The Best Amazon Affiliate Linking Tools Showdown: My Final 4 Picks!

March Madness is in the air and after watching some sweet 16 games last night, I thought I'd join in on the action.  My dominant basketball days are over, so I'll just stick with recommending software tools to help your…

The post The Best Amazon Affiliate Linking Tools Showdown: My Final 4 Picks! appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

from Niche Pursuits https://ift.tt/2uENr2J

This is Your Brain on Visualization

How long do you think your attention span is? Maybe a minute or even two, right? Sadly, your attention span is 8 seconds. That’s one second shorter than that of a goldfish. So, when you show people paragraphs of text, don’t expect them to read it all.

But did you know visualizations such as infographics are thirty times more likely to be read than text? And if that’s not enough to convince you to start using visualizations within your marketing, maybe this infographic will change your mind:

Click on the image below to enlarge:

Click here to view an enlarged version of this infographic.

Conclusion

You should consider creating infographics because they drive 250% more traffic than ordinary blog posts do. If you don’t believe me, just look at Mashable… they get three times more tweets when a post includes an infographic than when it doesn’t. Plus, 65% of people are visual learners, which means showing data in a visual format will make it easier for your readers to learn.

Once you create an infographic, make sure you check out this post as it will teach you how to make it go viral.

Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below):

Courtesy of: Quick Sprout

from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2WANGrV

Suck Your Readers In: 4 Types of Openings for “Sticky” Content

The headline is the most important part of your content.

That’s a fact.

What’s the second most important part?

That would be your introduction.

Think of it this way: Your headline compels people to click on your post, but your intro draws them in to actually read the post.

And if you’re sick of not getting a high level of engagement on your posts, this is likely one of the main causes.

Here’s the simplest way to illustrate the effect of introductions on your content’s performance:

• Bad headline – Low traffic
• Good headline, bad intro – High traffic, high bounce rate, low time on page
• Good headline, good intro – High traffic, low bounce rate, high time on page

Always aim for that third scenario.

The sad fact is that most bloggers put very little effort into their introductions. They either quickly say what they’re writing about, or they end up going on about things that don’t entice the reader to read on.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you fall into that category. What matters is that just about all bloggers could benefit from improving their introductions.

To help you do that, I’m going to show you 4 of the best types of openings that you can use in your content. You can always use at least one of these for any post you create. 

1. Embrace the fear of failure

A great introduction needs to connect with the reader emotionally.

As any copywriter knows, emotions drive action. In this case, the action we want is for the reader to continue down the page.

Fear is one of the strongest motivating emotions, and people are willing to go to great lengths to prevent that fear from coming true.

Let’s look at a few examples, and then I’ll show you how to come up with your own.

Example #1 – Use a common fear: Here’s one of my own introductions:

The first 4 paragraphs focus on a common scenario: putting in a lot of work on a project (like a product or piece of content) and then finally releasing it.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you know how terrifying this can be. Entrepreneurs have sleepless nights worrying about failing.

What if they hear “crickets” when they release their project? What if no one cares?

Anyone in, or nearing, this sort of situation is going to read the rest of the introduction at the very least.

Quickly look at that final line in the screenshot: “there is a solution…”

You use fear to grab your readers’ attention, but then you need to transition that into a solution that they will achieve by taking action.

Example #2 – Does your reader feel like a failure? This one is going to sound kind of mean, but it’s effective.

If your reader already feels like a failure, all you need to do is describe their biggest problem, evoking their fear of failure.

Here’s an example from a Smart Blogger post:

Here, Carol Tice starts by calling out bloggers with low traffic and loyal subscribers.

If you’re a reader of that post in that situation, it hurts to read it.

You start thinking about your low number of readers and get a sinking feeling that you will never get many more.

But you feel that only until Tice offers a solution, which is the whole point of her post.

How to write your own fear-inspired introduction: This type of opening is not only effective but also fairly simple to write.

