What is 10x content? How to create content that ranks

For content to make a real impact, it can no longer just be better—it has to be exponentially better. 

Search results are saturated, readers are increasingly skeptical, and Google is heavily summarizing information with AI overviews (and there’s no sign of that slowing down). So, if you want to win attention, traffic, and trust, your content can’t just be useful. 

It has to be unforgettable, great content.

That’s where the strategy of 10x-ing your content comes into play. 

In this guide, you’ll learn how to spot 10x content opportunities and what it takes to make something truly ten times better than the competition. 

By the end, you’ll have an actionable and repeatable content creation framework to produce pieces that not only rank but drive lasting value.

What does it mean to create 10x content?

10x content refers to content that is ten times better than anything else currently ranking for a given topic.

It can take any form—blog post, landing page, infographic, video, podcast, interactive tool—but what sets 10x content apart is its unmistakable quality. 

10x content is clearer, deeper, more authoritative, and sometimes even personal, while being far more engaging than anything else that shows up in the SERP when a user googles a question. The content satisfies the reader’s intent fully, while also surprising and delighting them with bonus value or insights. 

10x content defined

The term was coined by Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz and current CEO of the audience research platform SparkToro, in 2015. Rand argued that content creators should go far beyond incremental improvements and build high-quality content that dramatically outperforms whatever else exists.

10x content is designed to not just rank, but to convert, earn backlinks, and ideally create a loyal follower who can’t wait for your next piece.

Back then, 10x content was a response to a flood of average blog posts from well-optimized sites. 

Today, the stakes are even higher.

Key traits of 10x content

Pieces that truly represent 10x content at its best share a few similar traits:

• Original insight or angle: add a unique take, like personal experiences, examples, or contrarian views, and not just rehash what’s already been said
• Visually rich or interactive elements: for example, step-by-step diagrams, interactive calculators, embedded videos, clickable tables of contents, or annotated screenshots that make content more engaging and easier to use
• Comprehensive, useful, or deep: cover everything the user needs to know and then some, to maximize value and information gain
• Emotionally resonant or highly shareable: connect with and make people feel some type of emotional response, or give them a reason to share it

What makes 10x-ing content effective?

The true challenge of 10x content is the high level of investment. You have to create something with enough time, resources, and expertise to make it unique and difficult for others to replicate.

That can feel daunting, especially if you’re running a small team with competing priorities. But when done right, it delivers outsized returns in multiple ways.

SEO benefits

10x content doesn’t just rank, it compounds results over time. 

According to Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite, 5% of your work will yield 95% of the impact. In practice, that small percentage usually comes from your most comprehensive, highest-quality pieces—content created with the 10x approach in mind.

By 10x-ing a piece, you increase the odds it becomes one of those rare, high-impact drivers that keeps delivering traffic and authority long after it’s published. 

And when a piece hits that level, the benefits extend across multiple key SEO signals:

• Improves dwell time, the amount of time spent on a page after clicking a SERP
• Reduces pogo-sticking, when a user clicks a result, doesn’t find what they need, and jumps right back to the SERP
• Earn backlinks and mentions more naturally, as other sites reference your original data, insights, and tools
• Boost engagement metrics such as scroll depth, time on page, and repeat visits (all positive signals to search engines)
• Strengthen E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) through original and accurate expert insights

Aligns with Google’s helpful content guidelines

Google’s helpful content system rewards content that is original, comprehensive, and designed for people, not just search engines. 10x content fits perfectly into this framework because it:

• Goes beyond summarizing what others have said, adding unique perspectives, examples, and solutions
• Answers the full scope of a query, often covering related questions in one place
• Demonstrates expertise, whether through first-hand experience, case studies, or expert quotes

Supports business outcomes

The ripple effect of 10x content goes beyond rankings. When combined with broader business goals, enhancing your content can lead to:

• Higher conversion rates because your depth and authority build trust with readers
• Stronger brand authority, positioning your site as the go-to source in your space
• An organic flywheel effect, when pieces earn links, shares, and rankings long after they’ve been published, reducing your reliance on constant content production

Not all content deserves to be 10x’d

Some content, especially low-intent, low-impact queries, just won’t deliver the right level of return. 

