[Estimated read time: 8 minutes]
Have you ever actually tried to create 10x content? It's not easy, is it? Knowing how and where to start can often be the biggest obstacle you'll face. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand talks about how good, unique content is going to die, and how you can develop your own 10x content to help it along.
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Video Transcription
Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're chatting about how to create 10x content.
Now, for those of you who might need a refresher or who haven't seen previous Whiteboard Fridays where we've talked about 10x content, this is the idea that, because of content saturation, content overload, the idea that there's just so much in our streams and standing out is so hard, we can't just say, "Hey, I want to be as good as the top 10 people in the search results for this particular keyword term or phrase." We have to say, "How can I create something 10 times better than what any of these folks are currently doing?" That's how we stand out.
Some criteria for 10x content.
I actually have a page, a Google doc that I keep adding to that has a list of 60-plus different pieces of 10x content. I'll link to that.
But basically, the criteria for 10 times better than what anyone else is doing is the following.
- It has to have great UI and UX on any device.
- That content is generally a combination of high quality, trustworthy, it's useful, interesting, and remarkable. It doesn't have to be all of those but some combination of them.
- It's got to be considerably different in scope and in detail from other works that are serving the same visitor or user intent.
- It's got to create an emotional response. I want to feel awe. I want to feel surprise. I want to feel joy, anticipation, or admiration for that piece of content in order for it to be considered 10x.
- It has to solve a problem or answer a question by providing that comprehensive, accurate, exceptional information or resources.
- It's got to deliver content in a unique, remarkable, typically unexpectedly pleasurable style or medium.
If you hit all of these things, you probably have yourself a piece of 10x content. It's just very hard to do. That's what we're talking about today. What's a process by which we can get to checking off all these boxes?
Step 1 - Gain deep insight.
So let's start here. First off, when you have an issue, let's say you've got a piece of content that you know you want to create, a topic you know you're going to address that topic. We can talk about how to get to that topic in a future Whiteboard Friday, and we've had some in the past certainly around keyword research and choosing topics and that sort of thing. But if I know the topic, I need to first gain a deep, deep insight into the core of why people are interested in this subject.
So for example, let's do something simple, something we're all familiar with.
"I wonder what the most highly-rated new movies are out there." Essentially this is, "Well, okay, how do we get into this person's brain and try and answer the core of their question?" They're essentially asking, "Okay, how do I figure out . . . help me decide what to watch."
That could have a bunch of angles to it. It could be about user ratings, or it could be maybe about awards. Maybe it's about popularity. What are the most popular movies out there? It could be meta ratings. Maybe this person wants to see an aggregated list of all the data out there. It could be editorial or critic ratings. There's a bunch of angles there.
Step 2 - We have to get unique.
We know that uniqueness, being exceptional, not the same as everyone else but different from everyone else out there, is really important.
So as we brainstorm different ways that we might address the core of this user's problem, we might say, "All right, movie ratings, could we do a round-up?"
Well, that already exists at places like Metacritic. They sort of aggregate everything and then put it all together and tell us what critics versus audiences think across many, many different websites. So that's already been done.
Awards versus popularity, again, it's already been done in a number of places that do comparisons of here's the ones that had the highest box office versus here's the ones that won certain types of awards. Well, okay, so that's not particularly unique.
What about critics versus audiences? Again, this is done basically on every different website. Everyone shows me user ratings versus critic ratings.
What about by availability? Well, there's actually a bunch of sites that do this now where they show you this is on Netflix, this is on Hulu, this is on Amazon, this you can watch on Comcast or on demand, this you can see on YouTube. All right, so that's not unique either.
What about which ratings can I trust? Hang on a tick. That might not exist yet. That's a great, unique insight into this problem, because one of the challenges that I have when I want to say, "What should I decide to watch," is who should I trust and who should I believe. Can I go to Fandango or Amazon or Metacritic or Netflix? Whose ratings are actually trustworthy?
Well, now we've got something unique, and now we've got that core insight, that unique angle on it.
Step 3 - Uncover powerful methods to provide an answer.
Now we want to uncover a powerful, hard-to-replicate, high-quality method to provide an answer to that question.
