How to Create Epic Content (Plus Examples)

If you want to rank in Google today, you can’t post articles with 400 words and a picture and call it a day.

The best way to get Google’s attention is by creating epic content.

But what is epic content? What does it look like?

In this post, I’ll give you some examples of epic content we’ve created or we’ve found online and how to create it. As you can see, there are several types you can create, from epic guides, to round-ups, to calculators.

1. EPIC GUIDE

Google loves LOOOONG content.  Epic guides don’t need to be fancy.  They just need to be exhaustive.  Go for a minimum of 4,000 words.

EXAMPLES:
GoodFinancialCents.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies of 2020 – There is NOTHING special about the design of this article.  But it’s over 5,000 words, and consistently ranks on the front page for “best life insurance companies” in Google.

Whole Life Insurance – The Essential Guide – I “ghost wrote” this article for Todd Tresidder.  It got up to the 4th page of google with ZERO other life insurance content on his site simply because it’s a monster.  13,000 words.

Google’s 200 Ranking Factors – The Complete List – No special design again.  But it is the absolute, be-all, end-all, authoritative guide.

HOW TO CREATE:
There’s no special design or magic needed here.  Just start with an outline of every question someone could possibly have about your topic.  Search the articles in google already discussing your topic to make sure you include everything they have and more.  You can get even more ideas by using the ubersuggest.org tool.  Simply enter your keyword there for variations and related search terms to your topic.  

In the case of the Yoli Diet Review, I had my programmer add in some code to make the sections to all those FAQ’s expandable, and I spent about $50 on the header design, but all together, this cost me less than $100 to create. 

2. EPIC LIST or ROUND-UP

These are lists of 50 or 100+ examples of a topic or lists of a group of experts coming together to comment about a common subject.

EXAMPLES:
55 Experts Reveal 3 Favorite Link Building Tools – This is a “round-up” post. This one put Clambr on the map!

101 Contradictions in the Bible – Regardless of your beliefs, this is an epic list. It’s been rewarded with 136 backlinks according to ahrefs.com.

117 Experts Share Their Best Tips on Pest Control – Well designed and organized, this is an example of a “round-up” post.

HOW TO CREATE:
These are also simple and inexpensive to create.  It just takes time compiling the information.  If you’re doing a round-up post, they can also be great for marketing because you can reach out to the people you featured, and they tend to share the post if it’s high quality.  You simply reach out to all the experts and record their answers.  

Be sure to follow up if you don’t hear from them.  I find if you can get one big name, it helps because you can go back later and say, “Hey, we already got so and so to participate.”  

3. EPIC TOOL

 This could be a cool calculator, needs assessment tool, or tool explaining how something works.

EXAMPLES AND HOW TO CREATE:
How a Car Engine Works – This “animated graphic” so clearly shows what makes an engine works, that even a dummy like me can understand.  It’s been hugely popular, received hundreds of social shares and backlinks, and that’s why it ranks #1 in google for “how a car engine works”.  To have one created search for “animated graphics” or “moveable infographics” in Upwork.  There are plenty of designers there.  The engine one probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, but you could probably have one created for less than 1k or 2k.  

Life Happens’ Life Insurance Needs Assessment Tool ranks #1 for “life insurance calculator”  It’s an excellent tool.  If I were going to create something like this, again, I would find someone on Upwork who has built a financial tool or calculator and reach out to them.

4. INFOGRAPHIC

These have been around a long time.  I’ve actually never created one of these, but I know you can have them created for a few hundred dollars or less. 

EXAMPLES:
Desk Exercises Infographic
The Great Big List of Infographic Ideas

HOW TO CREATE:
Obviously, you have to hire a designer.  My favorite places for design are Upwork or 99 Designs.  Your only job is to research and collect data.  It’s the designer’s job to organize and present it in a visually stunning way.

5. INTERACTIVE GUIDE 

These are my favorite.  They get a lot of shares and backlinks.  Imagine one of these explaining the difference between types of life insurance, or comparing life insurance companies.

EXAMPLES:
An Analysis of the Beatles
The Vocal Ranges of the World’s Greatest Singers
From Millions to Billions

HOW TO CREATE

What I love about finding other epic resources is you can “steal” the idea from them, sketch up your idea, and send it to an app creator in Upwork. When I still owned my insurance site, I created a page that compared insurance companies that looked a lot like the “Vocal Ranges of the World’s Greatest Singers” page. It looked like this:

6.  SOLID DESIGN WITH IMAGES, VIDEO, AND LOTS OF CONTENT

You can take any article and turn it into something much more valuable if you add a lot of images and video.  

EXAMPLES:
Best Credit Repair Companies

55 Credit Building Secrets

HOW TO CREATE:
I use a content builder called Thrive Themes.  Their content builder plugin is amazingly easy to use.  It does cost a couple hundred dollars, but once you’ve spent that once, you can create your own epic pages without the help of a designer.  They also have amazing tutorials.  You can learn how to do almost anything with your site if you own Thrive Themes.  I highly recommend it.

There are a ton of other types of power pages or epic posts.  

Here are a couple involving research and presenting the data:
Lionel Messi is Impossible
Search Engine Results from 1 Million Google Results

Here are a couple of VERY high-end, epic pages by another of my favorite marketers, Neil Patel:
The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing
The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing

Your Turn:
Take a look at some of these epic resources and jot down at least 2 ideas you have for an epic post.  Then reach out to a programmer and ask them how it was made.  Once you know, you can go on Upwork with your idea and have almost anything made for less than $1,000.

If you need any help, let us know.

If you wanna beat the best, you gotta be the best.

Until next time, swing for the fences!