The real opportunity for creating 10x content is in identifying content gaps that not only improve organic performance but also create downstream business value.

The most defensible 10x content isn’t just SEO-driven, it supports multiple use cases. If a piece of content can pull double duty—help close a sale, follow up with a lead, or teach a customer how to use your product—it’s much easier to justify the extra time it takes to make it great. 

That direct link to earning more money makes the effort worth it.

If a piece of content isn’t something you can easily repurpose, look at the long game: 

• Will it bring steady traffic from search? 
• Could it attract links from other sites? 
• Does it give you a better shot at showing up in AI summaries or featured snippets?

If the answer’s yes, it’s probably worth the investment.

And if not? You’re likely better off targeting a leaner content solution.

Best practices to 10x your content

10x content isn’t about stuffing every SEO tactic into a 3,000-plus-word article and hoping it outranks the competition. That’s not an effective content strategy.

Instead, think of these tactics as strategic levers. 

You don’t need to pull all of them. But the more precisely you align them with your audience, topic, and business goals, the more powerful your end result will become. 

Use this checklist to help identify high-impact moves to fit your specific situation.

Lead with clarity

Unless you’re crafting poetry, people read content to look for a solution. 

Starting with clarity means stating the key value upfront. This builds trust, reduces the likelihood of a user bouncing, and signals you understand what your reader came for.

Use a strong hook to grab the reader’s attention, followed by a preview of what they’ll learn. Provide an overview of the key sections covered. You might even include a TL;DR or quick tip section up top for high-intent readers.

In any case, jump to the chase. And please, don’t be like those old recipe articles that force you to read an entire novel about the origins of brioche when all you want is a darn French onion soup recipe.

Example: HubSpot’s marketing strategy guides include a table of contents as a bulleted list, helping readers instantly validate if the content covers what they need.

Go deeper than competitors

For years, the safest play in SEO content was to say what everyone else said—just with cleaner formatting or a slightly longer word count. 

As long as your article hit the core points and included a few keywords, you could rank. 

Today, searchers (and Google) expect real depth. And in many cases, most articles still just skim the surface. They rehash the basics, which users now get directly from AI Overviews. 

That leaves a major opening for you to step in and deliver what’s missing on a topic: deeper context, practical examples, and more nuanced answers.

Going deeper doesn’t mean just writing more, it means writing better. Specifically:

• Showing real examples
• Walking through a full process
• Troubleshooting
• Offering alternative methods
• Explaining what to do when something breaks or doesn’t go as planned

Think of answering questions readers would ask after reading an average article. 

By the way, reviewing the steps ChatGPT uses to develop an answer is a quick way to anticipate potential follow-up questions.

Example: Ahrefs’ SEO glossary makes it easy to find marketing definitions all in one place. Want to go further? Each summary is linked to a more in-depth supporting article.

Build topical authority

Topical authority is the trust and credibility you earn when your site consistently covers a specific subject in depth. It’s about becoming the go-to source for every key angle of a topic.

When your content systematically addresses related questions, subtopics, and emerging trends, both Google and your readers recognize you as an expert in that space. 

Over time, that authority compounds. It can even be tied to specific authors within your organization, making individual voices as credible as the brand itself.

While building topical authority is a long game, there are some ways to consistently strengthen your position:

• Publishing deep-dive guides centered on your core services or niche topics
• Creating resource hubs that connect related articles into a complete knowledge base
• Engaging in industry news or trends (on your site and in other publications)

Example: Animalz regularly writes about editorial ops in SaaS companies, a topic they live daily. By writing around their service speciality, they can offer technical guidance and more down-to-earth editorial experiences—with both being viewed favorably.

Add original data or first-hand insights

If your competitors can say it too, it’s not unique. 

To stand out, bring your lived experience, results, research, and lessons forward in a way that reinforces the usefulness of your content. That might mean showing the numbers behind a tactic, explaining a failed experiment, or linking a principle to real-world results. 

Original insights position you as a practitioner, not just a curator. These first-hand examples could look like:

• Analytics screenshots showing before-and-after results from a campaign
• “What worked for us” lessons you’ve applied in the field
• Commentary on lessons learned and what you’d do differently next time
• An interwoven narrative about a personal or professional experience

The key is that these examples, data points, and stories need to help the reader. They should clarify a point, demonstrate proof, or add depth that generic sources don’t.