In this case, that could be, "Well, you know what? We can do a statistical analysis." We get a sample set big enough, enough films, maybe 150 movies or so from the last year. We take a look at the ratings that each service provides, and we see if we can find patterns, patterns like: Who's high and low? Do some have different genre preferences? Which one is trustworthy? Does one correlate with awards and critics? Which ones are outliers? All of these are actually trying to get to the "which one can I trust" question.
I think we can answer that if we do this statistical analysis. It's a pain in the butt.
We have to go to all these sites. We have to collect all the data. We have to put it into a statistical model. We then have to run our model. We have to make sure that we have a big enough sample set. We've got to see what our correlations are. We have to check for outliers and distributions and all this kind of stuff. But once we do that and once we show our methodology, now all we have to do is...
Step 4 - Find a unique, powerful, exceptional way to present this content.
In fact, FiveThirtyEight.com did exactly this.
They took this statistical analysis. They looked at all of these different sites, Fandango and IMDB users versus critics versus Metacritic versus Rotten Tomatoes and a number of other sites. Then they had this one graph that shows essentially the star rating averages across I think it was 146 different films, which was the sample set that they determined was accurate enough.
Now they've created this piece of 10x content, and they've answered this unique take on the question, "Which rating service can I trust?" The answer is, "Don't trust Fandango," basically. But you can see more in there. Metacritic is pretty good. A couple of the other ones are decent.
Step 5 - Expect that you're going to do this 5 to 10 times before you have one hit.
The only way to get good at this, the only way to get good is experimentation and practice. You do this over and over again, and you start to develop a sixth sense for how you can uncover that unique element, how you can present it in a unique fashion, and how you can make it sing on the Web.
All right, everyone, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on 10x content. If you have any examples you'd like to share with us, please feel free to do so in the comments. No problem linking out. That's just fine. We will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.
When I think about creating 10X content, I cannot but think - and it seems ironic considering the example used in the WBF today - to movie/series production:
Momondo.com, a travel booking website, for instance, is excellent at this (p.s.: I'm absolutely not related to Momondo :-)). Just look at this "destination" page: https://www.momondo.com/flights/rom/flights-to-rome...
In movie, we can think about "Jaws". Yes, it is a movie with shark killing people, but it is also a movie about a policeman dealing with his sense of protecting his kids and his sense of failure: it's his character and not the crappy mechanical shark that make us love the movie.
Great analogy Gianluca. And very cool to see what Momondo is up to. Thanks for sharing and for the superb comment (as usual)!
"There must be an excellent organization for producing a movie or a pilot. The same when producing a 10X content. " - Brilliant connection.
I love the analogy to the film industry. These days when product, content, and marketing almost became one, it basically became our job as marketers to push the product itself to the right direction. And very often it means to do the whole behind the scenes thing.
I'm a big fan of 10x content Rand, and as a way of thinking, it is very helpful for me every time we discuss new products or articles.
It doesn't matter if the page's lifespan is 3 hours or if it's evergreen. With every page we now create we can ask ourselves, so how does this bring 10 times more value than any of our competitors, and that makes a difference.
It's not something you can deliver every single time, but it sure makes you try harder.
Nice comment and conclusion!
Wow Gianluca, I don't know how, but your comments are always as good as the posts themselves!
Momondo is a great example - and Gianluca Fiorelli can make a WBF for adding value by commenting - also for generating 10x Comments.
Thanks Rand for an awesome WBF. Any chance you could share that google doc with the 60+ 10 X Content?
I second this motion :o)
I think..you can access more than 60. Just go through MOZ blog :P
well...i tried but dose not work for me.
Here you have the link to the Rand's 10X doc list :-)
Thanks Gianluca
Thank you for the link Gianluca :)
Beat me to it :-)
Awesome - thanks Gianluca & Rand. Sitting at 89 links now.
Well analyzed post Rand! If I am not wrong you are talking about the content 10 times better than the best result. It’s not only about the high dimensions, visuals, layout, fonts and . . . The only thing according to me that matters is what searcher wants, not what my competitors are doing. Searchers always want to collect something new that they really don’t know and that can only be done by focusing on these points:
Is these points always works? Because I don’t think so! How can I be sure about what searcher wants; there are a lot of online users from different areas having different thinking’s, different choices. I can’t say that this particular movie or something else is good/bad cos it’s a personal choice/liking. The only thing that will work here is a lot of experiment and after that comparing all those experiments that what is a common point that all users want. The day’s gone when doing viral things makes you on top, now it’s time to produce right content for right users with a deep analysis.