Create it in three steps:

1. State the fear of failure (or cause of fear) – Do this in a straightforward manner. In my example, the fear was not knowing what would happen when a product was launched.
2. Illustrate the fear – If you can describe the fear and make the reader picture it, do it. Sometimes it’s simple. The image of “crickets” is all I needed to do to make readers picture no customers, signups, or attention after the release of their product.
3. Transition to a solution – The whole point of hooking in a reader with fear is to give them the incentive to read your content. Your content needs to offer a solution to their fear. Write about how your content will help them.

That’s all there is to it. You can start with a few notes for each part and then combine them together.

2. No one wants to be left behind

There are many ways to incorporate fear into your openings.

Fear of failure is a big one, but there’s another big fear you should be aware of: the fear of missing out.

It’s why many people buy lottery tickets, especially as a group. They don’t want to be the one who misses out if the group miraculously wins.

When it comes to most content, the fear of missing out can be applied in a few ways:

• Fear of being left behind – In niches like SEO, if you don’t keep up with the latest information, you can become obsolete.
• Fear of missing out on fun – No one wants to miss out on a fun event or product.
• Fear of missing out on an opportunity – If something is only available or useful for a limited time (like content on certain topics), people will be more interested than they would be if it was always useful.

Here’s an example (note the two parts boxed in red):

Just like in type #1, we use a similar 3-step process.

The first step is prompting the fear, which the first box begins to do. It mentions that some types of content are better than others.

In this case, marketers don’t want to miss out on the best tactics because it means they won’t get great results.

In the following two paragraphs, I amplify that fear. I explain that the content that most marketers produce isn’t as great as they think it is and that they might be closer to an average marketer.

The second box alludes to the solution—certain types of content that are guaranteed to outperform what average marketers are making. I go on to expand on my solution before starting the post.

Again, it’s the same 3-step process:

1. State the fear (or cause of fear)
2. Illustrate the fear
3. Transition to your solution

3. Use AIDA to captivate visitors

You may have heard of AIDA before.

It’s one of the most famous copywriting formulas there is because it just plain works. It’s incredibly versatile, and we can apply it to our openings as well.

First, what does AIDA stand for?

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Typically, you’ll address each point in that order.

To start off, you need to grab the attention of your readers. How do you do that? Typically with a bold or surprising claim.

For example, in a post on Backlinko, Brian Dean said that he analyzed over 1 million search results. That’s a lot and pretty intriguing to most SEOs reading the post.

If you can use numbers—great, but they’re not required. The only goal here is to catch the attention of your reader. It may be a sentence or two that seem unrelated at first to your topic.

Check out this intro from one of Jon Morrow’s best posts:

The post is about being a better blogger, but you wouldn’t know it from that opening.

However, he grabs your attention by doing something out of the ordinary: telling you (in great detail) that he’s going to tell you something you’re not going to like.

Even though I know what’s coming (since I’ve read it before), I still have that feeling of needing to know what comes next.

Then, we move on to interest.

Interest is similar to attention, and you certainly need to maintain attention, but this is where you tie your attention-grabbing introduction to the subject of the post.

In Brian’s article about SEO ranking factors, he included two parts to accomplish this:

Which factors correlate with first page search engine rankings?

And…

With the help of Eric Van Buskirk and our data partners, we uncovered some interesting findings.

Brian knows that his readers want to know which ranking factors are most important. However, he doesn’t give away all the answers quite yet, saying instead they uncovered some “interesting findings.”

Next, it’s time to move on to desire.

This is where you make it really clear why your reader should care about your content, if they didn’t already know that.

Here’s an example from one of my posts:

Here, I make it clear that if a reader follows my advice in the post, they could double their writing speed.

Remember that your reader is already interested at this point. To induce desire, all you need to do is make the benefits of your content clear.

Now, what about action—the last part of the formula?

You can interpret and use it in two ways.

First, you could get a reader to take an action right at the end of your introduction. Maybe you want them to get a pen and paper or open a spreadsheet. Or maybe you want them to answer a question and come back to it at the end.

If this applies, go for it.

The action in this formula typically refers to the end of the content, though. So, in your conclusion, you should make it clear how a reader is supposed to apply what you just taught them.

