Step by step: How to create EPIC blog content

Whoever coined the term “Content is king” was wrong. Yes, we’re content marketers, and words are our bread and butter. But if we wrote nothing but meaningless 500-word posts, would anyone care?

If you really want to make an impact on your readers, drive results and move the needle for your business, remember: Content is key, but only epic content is KING.

So here are 11 tips that will help you take your blog’s content to the next level and reap the benefits.

1. Write enticing headlines

I like to write the headline, subheading and intro only after I finish editing the body of the post.

Why is that?

Because I often make significant changes to the final draft before I hit the Publish button. By keeping these fßàwqźhat the blog post is about!

Remember: There are millions of blog posts published every day, fighting for your attention. So to compliment our epic content, you must create irresistible headlines. Otherwise your posts will not get the readership they deserve, as awesome as they may be.

Action steps

• Remember: Most of your visitors will view your post on mobile, so keep them short and sweet.
• Seek inspiration from popular websites, blogs and platforms like the New York Times, The Guardian, Upworthy, BuzzFeed, Vanity Fair, Medium, etc. look for headlines of trending posts/articles and see which ones make you want to read more.
• Popular websites — especially the ones that rely on social media shares — use many clickbait headlines (which are designed to get clicks at all costs). While you can learn a lot on persuasion from such headlines, never use them for your own content. Doing so could hurt your site’s reputation, scare visitors away and undermine your SEO efforts.
• Look at site directories like AllTop and 9rules to find sites in your niche and study their headlines.
• Found an irresistible headline? Create a swipe file on a Google Doc and add it. Alternatively, you can take a screenshot and save it in Pinterest or locally. Over time this will be a valuable headline bank you can refer to whenver you need inspiration.
• Now jot down at least 20 headline suggestions. Want to take it to the next level? Write 100 headlines. According to the CoSchedule blog (aforementioned), your last 30 headlines would be the most innovative.
• There are various online tools that can help you assess how successful your headline may be. Run your top headlines by CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer and shortlist the ones that get 80+. There’s also a handy WordPress plugin (Thanks Sara).

Some useful resources you should definitely check out before writing your next article:

• An Open Letter to Anyone Who Writes Headlines for a Living
• The Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Powerful Headlines
• 64 Easy Ways To Write A Headline That Will Reach Your Readers
• Learn to Write Headlines That Get More Clicks [Plus FREE Swipe File Download]
• How to Write Better Headlines [Infographic]
• Subheadings: What They Are & How to Craft Great Ones

2. Create content that people LOVE

Strive to create content that’s unique and in-depth, and you’ll attract new visitors, create buzz on social media and grow your business.

Here’s why:

While almost every blogger can write about “10 ways to do x during 2020,” you can come up with a post that actually helps people or gives them an actionable plan. For example: an exclusive interview, industry research or a step-by-step guide.

Remember: A decent blog post gets likes and shares. An epic post can get you thousands of leads and move the needle in your business.

Other types of quality content you can create:

•     Case study 
•     Product review
•     Exclusive research
•     Experiment
•     Roundup post
•     Ultimate guide
•     Resource list
•     Recipe

Action steps

• Find a popular/trending post on one of the blogs in your niche that you researched in step 1. Use it as an inspiration for your own epic post. In other words – create fresh content around the same topic. By all means, don’t blatantly copy said post. This is the road to failure!
• Choose a content format — a resource list, recipe or a maybe a product review. Now Google [keyword + content format] for popular posts. For example – [weight loss ultimate guide].
• Create your first epic post. Remember: It takes time to create quality content. Nonetheless your post will never be perfect. So publish/schedule it when you think it’s good enough and keep tweaking it as you go along. For example: Most images, except for the featured image, can be added later. Otherwise your post will take forever, creating a bottleneck in your posting schedule.
• Epic posts are long. So forget about everything you’ve been told regarding ideal word count. In other words — 2000 word-posts, or even way more, are not unheard of!

Some useful resources on creating epic content:

• Demistifying Epic Content
• How to Create Epic Content
• How to Write Epic Blog Posts that Rank Well
• The Ultimate Guide to Writing Epic, Viral Content

3. Avoid text-only posts

Sadly, most people don’t read as much as they used to. In fact, most online users skim the content instead of reading it, and if they’re not intrigued within a few seconds they’ll give it a rain check and move on to the next page. Not fun…

So how can you capture their attention instantly and keep them on your site for longer?