These all are just my thoughts but I have a question that what will be a 10x content when everyone started creating something unique and much better than anyone else. May be it will going to create difficulties for users to choose only the one of them.
I think a lot of folks are already investing in creating unique content and unique value. The winners will be those who do the best job, and the way to get good is to practice. That's why I made the final point - this is a process that requires a lot of trying and failing to attain mastery and to win out over others making similar investments.
Unique.. Unique.. I am obessed with this word, but still we have to do this. Sometimes I became confused with the two unique and different..
Anyways in my views you/Moz are the winner and each n every post here gives me a lot to learn. Glad to be here.
This WBF looks very much like the anniversary of 10X. If I'm not mistaken, Rand had introduced the phrase 10X content back in May 2015. Since then the phrase has been used in many articles across the SEO world.
To answer your question, I believe 10X content is something that is "genuinely useful" for your audience. As Rand mentioned in this WBF, one must actually know one's target audience well enough in order to create the 10X content. This is a very important point because many content marketers don't actually enjoy that privilege - they bring themselves under too much pressure to stand out and, in the process, not able to do well enough within their capacity. It's very rare to see content marketers that actually wait (or can afford to wait) until some dramatically unique ideas hit them.
10X content also suggests that the professional creating the content must be extremely passionate and conversant with her industry. Indeed, it's very hard to offer your audience something brutally unique and insightful (every now and then) unless one practically lives one's profession, day in and day out.
If you look at Rand's 10X content doc list, the first link (basic principles of responsive web design) itself shows why it's so unique, useful, insightful and worthy of unleashing a barrage of comments from the professionals.
I always believe the following practices are imperative and the stepping stone to creating 10X content:
# Investing in reading good stuff within your industry (Sure, it's time consuming but you get better at it with time)
# Following authority professionals within your industry (They share epic stuff on their blog/Twitter/Slideshare)
# Creating a list of publications relevant to your industry (Try to curate a list of events chronologically for future reference)
I believe in "Investing time in reading good stuff within niche industry" or sometimes other famous industries and so well I never miss any Whiteboard Friday. Thanks for sharing Rand's 10X content doc list.
This was an amazing WBF and one that is needed to get past the same old content strategy of research, create, deeplink, repeat. Instead creating content that has staying power is the key to sucess for any client, and at times it almost seems impossible.
Rand did an amazing job here for me by breaking down the process and now my mind in on fire. Being a movie rating junkie as it is this made so much sense on a topic that one may think has already been tackled in so many ways.
For me the biggest take aways is brain storm on how to be unique as possible , find more than one way to display that data through the content (find the sets of data and test test test), and after that practice till perfect.
I love WBF like this as you can share it with the entire marketing team and have a bunch of minds to come up with some great ideas.
Thanks as always Rand and the Moz Team!!!
Thanks Tim! I'd just give the additional reminder that it's not just about being unique, but about proiding unique value in a sector/space where it's clearly and desperately needed/wanted by a passionate audience. Otherwise, you can wind up creating a lot of highly unique, high quality content that isn't particularly desirable and doesn't earn the amplification, reach, or engagement you're hoping for.
Hi Rand, Thanks for the WBF - Very useful! As an SEO for a chocolate manufacturer in the UK, I think we've got a huge amount of opportunity to talk about different topics that tick all the criteria you mention above. For Easter, we created an 'Ultimate Guide to Easter Eggs'. Whilst the long-form was not nececerily 10x, the interactive chocolate factory that accompanied the peice we think was!
It'd be awesome to get your thoughts on this content - We think it's 10x but, of cause, we're bias!
Thanks in advance & love the whole 10x concept!
John
Thank you for this great example! It have excellent design and really exceptional content.
Hi John - thanks for sharing; I know it can be tough to put your work out there for criticism. I think you've clearly put a ton of effort and energy into the piece, and have produced a very lengthy, nicely visually-designed, informationally comprehensive resource. Congrats!
That said, I wouldn't place it in the 10X category for a few reasons:
Don't want to be too critical, but hopefully that's helpful feedback!