4. Show me the money (benefit first)

Some readers just absolutely hate stories of any kind.

They want you to get to the point and do it fast.

If your audience has a lot of readers like that, consider starting off with the benefit of your content. But not just any benefit—the biggest one.

This is how you will attract attention, and if the benefit you promise is big enough, they will invest their time to read through your content.

For example, you could start an article about SEO basics by saying:

If you learn the basics of SEO, you could be making $3,000+ per month within 6 months.

Assuming you’ve got your audience right, they’ll be glad to dig a bit deeper to find out if your claim is true.

After that opening claim, you then want to expand on and back up your claim. To continue the example:

I know this because I’ve taught multiple students to do so. I myself am an SEO who makes over $XXX,000 per month.

Now you have some credibility behind your solution.

Finally, you should close off your introduction by explaining how the reader will get to the solution.

In this case, something like this would work:

I’m going to show you the X SEO basics you need to know and then a step-by-step process to follow to start generating revenue.

At that point, most readers will be hooked.

To recap, the 3-step process for this type of opening is:

1. Start with your strongest benefit.
2. Show why your claim is credible (since the claim needs to be impressive/slightly unbelievable).
3. Explain how you’ll help the reader achieve the benefit.

Keep in mind that it doesn’t necessarily have to look exactly like that as long as all the elements are covered.

Here’s an example of this type of opening from one of my posts:

The sentence in the first box only implies the benefit (ranking as well as Quick Sprout). I’m counting on the reader to be familiar with my site.

Shortly after, I say that I’ll show the reader what they need to do if they want to rank like Quick Sprout. This is actually the 2nd and 3rd step all in one.

The claim is credible because I state that I’ll personally show them the solution. Of course, I’m credible in this situation since I’m the one who built the site up.

At the same time, I’ve explained that I’m going to show them what they need to do. I explain a bit more right after that part.

Don’t get hung up having a clear distinction between all parts of the opening—just make sure they are all covered in the right order.

Conclusion

Don’t put tons of hours into writing an amazing post and then just slap on a weak introduction.

If you do that, too many of your readers will never make it down to the content that has the value.

Use these 4 types of openings to craft introductions that basically force readers to give your content a chance.

From there, I hope your content delivers.

from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2FxnM11

14 Examples of Truly “Epic” Content: How Does Yours Stack Up?

The word epic is overused.

It’s become watered down over the years, and most people don’t seem to appreciate what it means.

Which is a problem.

Why? Because the first rule of content marketing is:

Create epic content.

I’ve written about creating great content many times before, but epic is a level above that.

According to the dictionary, epic describes something that is:

• heroic; majestic; impressively great

OR

• of unusually great size or extent

In plain English, it refers to something that’s so much better than any other thing out there that you can’t help but to be impressed with it.

And although you can’t always hit the epic level with your content, it’s something you should strive to reach at least a few times a year.

That’s when you’ll start getting hundreds of links to your content and tens of thousands of views.

But here’s the problem: You can’t create a guide to making epic content because it comes in many different forms.

Great content is fairly predictable, but epic content often requires creativity and a hefty investment.

So although I can’t tell you exactly how to make epic content for your specific business, I can show you what epic content looks like.

I’ve put together 14 examples of epic content across many different niches so we can study them together and you can start to piece together what makes epic content epic.

If you want to be successful, do this: Many of these ideas aren’t that complicated. I’m sure you’ll think many times throughout this post, “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

That’s a good thing!

Try to take the concepts and ideas in these examples and apply them to your niche. 

1. The Ultimate Guide to Making Money

We’re starting off with a guide written by Ramit Sethi, someone I mention in my articles often.

He has a lot of content that I consider epic, but I chose to single out his ultimate guide to making money here.

Right away, you can tell that it’s not the standard content you see on blogs. He went to the trouble of having it professionally designed and formatted:

On the left, it has a table of contents—how many blog posts have that?

As you can see by the number of social shares, this guide is incredibly popular.