Easy! Create content that visitors can effortlessly read and skim, using bullet lists, italics, bold text, numbers, quotes, short paragraphs, beautiful images and a heading and intro that literally force them to keep reading.    

In addition, each visitor prefers a different way of consuming content, so combine various content formats in your epic posts, such as video, TED Talks, podcasts, infographics etc. Doing so can also grant your post more shares across diverse social networks like YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and SlideShare.   

Action steps

• Choose a non-textual content platform like YouTube, Vimeo, TED, or SlideShare.
• Search for keywords and phrases relevant to your post.
• Open your post in admin mode on your desktop, copy the share url from each content element and paste it in relevant positions throughout your post. In most cases the visual element would then be automatically embedded in your post. If that’s not the case, look for the embed code and paste it into the post.
• Add a caption or a short description to each element.

Content-rich platforms you can use in your post:

Video: YouTube | Vimeo | Metacafe | TED | Dailymotion | IGTV

Slides, whitepapers, PDFs etc: SlideShare

Images: Unsplash | Pexels | Find Flickr photos to share |Embed Flickr photos

WordPress plugins: Better Click to Tweet | Custom Twitter Feeds | Social Photo Feed|Feed Them Social |Transision Slider | Quotes Collection

4. Ask your audience directly

Once you’ve built a sizable community, you can take advantage of your mailing list and social following and conduct surveys. Use Google Forms or a tool like Survey Monkey to tap into the wisdom of your crowd. 

Ask your followers a simple question like “What are you struggling with?” or “What type of article can help you get more followers?” 

Make it a multiple-choice question or an open-ended one. 

Want more replies?

Offer an incentive such as a free report or video to those who reply. 

Now you’ve got a list of articles you know your followers are going to love!

Action steps

• Jot down one or two burning questions you’d like your audience to answer. Avoid Yes/No questions as they won’t spark any thoughtful replies. Open questions using the 5 W’s (what, where, who, why, when) will get better results.
• Choose a platform — do you have an engaged email list, or a thriving Facebook community? Conduct the survey where you have the most engaged followers.
• Choose a method — there are many ways to conduct a survey. You can simply send an email blast with your question, asking users to reply with their answer. Link to SurveyMonkey, post a survey on Facebook, or a video / Live broadcast where you ask that question.
• Consider offering an incentive to get more people on board. This can be as simple as a free checklist, video or early access to your upcoming product (even just one module).
• Got enough answers? Now that’s pure gold! You can write a post summerizing your survey results, or use them as ideas for your next posts. You know your audience cares about them!

5. Hone your writing and copywriting skills

You don’t need to be a professional writer/copywriter in order to write awesome articles. But knowing basic principles and some ‘tricks’ of the trade can certainly help. So learn how to create a winning article intro, write persuasive copy, end with a call to action and more. 

Some points to remember:

• Keep your content succinct and get into details but only if necessary. This does not mean you can only create 500 -700 word blog posts. The opposite is true. The best most helpful blog posts often have 2,000 words or longer. But here’s the thing: These posts are tightly focused around a certain topic. So keep your content succinct, relevant, and fluff free. After your first proofreading session, go ahead and try to shorten your article as much as you can. It has to read well, but any fluff or long-winded descriptions should be removed or edited.
• Use irresistible headlines to attract your readers and powerful intros to draw them.
• End your posts with strategic calls to action (CTA), telling your readers exactly what you want them to do — opt in to your email list, leave a comment etc.
• Engage readers by using simple, active language. Remember: Blogging is about connecting with your readers, so showing off your English skills by using posh language will not do your readership any favours. So write as if you’re talking to your best friend. For example, don’t say: “It is strictly advisable that one builds an email list”. Instead, say: “Let me give you a useful advise. Build your email list!”

Some powerful resources:  

• Copyblogger
• Digital Marketer
• Problogger

6. Save time by repurposing content

Here’s a massive time-saver for you: Any piece of content you’ve created can be repurposed, i.e. used again in a different format. 

For example, your article can be turned into a slideshow, and then into a video. Your main ideas can become tweets. You can also break down your article and turn it into a series of emails for your subscribers.

Alternatively, you can get a freelancer or VA (virtual assistant) to transcribe your video and turn it into a blog post or a press release.. You get the idea…

So create your epic post once. Then use over and over, in different ways, to maximize your results.