Thanks Rand! I think that's really fair feedback! It's feedback like this, coupled with recursive testing, that gets content to its 10x status!
As you mentioned in this WBF, it can take 5 - 10 attempts to make something 10x, and I feel like we're well on our way to that goal.
Thanks again! :D
Great Whiteboard Friday. Creating 10X content is hard, creating 10X content that generates links is even harder. Last year we created a complete overview of all Whiteboard Friday videos. Although we got listed in the SearchCap of Search Engine Land, It was hard getting more links to the page.
The point of "content" is not to get links. The point of "content" is to communicate a (usually marketing) message to a target audience.
I think I'm going to disagree and say that there can be dozens of goals with content strategy, creation, and marketing, and generating links could certainly be among them. Nothing wrong with leveraging content for links, or making it a primary goal, so long as you feel confident links are, indeed, helping you accomplish your overarching business goals. I'd agree that links for their own sake aren't particularly useful or valuable.
Yes, the gaining of links can be a goal for content -- but it's a bad goal. As this post and this post on Moz have even shown in the past month, the best and greatest numbers of links come as a natural result and by-product of publicity.
If everyone would stop thinking about links directly and start thinking about building brands, we'd all be much better off.
Hi Kevin - totally appreciate you creating that resource, but I think it might suffer from some of the same strategic challenges as the Easter Egg piece I commented on above. The starting questions around "who needs this and why?" and "who will help amplify this and why?" and "how does this provide 10X more *unique value* than anything else of its kind?" didn't feel addressed by the content. If you knew that thousands of folks were desperate for an overview that combined Whiteboard Fridays, then perhaps I'm totally mistaken, but even here at Moz, we haven't heard or felt that user need. I think that's at the core of the 10X process - identifying true, desperate need, rather than just content that may be broadly/mildly interesting to some folks.
Yeah I agree with your strategy that "How to create 10x content" but I think it is a time taking process and some time can create annoying kind of thing with that person who want to wright this type of content. maybe it can't be the same but I dam sure that person will have to keep much patience for doing this.
I am trying to digest Step 5 "Expect that you're going to do this 5 to 10 times before you have one hit."
Is there a mechanism or some sort of scientific method in determining which of the 5 will be a "winner"? Would you recommend publishing the majority of the content and running through it's own statistical model for performance?
The creative group may do all that work and yet the choice of the content released will be very subjective based on the person(s) selecting the final content for publishing.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Our entire content team has taken this 10x challenge very serious. Each new piece that we generate is meant to be ridiculously actionable and useful. Here's our latest 10x example.
111 Tips For eCommerce CRO – The Only List You Will Ever Need
https://www.thecommerceshop.com/blog/111-tips-for-ecommerce-cro-the-only-list-you-will-ever-need-part-1
The downside - This content takes a lot of work. Moving forward, we have to make sure it's sustainable.
Did you work out how to make it sustainable? My thinking is to produce the 10x content and then several smaller pieces that are short and contribute to it, how has it worked for your company? Have you figured out a way to consistently put out great content? I think it would be difficult to create 10x content every week, for instance.
I've been hoping a WBF on this topic would surface soon - thanks, Rand, for sharing these insights. 10X is a good formulation for this because I have found "2X" to be a massively false economy. Cutting corners just doesn't work with content marketing and link bait.
Rand: can I tentatively suggest that there might be one stage which should perhaps precede "Step One"? It's what our small team calls an audience-first approach: i.e. finding out "what is my audience even interested in?" So, we should ask not "what are we capable of creating?" but "what does our audience really care about?" Perhaps this seems obvious enough to omit, but I mention it because I have still got this wrong myself. More than once.
If I can offer an anecdotal example, I might cautiously mention an Irish living history piece I worked on for a small travel business. We called it "Cork Then and Now" and thought (well, assumed...) that local Cork businesses and history groups would love it and link to it. Not so.
We started the outreach too late, when the creative work was already done. Plus, we were too hurried in getting it done and online. The result? A 2X experience, not the 10X we really needed. One useful lesson here though: we went back to the drawing board and realised that tech people were more interested in our magnifier than locals were in the history aspect of the piece. We actually did better with that audience.
Anyone with similar experiences might benefit from Moz's own webinar on this subject - The Field of Dreams Fallacy and Other Ways to Screw up Big Content, presented by Kane Jamison.