Epic content can produce epic conversions too: One mistake that I see many content marketers make is producing great content but not wanting to collect email signups right away.

They figure that if the content is good enough, the visitors will eventually think of it again and come back to read other content on the site. But it doesn’t usually work like that.

If you’ve blown away a visitor with your content: capitalize on it right away.

After consuming a useful guide or some other piece of content, most visitors will be happy to sign up for your email list. They aren’t going to get annoyed—you did just provide a ton of value to them after all.

If you take a close look at this guide, you’ll realize that it’s set up as a highly optimized lead generation source.

At the bottom of every single section, it has an opt-in form along with a brief pitch for signing up.

Despite that, it still got thousands of shares, and I’m sure it’s had hundreds of thousands of visitors.

The two main reasons this is epic: The first I already touched on—the formatting. When you make content look amazing, it stands out from ordinary blog posts. People value it more, just like they do paid content.

The second reason is the incredible value in the guide.

Ramit includes his techniques in the article (through text, images, and video), and he also includes multiple detailed case studies:

Case studies make anything more actionable because they help the reader think of the advice in practical terms.

2. NomadList

What do you think of when you hear content?

Most marketers and business owners think of written content, mainly blog posts.

That’s completely natural, and obviously I am a big fan of blogging for business.

However, what you can’t afford to forget is that writing is only one form of content.

And although it’s great for certain topics, other topics are better presented in other forms of content. 

NomadList is not a blog post. It actually has barely any text at all. If anything, it’s more of a tool or database of information.

But it’s still content. Content is really anything that you can consume or learn from.

Like all great content, NomadList solves a problem. It just does it better than any other tool.

Digital nomads are people who work remotely and who love to travel the world.

One of their biggest problems is finding great destinations that are both good for work and fun and safe for travel.

NomadList is essentially a directory of popular destinations for digital nomads:

The top bar is a beautiful collection of filters for the user to apply to narrow down the results, and the results are ranked and shown below.

There’s a lot of other great content out there on this particular problem. However, most of that consists of a few pictures and usually long lists in no particular order.

Not only does NomadList rank the destinations, but it also makes it incredibly easy to quickly compare the results to each other.

You can see the average cost of rent per month, the average Internet speed, and the temperature of each destination all on the card for each place:

This goes to show that the form of your content is just as important as the information you’re presenting.

Coming up with a simple visual way to display important to the users information about possible travel destinations took NomadList from great to epic.

Content can evolve: NomadList also illustrates one other concept that you should never forget.

Epic content doesn’t always start off that way, especially if you have little experience creating it.

That’s why you shouldn’t get discouraged if you put a lot of work into something and it doesn’t catch on quite as well as you hoped.

This was the initial version of Nomad List:

As you can see, it’s nowhere near as useful.

It’s still pretty great, but definitely not epic.

But the creator got good feedback from the users of the initial version. They gave encouragement and suggestions, and after a few refinements, the creator took NomadList to what it is today.

If you already have good, or even great, content that solves an important problem, you don’t necessarily need to start from scratch.

Instead, re-evaluate the way you could make it even more valuable to visitors, and create a new iteration.

There’s no rule that says you can’t update or republish old content and promote it again.

3. How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World

While epic content doesn’t have to be written content, it certainly can be if it’s telling a story.

Jon Morrow, founder of BoostBlogTraffic.com wrote this guestpost on ProBlogger. It exploded.

There are a few key reasons why this post is epic, so let’s break them down one by one.

Reason #1 – It makes a lofty claim…but it delivers: Who hasn’t thought about quitting a job and moving to a tropic paradise at one time or another in their life?

We’d all love to do it, but we get scared or find other reasons not to.

So when you read the title of Jon’s post, you automatically think:

Holy crap, someone actually did it.

But this isn’t an article saying how awesome Jon is.

Instead, it’s a set of blueprints of how he did it. He backed up his claim and gave actionable advice to anyone considering a big change in their life.

Reason #2 – It inspires: People are full of excuses. It’s always easy to find a reason not to do something.

