Don’t Just Build Links, Build Epic Content

What is epic content? Anyone can spin an article and put it up on their website. Heck, anyone can spin thousands of poorly written, content-thin articles and add them to their website. Where does that get a website owner, though? It diminishes their standing with Google, and it also hurts their relationships with other website owners in the community which their site is a part of. The idea that can satisfy everybody is to build awesomely epic content. Google will be happy, search engine visitors will be happy, the other members of your community will be happy, and it will create a cycle whereby you can generate inbound links without any effort.

How Does The Authority Cycle Work? (In The Context Of Content Creation)

Here’s how the cycle works. The more traffic your site gets, the more people link to you. The more people link to you, the more traffic your site gets. The more time that users spend on your site, the more traffic you get indirectly through higher search engine rankings. The more well known you are in the community, the more inbound links you get. How do you make your site get more well known? How do you get users staying on your site? How do you make your site stand out? It all boils down to one thing: creating epic content. Content is king. Epic content is God.

What Is Meant By Epic Content?

What is meant by epic content? Epic content is what webmasters are starting to gravitate toward – because it’s almost foolproof against Google algorithm updates. It means different things to different people, but there are some general criteria for epic content. In order for content to be classified as “epic”, it has to be singular, unique, dense, beautiful, and organized. In essence, it has to be something of tremendous value. You can’t be cutting corners: you are going to have to invest time and money into creating this kind of content. The general idea is to build up the authority on your site so that the links will come to you.

What Are The Advantages Of Being An Online Authority?

You can easily gain more trust from your prospects and customers, which will often lead to more sales.

You can establish respect amongst your community co-creators and peers, which could lead to beneficial business opportunities and partnerships.

Your site could become an industry source, which could lead to more links and traffic to your blog/website.

You could have an easier time getting traction on new ventures and projects much faster, which can help to cut down on startup marketing costs.

You could attract more offline and online referrals.

The Following Elements Are Likely Used To Determine A Site’s Authority

Content (amount, age, relevancy, density, relevancy, quality)
Links (amount, kind, range, relevancy)
Social signals (shares, likes, Google +1’s, Pinterest, niche-related social networks)
Recognition (awards, testimonials, news pieces, citations, and mentions)
Offline (sponsorships, networking, speeches)

Authority Boils Down To Trust (And Great Content, Products, Services, Or Features)

Establishing your site as an authority basically means that you’re getting an enhanced sense of trust from others. Once you’re able to get that trust from prospects, competitors, colleagues, and customers, it becomes a lot easier to leverage that and keep building on your trust.

The way that you get the trust is through creating great content, becoming a valuable member of the community for which your site is a part of, and establishing your site as having unique content. There are no shortcuts to building trust. You can’t trick people into trusting you. Well, at least you can’t fool people for very long.

To Chapter 2: Guest Blogging And Relationship Management