Postscript: "It has to have great UI and UX on any device" - there's probably a lesson for us there, too.
Hey Daniel - yes, great addition. It struck me from some of the comments on the post here that some folks haven't gone through that step of determining whether their audience deeply cares about the problem/issue and their solution/content. I agree it's a smart way to start off the process. Always great to ask that key question before you create any content -- "Who will help amplify this and why?" If you don't have a great answer, don't make it!
This is the Best Learning write-up before the weekend. Techniques, methods, topics (and Google :) ) change everyday, so yes, you should experiment every time with different objective's keeping in mind. And other important things is, measuring your RESULTS from different content. Only Result's analysis can give you proper idea.Thank you Rand.
Great piece, Rand.
It's interesting how this concept is affirmed in many different business arenas like Larry Page's moonshot strategies with Google (https://www.wired.com/2013/01/ff-qa-larry-page/), Peter Thiel's monopoly quality of great startups and investments (as described in his book, Zero to One) and Brian Dean's skyscraper strategy (https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique).
Great guide!! Thanks for sharing!
Awesome tips!
Hi Rand! thank you very much for your useful presentation!
I would like to share with all of you the last two pieces of content we have created at Pixartprinting; they have some of the elements you have talked about. I hope you like them!
https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/content/venetian-floors/
https://www.pixartprinting.co.uk/content/barcelona-floors/
That's actually really cool. Nice work!
Hi Rand, your every post is awesome and I ever grab new ideas after reading your blogs. Always you pick a different topic and share with us deeply like this time your topic is all about the 10x content and I was not heard about it before anywhere.
According to you the unique content trend is going to die but according to me A meaningful, unique content trend never go off because google like and support it even visitors are addicted to read more and more meaningful content.
Anyway, I also trying to experience it where I am wrong
thank you
I look at doing 10x backwards from this. Find an area where all the content is bad but there is still demand; not trying to hit head on in some over saturated area like movies.
I just love your white board days!!.. It feels like i am attending class in a lecture hall!!.
Informative & interesting! Go with deep insight. & Way to be unique content.
Thanks for this example, you always bring unique content and very good quality, thanks
If the compeition does 10x content do we go to 11x content?
Rand,
Your enthusiasm gets me pumped to write content (never thought I'd get excited about writing content!) That part about finding a core/unique insight really displays to me how passionate you are about SEO and it's awesome.
I also have noticed that your team has been putting the Estimated Read Time at the top of each post, what a great idea. I'm not sure if the idea came about simply from someone seeing a large piece of content and wondering if they had time/wanted to spend the time reading it or what, but I don't know how I didn't think of that! Simple, but at the same time really next level and helpful to users.
I think that this post not only did a great job covering how to make truly outstanding content, but it also is kind of what SEO is all about to me...Doing some of the same things that are fundamental (ex: technical SEO, content that answers questions, good UX, etc..) but also finding the areas you can be different, different in a way that will help users and therefore help you or your business. Also, taking a really deep dive to find out what users intentions are and how we can essentially hold their hand and make it easy for them to find all of information they need in one place.
Early on when I started doing SEO and I heard you discussing 10X content in some of your posts, I started reading Neil Patel articles, Moz articles, really any trustworthy source I could to help me get a better understanding of how I could build content that would be beneficial. I thought a great first way to do this was to respond to a problem that both SEO's and really anyone with a website deals with. Improving Page Speed and Load Time. Through dealing with these issues myself, I walked through the steps I was taking and put it into that piece of content. Going back to this post I actually questioned linking to it on here for a variety of reasons that i'm sure you will see, but I guess my main question is how do you deal with the fine line between delivering great information and giving away information to the point that it may work against you. For example: If I have a potential client interested in my company improving their page speed/load time and they found the article I wrote, what would hold them back from doing it themselves (if I were very detailed in the article.) In this particular article I wasn't sure about this, so I was somewhat broad in discussing the topic. However, I know that if I went into detail on some things people could do in wordpress to improve page speed/load time, people that are familiar with the platform could just do it themselves. If I did go into complete and thorough detail though, it would likely near 10X content. I guess I'm not really looking for an answer, but more of your thoughts on this.
As always thank you so much for the great post and insights.