So when you read a story about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on clothes to make money, you say:

Sure, it worked for them, but I can’t do that for reasons X, Y, Z.

People react similarly to any content that makes them think a big accomplishment is possible.

And it’s what readers do when they read about other success stories about quitting jobs and moving across the globe.

But be honest. Jon had some of the worst circumstances possible and still made it work for him. He had a terrible disease, expensive medical bills, and limited resources.

He still did it.

He moved to Mexico on a whim and started on a path to becoming a hugely successful business owner.

Can you still come up with an excuse of why you couldn’t do the same (assuming that’s something you wanted to do)?

Overcoming obstacles is inspiring. Being transparent about overcoming your obstacles with your readers forces them to take action because they can’t make excuses.

Getting people to take action is the only way to impact their lives in a significant way.

Reason #3 – It resonates with people: Jon is an amazing writer, but that’s not something you can learn overnight.

However, if you start paying attention to how guys like Jon write, you’ll start to understand why readers relate to their writing so much.

While most people write about surface topics, Jon isn’t afraid to be vulnerable and say what people aren’t expecting to hear. Another word for it is authenticity.

It would have been easy for Jon to lament about how hard his life was—to be a victim.

Instead, he writes about the “freakin’ bills”. That’s something almost everyone can relate to.

All of a sudden, you’re not feeling bad for Jon—you’re feeling angry with him.

When you can find ways to make a reader stop reading about you and instead feel and read with you, that’s when you can make a real impact in their life.

I’m no master at this. However, I do get better over time by practicing. And that’s what you need to do too.

4. One Year After Getting Laid Off – My Annual Passive Income Report

One major component of epic content is doing something that no one else has done before—that readers actually want to see.

Now, it’s pretty common for site owners to reveal their incomes, but it wasn’t always like that.

Pat Flynn published his first annual income report in 2009 (in addition to monthly reports), where he shared everything:

In the make-money-online niche, secrecy is the norm.

It’s hard for readers to trust bloggers because they could just be making things up.

After many months of revealing his personal online income, Pat convinced his readers he wasn’t making up his income numbers.

He was one of the first online marketers to promote transparency:

The lesson here: Give readers access to something that no one else will.

Showing income reports is more common these days, but not very many successful marketers will share their own processes or tools. That’s how you could stand out if you run a business in the make-money-online niche.

It can apply to any business. If you run an auto garage, for example, let your customers watch a video stream showing the work in progress, or show them pictures of their problems so they don’t feel like they’re getting tricked.

If you run a clothing store, show your customers where the clothes are made (i.e., not in sweatshops).

5. Link Building Tactics – The Complete List

If you’re interested in SEO, you might have seen this one before.

There are tons of different link building tactics, but they are all very different from each other.

What this means is that only some tactics work for certain situations and businesses.

So, it can be difficult for SEOs (especially beginners) to find the right tactics for their businesses. Plus, they don’t want to miss any good ones.

Instead of just writing an extensive list of 30-50 tactics, which would be very good, Jon Cooper took it a step further.

He compiled all of the link building tactics he could find. The page has at least 100.

But he didn’t just stop there. Someone also helped him create filters for the content.

People can filter the tactics based on the time-frame, effectiveness, and dependency on other sources. This way, readers know that they’re seeing tactics they can actually use:

The list is formatted consistently throughout the page. Each tactic has a description below it:

Epic is a spectrum: If you have some experience with SEO, you’ve probably already noticed that although the number of tactics in the list is amazing, the descriptions could be improved.

Some of the tactics have support links, but the author could add links to tutorials and case studies for each of the tactics to make the page even better.

It could be even epic-er (not a real word).

So although a piece of content could be epic, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be improved.

This list was created a few years ago, and at the time, it was far better than anything else available on SEO tactics.

However, the standards for content usually rise over time. Although I still think of this page as an example of epic content, it doesn’t stand out quite as much as it used to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone created an even better version, updated to match today’s standards.

6. Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List

Here is another one you might be familiar with.

SEOs love to talk, especially about Google and its ranking factors.