Example: Siege Media consistently pairs its content with custom graphics built from proprietary data and research (like their ChatGPT referral traffic study). This approach not only makes their insights easier to understand and more memorable, but also creates shareable visuals for social, newsletters, and presentations.

Incorporate subject matter experts

Don’t just say something smart—validate it. 

Expert insights reinforce trust, improve clarity, and make your content more shareable. They show you’re tapped into the industry and allow readers to hear from multiple credible perspectives. Including them also increases the likelihood of those same experts sharing your content due to their involvement.

And you don’t need formal interviews to pull this off. Citing credible sources or summarizing commentary from experts can go a long way. But when you can go direct—via original interviews or quotes—that added authenticity can become a true differentiator. 

Even better, using a subject matter expert as a thought partner before you write can shape the narrative and tone of the piece itself, helping you avoid oversimplifications and surface-level coverage.

Expert insights work particularly well when you:

• Quote known or trusted voices in your space
• Compare viewpoints from multiple experts for balance or debate
• Reference new studies or fresh, relevant data

Example: Editorial.Link’s Link Building Stiatistics page compiles survey data from dozens of SEOs, then pairs each stat with a clickable module that shows the expert’s full quote and LinkedIn profile. The result is part data resource, part expert roundup, and the interactive presentation encourages both engagement and sharing.

Answer related queries

Most users don’t stop at one question. 

If your content can anticipate and address multiple related queries, it not only increases time on page but also reduces pogo-sticking.

Right now, the best way to study is by looking at how Google’s AI Overviews summarize topics. 

What content types, data, and formats are they pulling into view? If you’re not covering those same angles—and doing it better—you’re missing a shot at visibility. 

Then go further: Use keyword clustering tools like Semrush, Clearscope, or Keyword Insights to group semantically related queries. 

You can also prompt ChatGPT or use Perplexity.ai to simulate the next few questions a curious reader might ask. These tools can help you uncover blind spots that traditional research might miss.

Forums like Reddit are also a great resource to surface more nuanced, real-world questions.

Look for opportunities to collapse related questions into a single, rich experience. That might look like:

• Step-by-step instructions followed by embedded FAQs
• Product setup guides paired with pricing or feature comparisons
• Strategy breakdowns with common objections and troubleshooting tips baked in

Example: Zapier’s integration guides walk users through setup, then explain what automations to try next, covering far more ground than your typical help doc.

Visualize what others don’t

The brain processes visuals faster than text. 

When you translate complexity into visual form, you unlock greater understanding—and reduce the cognitive load on your reader. 

And if competitor content is a wall of text, that’s a signal you can do better. 

Run a quick image search for your topic—if nothing substantial comes up, that’s a strong case for creating original diagrams or visual aids. Likewise, if the topic shows up in AI overviews with charts or process breakdowns, Google likely sees value in those formats. 

Just be sure you go beyond stock photos. Invest in visuals that actively support comprehension and usability, such as:

• Step-by-step diagrams
• Annotated screenshots
• Conceptual illustrations

Example: Brian Dean’s original Skyscraper Technique visual helped define the method and made it instantly memorable. By showing a tall skyscraper rising above shorter buildings, he created a simple metaphor for content that “towers over” existing results. That image helped people instantly grasp the concept and remember it long after reading.

Inject emotion and story

People act on feelings as well as facts. 

A compelling story, personal struggle, or relatable example can keep readers hooked and motivate action. 

But storytelling for storytelling’s sake can easily get in the way. If something doesn’t support your main point or clarify the message, it risks becoming fluff.

Some great uses of an emotional narrative: making something abstract feel real, or adding credibility by grounding your content in lived experience. 

For example, instead of just saying “broken links hurt user experience,” you could share a story of clicking three dead links in a row while researching—frustrating you enough to leave the site for good. 

Pair that story with data or a quick visual, and you’ve layered multiple 10x tactics at once.

Try using:

• First-person narratives that illustrate key lessons
• Before-and-after examples that show growth, failure, or transformation
• Customer or team anecdotes that reflect friction, process, or unexpected wins

Example: Wait But Why’s viral posts like “The AI Revolution” succeed by blending deep explanation with casual storytelling and humor.