-Ray
Rand,
I wanted the link in my post to link to a new tab. I think the functionality of the "Open in a new tab" option for links may be broken. I noticed some others that linked out were not opening in a new tab either (it seems like anything someone is linking to in a comment should be opened in a new tab to make reading their post easier.)
Thought I should run it by you just to be safe!
-Ray
Thx for this advice, will share this video at my company blog. Think my visitors will have big benefits from your advice.
Hey Rand.
Your earlier post "Why Good Unique Content Needs to Die - Whiteboard Friday" was really good and it gave me too much things to analysis before writing a content like Questions, Details, Use of visuals and the most important thing which I felt is "What's missing" that made my content more influential.
This post really good and gave me more things to implement for my blog.
Thanks for sharing Rand.
Another Great post! Yes, when any user gets his answer in your content, then he appreciates your content. So include amazing factor in your content that short out users' queries.
Awesome post! good work..
Rand,
I love your WBF, thank you for all of your helpful insights. I took my first attempt at 10x content, but I feel like it could be better. I tried to hit a lot of the points you mention, but feel that I'm lacking in the area of:
Maybe I could improve the relate-ability or... I guess (again) I just feel like it could be better, but I don't know what it's / I'm missing. Maybe it's too much information? I tried to consider what people really want to know when they ask How much house can I afford?, maybe I was completely off. Maybe they just really want a calculator. That seems to be the results everywhere. I just thought that if people wanted a Home Affordability Calculator, they'd at least include calculator in their term? Maybe it's more than they really want to know?
After all, you did say:
"One thing I'd urge is to think about 10X Content (or great content more broadly) as being able to communicate as much value as possible in unique ways as fast as possible. Oftentimes, that's not the biggest or lengthiest piece - it's the *best* one (and "best" can mean short and sweet)."
I feel like I'm missing something staring right at me...
For those who speak Italian - or if you want to see how it sounds in Italian - here is the full transcript in Italian: https://www.ideawebitalia.it/seo/8388/
Writing 10x content is all well and good, until someone else writes 11x content (e.g. Spinal Tap's amps-of-eleven or There's Something About Mary's seven-minute-abs). ;-)
Hi Rand, Would this be considered the start of 10x content? https://www.growseed.co.uk/chilli-and-pepper-seeds/1-californian-wonder-sweet-pepper-seeds.html If I was to expand on it further by adding in problems and pests? Or have I missed the point??
New to Whiteboard Fridays, thanks for the awesome knowledge Rand! This is great motivation to take a step back from content writing and think about strategic campaigns.
Awesome
For me, 10x content does command attention by doing countless things exceptionally. Its useful benefits can include giving a solely positive user experience via the user layout, fonts, visuals, interface, patterns, etc.; delivering content which is substantive combination of trustworthy, high-quality, interesting, useful; loading quickly and is very usable on any browser or device!
I think..you
Excellent post - I am new to the realization that 10x content is a great way to do SEO. Thanks.
Rand,
You're always been exceptional with whiteboard Friday and this is an epic!
Just a quick question,
Many a times, I have seen that people are adding too much links at starting paragraph or we can say within a content. So, the user will be redirected to another page. As a result, the user will get distracted and have an unpleasant experience.
So my question is, Will this affect the performance of 10x content?
Hi Hardik - I don't think it's a big cause for concern. It's just about doing what's helpful and empathetic to your visitors. If they want/need to see external links to validate sources or to follow up on external sites, that's great. Google itself clearly created a 10X product with their web search, and it was all about getting to external sites. If people are coming back and appreciating your work, then I wouldn't worry about linking out early in documents.
Great WBF as usual Rand! The web is a garbage of poor quality content. It's hard to show up in this world of too much information for the human brain.
I'll be glad if you make into the future a WBF on 'how to get to that topic?' :)
My team has been trying to model our content creation after the 10x model for a few months now. This video is super helpful to getting that idea on the right track within our company. Thanks for posting!
What a great piece of information. We spoke about this in our latest staff meeting.
Excellent post. This is a subject that will probably get alot of views because everybody wants to know how to do it.
Question:
Is there some data that reflects "the criteria for 10 times better than what anyone else is doing"? Like a chart. I would like to know what drives this criteria. Obviously it can be quantified by matching these criteria factors to each piece of content, but which criteria equates to which Google search engine rankings factor? Or is this more leaning towards how to create viral content?