Up until recently, SEOs were always discussing whether or not certain factors were included in Google’s algorithm, and if so, how important they were.

Many years ago, Google released a statement saying that there were over 200 ranking factors:

Who knows how many there are today?

It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that SEOs were always wondering about what might and might not be a signal…always searching for more.

Then, Brian Dean put together this epic post.

He dug deep and was able to come up with a list of over 200 ranking factors (which he keeps updated). Most of them link to sources when possible:

Can you emulate this? What do readers in your niche always talk about? What are they curious about?

Once you figure that out, don’t just create a large list of the answers—create the complete list.

Go all out, and put in as much effort as you can in order to make an epic post. The results will be worth it.

7. How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours

How many posts have you read that are about how to promote a blog post?

Probably a lot.

Most of those are trash. They’re simple lists of briefly described tactics. They all sound like a recycled copy of another blog post.

The guys behind Groove are different—in a good way.

The first thing they did was actually test their promotional strategy. They used it themselves and were able to get over 1,000 subscribers from their first blog post.

Not only did they achieve an amazing result, but they also showed that it’s actually possible.

In the post I chose for this list, Alex from Groove broke down that entire promotional process in great detail.

He included everything from the names of people they targeted to his exact outreach email and the reasons behind it:

This post is insanely practical, which is why it stands out among most other posts about this exact topic.

It also shows some behind the scenes details, which is something I mentioned earlier (see a pattern?).

When it comes to this specific problem (promoting a post), readers crave actionable examples, and Alex delivered just about as well as one could:

8. You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances

Let’s get away from the written content for a little bit.

The New York Times published this amazing piece of content to illustrate an important concept: how wealth impacts the chances of children going to college.

Instead of just putting the results in a table, like everyone else, they had a goal: show people that reality is far different from what they imagine.

Near the top of the article is a graph. You can click and draw a line to indicate how you think income corresponds to college attendance:

If you’d like to try it, do so before I spoil it for you.

There are two main factors why this content is amazing.

Factor #1 – It’s entertaining/fun: Do you know what sucks about serious topics? They’re always serious.

Sometimes, it’s good to take a different approach to content. Readers will appreciate it, and your content will stand out.

News articles, in particular, are typically very one-sided. They’re not even conversational like blog posts, which makes them even more boring to read (not that they aren’t important).

A little game like this is always welcomed by most readers.

Factor #2 – It’s surprising: While the end result seems pretty simple, a lot of work went into this content.

Not only did they have to make the interactive graph, but they also had to put a lot of work into researching the actual findings.

These findings were also highly interesting. They were not what most people would expect.

You can read the post if you’re interested in knowing why the results are surprising (a bit off topic here).

Think of an average reader coming to this page.

First they see the interactive graph. They think, “This is pretty cool…maybe I should share it.”

But then, they see the surprising results and think, “People need to know this!”

Great content usually stands out in one area. Epic content often stands out in many. If you can combine multiple things from all of these examples, you’ll be on the right track.

9. This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

One of the main limitations of written content is that it takes longer for it to get a point across than for other forms of content.

In addition, it’s really hard to compare multiple things.

That’s why people love images.

This content example is composed almost entirely of images.

But not just any images—they are professionally designed, and they communicate meaningful data.

If they had only created that first one, the article still would have been great.

But they went the extra mile.

They created many additional graphs so that they could go into detail on each important social issue:

When you overwhelm your readers with value, they will love it.

I think the results speak for themselves:

10. Which Phone?

Android vs iPhone, which side are you on?

iPhones are great because they’re simple. The average owner just wants a quality phone, and Apple makes it easy to get one because there are very few models.

Android phones, on the other hand, are made by many different manufacturers.

Although there is more flexibility, not everyone needs all that flexibility.

What Android did with this piece of content was brilliant.

They created a quiz that allowed users to describe what they wanted in a phone in plain English:

First of all, it’s designed beautifully.

But the reason why it’s so valuable is that it solves a huge problem of being overwhelmed by phone choices:

After you answer a few questions, you get a list of the phones that would suit you best (it’s incredibly easy for a user):

Compare this shopping experience to that on any other site, even Amazon.

