Why Big Content Is Worth the Risk

Why Big Content Is Worth the Risk
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Posted by Dr. Pete

We all want the low-hanging fruit, but let’s be honest – the low-hanging fruit is rotten, bruised, and covered with the grubby fingerprints of all the other spoiled brats pawing at it. There’s a time for easy wins, but easy only gets you so far. Sadly, I see too many SEOs putting days or weeks of effort into crafting the perfect low-value scheme, when that same time could’ve easily gone into content that has real staying power and drives sales.

I’m obsessed with “Big Content” lately – resources that go beyond our narrow bins of blog posts, videos, and infographics. I’m going to show you how that obsession is paying off, and why building real content is easier than you think.

I. What Is Big Content?

First, let me apologize for introducing another important-sounding but vague and probably useless term. I’m only calling it “Big Content” because the examples I’m thinking of defy any single definition. I want this to be actionable, so let me try to pin down what I’m taking about…

1. Big Content Takes Effort

If you want easy, then stop reading (this article is pretty long, and that sandwich won’t eat itself). The #1 attribute of big content is that it takes time and effort – it doesn’t have to be expensive, but you have to invest something into it (and, as they say, time is money). The problem with easy is that what’s easy for you is easy for everyone else, too. If anyone can do it, a tactic quickly loses impact. You can’t build a lasting competitive advantage with easy.

Here’s what most people don’t get, though – once you get good at big, big gets easier. You learn how to be efficient, tap outside resources, and manage risks. The more you create big content, the more you see opportunities that weren’t there before. You have to put in the effort and make the mistakes – if you’re stuck on easy, big will always be out of your reach.

2. Big Content Breaks Molds

I don’t think “big” content fits any particular format, but what I have noticed is that the examples that fit my idea of big all seem to break the format mold – they’re either hybrids or somehow more than just the sum of their parts. I think examples speak louder than explanations here, so let’s look at a couple.

Here’s a great concept put together by SimplyBusiness  - a WordPress Guide for Small Business. At first glance, you might think it’s “just” a flowchart:

Big Content Sample - Flowchart

Click on “NO” under any section, though, and you get a custom resource to answer the question. Some of these are links out, but others are videos created specifically for this project:

Big Content Sample - Flowchart + Video

Flowchart + links + video = something bigger. Here’s another recent example by the folks at Seer Interactive, an interactive content piece called “How Do They Make Money”:

Big Content Example - Infographic

At first glance, it looks like an infographic, but click on any company logo and you’ll see the real content in action:

Big Content Example - Infographic + Data

Again, if you want to over-simplify, it’s just icons + pop-ups, but the whole effect is a useful and professional piece that really engages people. Both of these examples also clearly have a lot of research and effort behind them.

3. Big Content Can Be Small

Big content needs big concepts, but it doesn’t have to be lengthy. One of my first introductions to big content was a 1-page PDF I created back in February of 2009, a 25-point usability checklist.  What was big about it? Well, even though it was only a single page, it represented not only years of client experience, but 30-40 hours of work just to create the list itself. I distilled a ton of usability texts and much longer checklists and combined that with my own experiences to create something that I really felt represented a lot of knowledge in a small space.

This was also my introduction to just how successful big content can be. The piece not only attracted traffic and links, but it ended up in books and classes and introduced me to dozens of respected members of my industry. What’s more, this content had real staying power – even though I wrote it over 3-1/2 years ago and have barely touched my consultancy blog this year, here are the 2012 traffic stats for just that one piece:

Checklist Stats - 56.898 pageviews

While this content took a lot of up-front effort, I’ve spent almost no time on it in 2012, and yet it drove almost 50K unique pageviews and over half the entrances to my site. It’s an investment that’s paid itself off a hundred times over.

II. Benefits of Big Content

Now that you have some idea of what I mean by “big content”, let’s dive right into the tangible benefits. Sure, big content drives traffic and links, but so does any successful content. I want you to understand what sets big apart, and why it’s more than just quantity…

1. Big Content Has Longevity

People come back to big content, as my experience with the usability checklist illustrates. If you put enough effort and research into a piece and make it truly unique, it’s almost naturally “evergreen”, even long after publication. There’s a step even beyond evergreen, though – big content has a way of creating audience or at least being in the right place at the right time when that audience is ready for it.

Let me give you an example. Another big content piece I’ve been deeply involved in is the Google Algorithm History here on SEOmoz – not only is it a big piece in scope, but we’ve actively updated it since launch, making it somewhat unique in the realm of historical posts. I intended it to be a “living” document.

While the Algo History has been popular, it started out a lot like any other piece of content – it had an initial spike that then settled into a steady hum. This is the first two months:

Algo History traffic - first two months

While the initial spike was respectable (just over 9K pageviews), this is a pretty typical pattern for our blog posts – a big opening day that levels off in a few days. Admittedly, the Algo History did keep on producing traffic, but the rest of 2011 was a steady trickle (in the realm of 200-400 pageviews/day). Overall 2011 traffic to the page was about 63K unique pageviews.

This pattern continued for the first couple of months of 2012 – there was some slow build-up, but nothing earth-shaking. Then, along came April:

Algo History - Penguin spike and 2012

On April 25th, traffic to the page spiked. Recognize that date? It’s the day after Penguin, and the start of a newfound interest in the algorithm. Remarkably, that interest has stayed steady, even months after the