Upgrade the reading experience (improve content design and UX)

If your content is hard to skim, slow to load, or clunky on mobile, it’ll be abandoned. Reader experience is part of content quality. It influences how long people stay, whether they engage, and how likely they are to return. 

Google notices that too. (Core Web Vitals anyone?)

While a full UX overhaul isn’t always a light lift, you can often make big gains with targeted technical or content design improvements.

UX and technical design

When navigation feels effortless, readers are more likely to stick with your content and go deeper. Achieving that comes down to a handful of under-the-hood enhancements that make your page faster, smoother, and easier to use, such as:

• Mobile-first layouts that adapt seamlessly to any device
• Sticky tables of contents or jump links for quick navigation
• Visual scroll indicators to show progress through the page
• Lazy loading for images and videos to keep page speed high
• Anchored headings so links to specific sections work instantly

These technical touches may not be flashy, but they quietly remove friction. You’re more likely to keep readers engaged and moving through your content.

Editorial and content design

If a full UX refresh isn’t in the budget, improving editorial design is the more approachable—and often faster—way to elevate the reader experience. This is about how you visually present the words on the page so they’re more inviting to read:

• Clear, descriptive headings that map out the article’s structure
• Short paragraphs with varied sentence length to maintain rhythm
• Visual breaks, like pull quotes, charts, and images, to prevent fatigue
• Bulleted or numbered lists to make complex points skimmable

Finding the right balance between technical and editorial upgrades depends on your goals, resources, and where you expect to see the biggest lift. If you notice that competitor sites are dramatically more user-friendly, consider taking a step back and investing in technical improvements. 

Otherwise, focus on refining your editorial design first. You’d be surprised how small structural and visual tweaks can quickly make your content feel fresher and more engaging.

Example: We take a lot of pride in the structure of our long-form guides, which use clear headings, skimmable copy, scrolling jump links, and supporting visuals to break up text. And that’s all on top of the snappy and clean technical performance of the website.

Optimize for humans and search engines

The way your content is structured affects how easily readers can consume it and how well search engines can understand it.

A piece might be full of value, but if that value is buried under a confusing layout or bloated code, you’re handicapping both discoverability and usability.

To serve both audiences, make sure your content is:

• Cleanly coded: Use semantic HTML (“H1” for the main headline, “H2” or ”H3” for subtopics, and so on) so crawlers can parse the hierarchy and users can quickly scan it.
• Fast-loading: Compress images, preload critical assets, and keep scripts lean to meet Core Web Vitals benchmarks.
• Structured for features: Incorporate schema markup where relevant (e.g., “FAQ,” “How-To,” “Product”) to give search engines richer context and improve eligibility for enhanced SERP displays.
• Accessible: Use proper alt text for images, ensure sufficient color contrast, and implement keyboard-friendly navigation so everyone can engage with your content.

Example: The IRS FAQs hub consolidates answers to hundreds of tax-related questions into centralized pages, each with a clear hierarchy and jump links to specific answers. This not only improves usability but also makes the content more competitive for a range of related queries.

Update frequently to stay relevant

Even top-performing pages will lose relevance if they aren’t maintained. 

While news stories clearly require updates as new information emerges, evergreen content decays more subtly and often goes unnoticed until rankings or traffic drop. 

If you’re not tracking performance over time, you may miss the window to refresh and reassert authority before competitors overtake your piece.

To be clear, each update doesn’t have to be a drastic overhaul. It can sometimes be simple, like refreshing screenshots, links, or stats. But you won’t know to make the updates, unless you:

• Review top URLs regularly (we recommend quarterly)
• Publish “last updated” dates visibly to reassure users how recent the information is (and signal to Google)
• Watch for topical shifts that require more than surface-level updates

Example: Aleyda Solis’s SEO Roadmap resource features a version identifier and an updated date to demonstrate how recently the entire site has been refreshed.

Give more than expected (bonus value)

Supporting assets, like tools, templates, or interactive guides, can elevate your content from helpful to essential. It’s what gives users a reason to stay longer, return later, or share the piece with a colleague. 