You go to the cell phone section and are presented with hundreds or thousands of different phones.

If you want to sort them, you have to do so by factors such as the number of megapixels on the phone camera or the phone’s processor:

The average user doesn’t know anything about these things and doesn’t care. All they want is a phone that does what they want.

Complicated questions have complex answers: If there’s a complicated question in your industry that you always hear customers asking about, answer it.

But instead of trying to answer it in a typical blog post, using language they don’t understand and don’t care about, find a way to simplify the answer in the terms that your customer cares about.

Since it’s a complicated problem, this won’t be easy, which is why no one else has done it before.

However, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, your epic content will be talked about for years.

11. The Advanced Guide to SEO

Okay, I’m a little biased, but I had to include a Quick Sprout post on this list.

All of my advanced guides have received hundreds of backlinks (or more).

Like Ramit’s guide that we looked at earlier, these guides are all professionally designed.

It’s clear to any reader that this isn’t ordinary content.

These guides are also incredibly thorough, covering everything on that topic in great detail.

The best thing about these guides is that anyone can make one like them. However, you will have to invest capital or time and effort in order to make them. That’s what epic demands.

12. What 2,000 Calories Look Like

Epic content often makes your jaw drop.

This piece of content was also created by The New York Times.

One of the most common misconceptions people have is the number of calories they eat. Most people almost always underestimate that number.

Instead of just telling people that (e.g., “This One Mistake That All Dieters Make…”), they showed people just how wrong they usually are.

They created several high quality pictures of actual meals that people eat at common places:

All of these meals have 2,000 calories, which is the average recommended daily intake for most people.

And people were shocked.

They found out that they regularly consumed their daily calories in just one meal.

The takeaway? Look at a common myth or mistake that your target audience makes. Then look at it from a different angle, and show it to them.

13. Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism

It turns out that I’m not the first person to compile amazing content.

This article in The Atlantic consists of links to 100 top journalism articles:

The reason why this piece of content is epic is two-fold: its quantity and its quality.

A great article usually has one or the other.

Obviously, with 100 articles, the quantity was there.

But what really pushed this piece of content over the edge is that it was compiled by an expert—an expert who read thousands of pieces in order to find the best 100 to include in this article.

Curated content is very popular right now, and it usually produces great results. But if you want to produce epic curated content, make sure that you’re actually picking the best of the best that all readers will find valuable.

Any journalist or journalism student has seen this page or has it bookmarked.

14. Lionel Messi Is Impossible

Epic content is possible in any niche.

This final example is about Lionel Messi, who is the greatest soccer (football for non-Americans) player alive right now.

But people like rivalries, and for years he has been compared to another amazing player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

So what do people do? They compare single highlights and certain stats, sharing their opinions on which one is better.

But not Benjamin Morris.

Instead, he created a masterful data-driven post to settle the debate once and for all.

He analyzed thousands of datapoints, players, and different stats in order to get a complete picture of it all.

He created several high quality graphs that showed how Messi and Ronaldo compared to all other players (and to each other):

Note that I said several graphs.

To get a complete picture on a topic, you need to approach it from all possible angles:

His conclusion: Ronaldo is a great player, but Messi is impossible. He stands out so much on these graphs that no one can really make an argument against the conclusion.

Of course, Messi fans loved this article and shared it like crazy. They were excited to share it due to how epic the analysis was.

The takeaway? If you’re going to try to settle a common debate in your industry, be prepared to put in the work and finish it. Put in so much work that readers are left impressed and convinced with your conclusions, unable to argue with the results.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, epic content can take many forms.

But all these examples have one thing in common:

Readers love it.

Creating epic content is not easy, even if that’s your goal. It’s often not cheap either.

You need to continually practice improving your content creation to give yourself the best chance at regularly creating epic content that readers flock to.

While it may be a ton of work, I promise you that the results are worth it. Just a few epic pieces of content can create or sustain many businesses.

from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/2uuIv0B