For example, on my site DadeRonan.com, do I try to make articles that mirror those criteria, or try to be a marketing genius and make something go viral with a catchy headline even though it may boring to look at (which I have seen alot of)?
Thanks Rand, you are #TotallyAwesome
The document I talked about here https://bit.ly/10Xcontent contains a brief checklist of sorts:
Uff, May I be so bold to disagree with you, Rand?
I totally understand the need of finding new ways of tackling old issues, and I see the need of getting profound insights into a topic to be able to find a new angle that can be a game changer. That's true in marketing and life!
But in your example today, I feel there's something I miss. If I look for a film to watch I already know which opinions I trust. For me -I'm here talking as an Interner user and not as a marketer- in this case, it's not a question of looking for the most accurate rating, but to find the closest to my own taste. And I certainly think this is the case for most movie-ratings users.
So, my critic is: aren't we at risk of missing the core by overthinking the intention of users? Aren't we at risk of not getting to our broad audience by trying to find that uniqueness or exclusivity?
Can't we outperform our competitors by providing better UI and UX, better overall design?
Those are just a few thoughts and questions that come to my mind but, of course, I'de be really glad to find out that I'm completely mistaken! : )
Thanks for your superb WBF. It's the highlight of work on Fridays!
Hi Teresa - thanks for the very thoughtful comment. I think there can be multiple ways to approach the facets of content which you do better than the existing resources. My general contention with aiming for "10X Content" is to rethink one's approach entirely, as this example showed (or tried to, at least).
A good resource to check out might be Google's own thinking on 10X vs. 10%: https://library.gv.com/10x-not-10-34ba4eb91130#.lg... They describe a model of innovation that requires re-imagining the problem and that's how I'm suggesting folks consider 10X Content, too. Incremental improvements can be smart investments too - 10X isn't the only way to do content marketing, but it may be an approach to consider depending on your goals.
Really inspiring article. I guess it takes a dreamer to change the world. Thanks, Rand
Hi John
It is as simple as being able to offer unique and different content to offer your competitors. In this way our own content better attract attention and be able to be more widespread and remained in time
Thanks for the Post
Hi Rand,
Thanks for the 10x info.
It's hard, no doubt. My focus from the very beginning of my blog has been to create solid content, even if that means low frequency. These are early days so I don't know if my content is up there or not.
However, I've a tried a different route to test it. Create 10x (mine could be just 4x, I'm not sure) answers on Quora. In the limited no. of questions I've answered there, my answers have risen to the top even in questions with 50+ answers. Such questions are tough to break through, but if you can, incentives are high - far more views.
In my opinion, 10x works the same way on Quora as it does on blog or elsewhere. I'm testing few things there on Quora, and will soon scale it up.
Hi Rand, thanks for the great webinar. It could be nice if you can link to this +60 list!
We did this Map of the Best Clubs in Berlin By U-Bahn Station and worked incredibly good for us. (the German version was the best performing by far).
Salva
Hi Salva - Gianluca added it above, but it's here: https://bit.ly/10Xcontent
Re: the club map - very cool. I might suggest trying an interactive version too, e.g. https://meshable.io/map
Hi Rand!
I took your feedback and this interactive map of Game of Thrones came out, What do you think? :)
Thanks for your feedback!
Salva
That looks pretty awesome Salva! Nice work
NICE Idea On 10X Content marketing Rand Awesome Tips By You....As per last year Survey, Most of the content reach pages are in first page of Google. The Survey Word count is 2000 to 2500 words with effective Title & Sub-heading will give you better ranking and more traffic from Google..Again we have to look into the content should not boring content for User..:)
One thing I'd urge is to think about 10X Content (or great content more broadly) as being able to communicate as much value as possible in unique ways as fast as possible. Oftentimes, that's not the biggest or lengthiest piece - it's the *best* one (and "best" can mean short and sweet).
Thanks for the very interesting WBF - amazing content as always! We created a blog a few weeks back on How to Create 10X Content (https://www.influencer.in/blog/10-ways-to-create-better-content/) so would love your feedback on that but one thing we do realize from our experiences in the past that 10X content also needs to be updated frequently as its content that needs to be refreshed and reviatlized from time to time.