Action steps

• Find a piece of content you’re proud of. One that you believe is highly focused and valuable to your audience.
• Think of three other content formats you can convert it into. For example, you can transcribe a recorded interview (or get a freelancer to do it) and turn it into a series of quotes, tweets, a SlideShare slideshow and a blog post. A research can turn into an infographic, a press release and a lead magnet. You get the idea..
• Now decide whether you repurpose the content on your own, or outsource it. You’d be surprised by how reasonably-priced outsourcing can be.

Recommended content repurposing services:

Fiverr: Many services, including video/audio transcription, videos, photo slideshows and more. Turnaround is ususally fast. Prices range, starting at 5 USD per project.

Warriors for Hire: The upside of Warriors for Hire is being part of the web’s most popular internet marketing forum. So most service providers are marketing-orientated. Many services are offered here, including content creation, ebooks, emails and more. Do your research first and check users’ feedback and members’ recorord before ordering. Prices range.

99designs: While on the pricier side, (3-digit range), 99designs offers uncompromising design services, including infographics, landing page designs, ebook covers and much more. The idea is that you offer a project, get loads of concepts from tallented designers and choose your favourite.

Virtual Stuff Finder: Having helped over over 7,000 entrepreneurs since 2010, Virtual Stuff Finder (or VSF) is a unique service that can help you find virtual assistants in the Philippines. It was founded by serial entrepreneur Chris Ducker Prices start at 395 USD.

Rev: With over 50,000 freelancers globally, Rev.com offers fast and accurate transcription services. Prices start at 1.25 USD per audio minute.

7. Epic posts are judged by their cover

What you say in your blog post matters. But how you present it can litrerally make or break its success. 

So whatever you do, be sure to have these three things in place when your post goes live:

1. Professional theme: The theme determines the visual appearance of your blog and can be changed without affecting the actual content. Think of it like a shirt — you can wear a different one each day and still remain you, right?
   • Your theme should look awesome and be responsive, i.e work flawlessly on any platform, screen size and device. In other words, your blog must look and function perfectly well on an iPhone 12, a Samsung tablet, or a 23-inch display using Safari, Chrome or even Edge. No glitches, moving parts, weird characters or annoying error messages should aggravate your readers’ experience. 
   • Now, there are thousands of WordPress themes, free and paid. Unfortunately not all of them work well and some are not fully responsive and break on mobile.
   • Also, you should choose a theme that compliments your content and has the features you need. For example, as a food blogger you may want a food theme with an option to easily showcase a menu. If you want to use AdSense or other advertising platforms, your theme needs to support that with ad spaces and matching widgets.
   • While there are various quality theme providers out there, the Genesis framework is the one I swear by. A framework is like a skeleton, a solid foundation with many different themes (called ‘child themes’) you can place on top. Yes, there’s an investment here but if you’re building a business it will pay off. And if you’re serious about blogging, you can make your money back with your first few affiliate sales.
   • Studio Press, creator of Genesis, offers a variety of beautiful themes that work seamlessly all across the board without hiccups, are constantly updated and their support is second to none.
2. Stunning images: Images attract users to your blog article, and also break long articles into shorter, easy-to-read chunks. Images can be tightly related to a certain paragraph or loosely related and add atmosphere, just like illustrations. 
   • How to find the right image?
   • You can create your own photos. The caveat – it’s time-consuming and not always practical. For example, if you’re a travel blogger who wants to write about climbing Mount Everest, good luck creating such a photo from scratch. So here are your options:
   • Hire a photographer to take epic photos for you, and take ones on your own as well.  
   • Look up images on free sites like Pexels and Unsplash. Credit is not required but it’s ethical to add it. Why not send potential clients to a photographer you appreciate?
     • Pros: Most images feel authentic and down to earth.
     • Cons: Selection can be scarce and you can’t always find the images you want. Quality is not always great. Because they’re free, these photos get a gazillion of downloads so you post could end up looking like your competitors’. 
   • Buy images from sites like Depositphotos and iStockPhoto. The prices are reasonable and sometimes you can buy cheap credit packages in advance.
     • Pros: Most images are of the finest quality, created by professional photographers. There’s a wide selection of images for almost any niche to choose from and no one expects a credit.
     • Cons: There are many cliche images of executives in suites jumping in the air wearing fake smiles.   
   • Pay attention to the required image dimensions. Before uploading an image, resize it — try to scale it down to the actual dimensions your blog requires — and compress it using tiny jpg or the Smush plugin. 
   • This way your site will have a better chance of running fast. Your site’s speed is critical for your search engine ranking and traffic — slow sites can scare visitors away.  
3. Keep it clean: If you want visitors to consume your content, don’t distract them with annoying pop ups every 2 seconds, and a sidebar cluttered with every widget under the sun. In fact, look at this blog and you’ll see how clean it is. There’s no sidebar, and your main focus is on the content at hand. 
4. Remember: It’s all about your content, so keep it centre stage. 

