of Responsive Web Design like screen density, fluid grids, and responsive images, as well as actual design strategies that guide you from website mock-up to testing.

Rule of Thumb:

Configure the Viewport: 

A viewport controls how a webpage is displayed on a mobile device. Without a viewport, mobile devices will render the page at a typical desktop screen width, scaled to fit the screen. Setting a viewport gives control over the page's width and scaling on different devices.

Pages optimized to display well on mobile devices should include a meta viewport in the head of the document specifying width=device-width, initial-scale=1.

Designing for multiple screen:

Designing web sites to fit multiple resolution screen size is a very important web design principle.

Most browsers in mobile devices scale down webpages to make them fit the viewport. Since we want to rearrange stuff with CSS3 media queries instead ,we prevent this by using a simple meta tag that tells the browser to use the device width without any scaling. This is the meta tag that goes in the <head>.

You can use Modernizr to add support for CSS3 in older browsers, and at the same time get HTML5 support and other stuff such as feature detection with media queries and conditional resource loading. Or – to only add support for media queries – you can include this script in the <head>.

Media Queries for Standard Devices:

A major component of responsive design is creating the right experience for the right device. With a gazillion different devices on the market, this can be a tall task. We've rounded up media queries that can be used to target designs for many standard and popular devices that is certainly worth a read.

If you're looking for a comprehensive list of media queries, this repository is a good resource.

Use fluid grids:

Grids provide structure to your website, while using relative units can provide fluidity to that structure. Fluid grids are defined using a maximum width for the design; whereas the grid contained therein, is defined using relative widths and/or heights, instead of pixels. This allows the widths and heights to adjust accordingly in relation to the parent container. In other words, as the size of the screen your website is being viewed on gets smaller or larger, your site will adjust accordingly.

Build Responsive forms:

Don’t hide forms on smaller devices anymore. Making a responsive form is essential to meeting mobile user expectations.

Optimizing site performance:

Website visitors expect the same type of experience on their mobile device as they do on their computers.

So now, not only do you have to think about how a website performs in various computer web browsers, you also have to think about optimizing a website for the many types of mobile devices. This is where responsive web design comes into play. Responsive web design (RWD) involves creating a site that adjusts depending on what type of device is doing the viewing. The text can be scaled down, to offer only the main text and images.

It’s important to note, though, that just because a site has responsive web design and looks good on a certain device, it does not necessarily mean that it will load faster. And just because it loads faster on a mobile device, does not mean a visitor or customer will stay on it longer.

Ways to Optimize Your Website

• Get a dedicated server
• Use a CDN
• Compress images and text

Creating flexible HTML Layout:

I've been thinking a lot about screen resolution lately and how the use of fluid width websites is the best way to accommodate all visitors screen resolutions. The alternative, static width websites, have to make a choice. You can optimize for 800px width, the lowest common denominator, and give up the use of several hundred pixels of width for users with larger screens. Or, you can optimize for 1024px and just make your 800px visitors horizontal scroll. Anything wider than 1024px is too much for static width sites, in my opinion.

I think the best possible scenario is to make a fluid width site that accomodates everyone. Here is what I think would be the "Perfect" fluid width layout:

• Works in all major browsers 
• Shrinks to 780px This accommodates users with 800x600 resolution, with no horizontal scroll! 
• Grows to 1260px This accommodates users with 1280x768 resolution and everything in between. 
• This accommodates 90%+ of all internet users. You could easily make this layout grow larger, but be mindful of how line-length affects readability. Nobody wants to read a line of text 1980px long. 
• Sidebars are of "equal height" to the main content 
• Page content is centered for users with even higher resolutions.

Testing responsive design:

There are plenty of responsive design testing tools in the internet, you can try Google's mobile-friendly design testing tool.