J'ai fais l'inscription a moz pro free trial pou un mois , est ce que je peux utiliser api pro maintenant pour mon site
Not sure if you need our assistance or have questions about your free trial, but if so, please email us at [email protected].
Rough translation from high school French: I signed up for a Moz Pro free trial for one month. Because of that can I use the Pro API now for my site?
Yasmine: Tu dois parler en anglais ici, d'accord? Si c'est difficile, utiliser Google Translate. Ce n'est pas une probleme dans cette communaute parce que tout le monde est gentile :)
Hi Yasmine!
Our API product is completely separate from Moz Pro. You do not have to have a Pro account to use our API. We have many free users using the API only.
Here is our pricing page for our API plans
https://moz.com/products/api/pricing
Hope this helps!
This is a great guide. Creating high quality content takes soooooo much work!
Hi, i am from AUSTRIA and this is my first post and comment: For about three month i discovered WBF - since that i have watched every single WBF - even those in the past. Great infos! Thanks Rand. It helps me a lot starting a new webshop in January 2017.
Hi Rand, nice article as usual. I have been waiting for the Friday's whiteboard and its all worth.
Ze Frank's Thoughts on an Unsticking Technique video provides valuable methods for creating content.
For example, one of the techniques that he uses is to go beyond the obvious in our observations and find small details that connect us to the experience.
He uses these methods for video content creation, but they work well for any creative endeavour.
Very useful.
Being at the top of google is not easy, but my experience can say that over 90% of the web of my industry do not care about it.
Just upload some pictures, put a title without performing any study of keywords and text of 100 characters just is normally copy of the manufacturer's website or competition.
It is important to have an approach, follow a strategy and optimize the article. As you say there are hundreds of sites where reviews see your potential customer looking for and what your need. Most companies want to make money fast, upload the items, generating a sales process and everythings its ok.
Thank you for reminding these important premises Rand.
Hm.. we've tried some of this at Advokatami and pravatami.bg you Moz!
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10x content has been increasingly important today, thanks to the expectations of user experience once looking up anything in search engines. So, why have user expectations increased? The reason is that interactive technologies are better all the time. Generally, this type of content concentrates on earning links versus link-building. With the ever rising content marketing as well as its significance in digital marketing strategies, it is more vital to stand out with 10x content. Like the author’s idea!
Hi Rand, thank you for awesome video as always!
We love slot games, thus our reviews are very rich and unique. If you wanna example, here is the review for Scarface slot machine - https://freeslots77.com/free-scarface-slot-online/ - there are all features, important images and symbols.
There will be many more new informations we want to serve to our readers, so don´t stop to make our hobby easier :-D
Gotta be honest - not just because of the subject matter, but because of the UI/UX, that resource strikes me as more spammy and low quality than it does anything like 10X.
I am sad you think so Rand, but thank you for your honest opinion..
Oh, the game didn´t work, now it should be ok, check it one more time please ;-)
Great WBF, another one I have to share with my team. I think it's time we start to use our friday fun to look at your WBF's!
Providing 10x content is not an easy process, which is why I love it. It's hard enough to make alot of people stop producing it.
Muy buen aporte para lograr objetivo con el SEO en 2016
Hi Rand, That's fabulous! All your posts give great knowledge about SEO and content. Thank you so much for making some time to write that can help the users like us.
Hi Rand, Great Whiteboard Friday, like always. I especially like your down-to-earth attitude that success doesn't come overnight. In your last step you describe that you need to make 5 pieces of 10x content before you get one great piece.
When I fist started this strategy, I felt like a noob. I made so many mistakes I regretted. I'll try to outline it, maybe people find it helpful and won't make the same mistakes.
I wanted to make a 10x piece of content on where to find the best stock photos. Here's the actual page I'm going to discuss: https://www.raultiru.com/free-stock-photos
It was only after I published it a and had a couple of links that I knew I should broaden the topic. It was kinda too late to change the url without redirecting. My strategy was; publish the piece of content and keep updating it and make it better. Now I know that this is a pain in the ***. It saves you a lot of time if you basically follow Rand's steps and update as little as possible.
It's a swith in mindset from producing a lot of content to producing the best content. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll get good at it.
Nice Post!