8. Don’t go broad, go deep

You start writing an article titled “How to find the best running shoes”.

You dive deep and suddenly you find yourself writing about how to get started running, 7 U.S. running events you cannot afford to miss and the ultimate running gear for 2022.  

Before you know it, you’ve written over 3,000 words. Which is great, but your article is completely out of focus, covering too many loosely related topics!  

Understand this: When someone searches for “the best running shoes” you want to drive them into an article that talks about just that — “How to find the best running shoes”.

If you get carried away with your writing, ending up with a post much longer than planned, fear not. Deep, quality content is often longer than the ‘standard’ 500-700 word blog post. So first of all, examine it and ask yourself whether all the content is relevant to the topic in question.

If the answer is “hell yeah,” then all you need to do is make sure your post is well-structured, readable, and easily scannable. Use bullets, bold, italics, sub-headings and short paragraphs to make it easier to read. Break the text by using images, videos, quotes and other visual elements.

If, however, the text is too long because the topic is too broad, find a sensible way to break it into separate articles. Next time, plan your articles ahead according to search terms you’ve researched. This will help you create tightly focused content that attracts free, targetted search engine traffic.

9. Don’t fly solo

Loners like to stay at the hotel room where it’s nice and warm, but then they miss the cocktail party in the bar, or the Havana-style event by the pool. And it matters because that’s where business ties are formed and deals are closed.

Don’t be a loner. Open yourself up to other bloggers, websites in your niche, community members. Don’t be one of those bloggers who are afraid to lose traffic by linking to other sites. These people don’t understand the internet and end up hurting themselves by missing so many opportunities for collaboration and traffic. It’s all about sharing, hyperlinking and building connections. 

Action steps

• Prepare a list of strategic partners and start including them in your content plan.
• Create a roundup post featuring various other bloggers, or quote another blogger.
• Contact them on Twitter or email them, letting them know they’re featured on your site. Now you’re already on their radar. 
• Monitor your Google Analytics (and any other analytics you use). If you see significant traffic coming from a certain blog or site, they might have an audience with pain points and interests similar to yours. Contact the owner, thank him/her and offer to collaborate with them.
• Collaboration opportunities include:
  • Interviews
  • Guest-posting
  • Holding webinars and events together
  • JV (joint ventures)
  • Promoting each other’s product
  • And many more

10. Keep track of your ideas

Ideas are fickle and you never know when to expect them. Like soap bubbles, they can pop up and then vanish into the ether within seconds…

So from now on, don’t let those goodies slip through the cracks. Carry an ideas book with you. It can be a physical notebook, sketchbook, Google Doc or a simple notepad app where you write down every idea as soon as it pops in your mind.

When you have some time, research your ideas and decide which ones are worth pursuing. This is key, especially when you’re just starting out and don’t have loyal following yet.

For the winning ideas, create content outlines. This will be a massive time saver when you get to the content creation stage — you’ll know exactly what to write about and where to start!

11. Stay informed and inspired

 Want to write life-changing content? 

Then you must regularly consume awesome content, particularly in written format.

Here are a few ideas to achieve exactly that:

• Here’s the thing: the only way to consume a plethora of content without constantly opening and closing browser tabs is by using RSS (really simple syndication). This way, you can create a continuous feed of web content, which you can conveniently categorize, read or watch. 
• And please don’t believe anyone saying that RSS is dead, unless you like wasting your precious time! 
• Some great places to start your search for inspiring content:
• All Top
• 9 rules
• Medium
• The New York Times — Newsletters
• The Guardian — Newsletters
• Upworthy
• Hacker News
• Last Bottle
• 10 blog directories actually worth your time

• So sign up for the Old Reader, an excellent RSS Reader. There’s a monthly fee but it’s very low and totally worth it.
• Get the RSS extension
• Whenever you come across a blog/site you like, add it to the Old Reader
• You can also create an email swipe file. Whenever you get an email you actually enjoy reading, label it as ‘Swipe’. In time, you’ll have a collection of intriguing emails to look at. Marketing emails are somewhat different than blog posts, and more product/service orientated. Nonetheless you can learn a lot from them about writing persuasive copy, powerful calls to action, attention grabbing headlines and more.