Look for strategic additions that simplify action or create moat-like value—resources so useful and unique they give your content a durable competitive edge. A content moat works the same way as a business moat: it protects your position by making it harder for competitors to replicate or outdo you. 

Think investments like:

• How-to content that could benefit from a downloadable checklist or framework
• Strategic guides that pair naturally with calculators, prompts, or swipe files
• Pages that could be extended into private video walkthroughs or embeddable tools
  

Example: Semrush often embeds or links to its free tools—like the Keyword Magic Tool—within educational blog posts, allowing readers to immediately act upon the insights they’re reading.

Proactively plan for distribution

Search results are increasingly populated with YouTube videos, Reddit threads, TikTok carousels, and answers from AI Overviews. 

That means your content must travel well beyond your website.

A well-crafted, in-depth guide is more than just a single piece of content—it’s a strategic asset that can be redistributed, remixed, and repurposed across your entire marketing funnel.

So, before hitting publish, review the SERP for your primary topic:

• What types of results are dominating?
• Are video thumbnails, forum results, or product review snippets appearing?
• Is your content structured to be visible there—or to feed those platforms?

Then plan your distribution strategy accordingly:

• Pull highlights for short-form video or LinkedIn carousels
• Submit assets to tools or databases, and LLMs are indexing
• Post and engage in forums like Reddit, Indie Hackers, or Slack groups
• Use newsletter or community content to drive traffic over time

Example: Shopify heavily invests in adapting their long-form guides on topics like starting a business or choosing a product into video explainers that are then embedded and cut up to work alongside the written article.

How to identify opportunities to create 10x content

As mentioned previously, not every keyword or topic is a great fit for a 10x approach. The trick is figuring out what to focus on so you get the most return for your effort. 

If you’ve ever wondered, “Where do I start?” or “Which pages should I upgrade?”—the answer is simpler than it might seem. 

Here’s how you can identify content that deserves the 10x treatment.

Reverse engineer top-ranking content

Reverse engineering means breaking down a competitor’s page to understand why theirs is ranking. 

Instead of looking for new ideas, you’re dissecting what makes the current winners effective. That way, you can learn from and surpass them.

Start by searching your target keyword and opening the top 3–5 results. Then ask:

• What sets each page apart? Is it covering angles others ignore, presenting data in a unique way, or offering a smoother structure?
  
• Which SERP features is it capturing? Does it also own the featured snippet, FAQ schema, images, video carousels, AI Overview mention, or People Also Ask?
  
• When was it last updated? A fresh timestamp or recent publishing cadence can be a big reason it’s ranking higher.
  
• How are they engaging readers? Look at visuals, examples, tone, and calls-to-action to see if they better match the audience’s expectations.

The goal here is not to copy the content.

Instead, you’re uncovering the specific elements and tactics that give it an edge. That clarity shows you where to raise the bar for your own piece: whether that’s adding depth, targeting related queries, creating stronger visuals, or going after overlooked SERP features.

Use tools like Semrush to find keywords with weak SERPs

It’s a good idea to review competitive content with your own eyes, however, that can be a slow and time-consuming process, especially when exploring dozens of keyword variations.

To speed things up, use an SEO tool like Semrush to quickly scan multiple SERPs and see not only how your own content is performing, but where competitors may be vulnerable. 

An “opening” here means a spot where the current top results are thin, outdated, missing key angles, or not fully matching search intent. Those gaps represent opportunities for you to step in with a stronger piece and capture rankings. 

More simply, look for pieces that meet the following criteria: 

• Low authority scores for top-ranking domains, indicating you could outrank them with stronger content and backlinks
• Shallow backlink profiles, with few referring domains to ranking pages
• Thin keyword targeting on pages ranking for the main term, but with limited or weak rankings of related queries
• Weak content signals, such as low word count, no structured headings, or minimal use of visuals and media

These are all opportunities for you to provide a richer experience.

Identify thin or outdated performers to refresh

Refreshing is about upgrading your good content that’s already ranking and has either lost position or has room to move up. 

In Google Search Console, head to the Performance report and filter by queries that are relevant to your niche but don’t have a strong existing page on your site.

1. Go to “Performance” > “Search results”
2. Set the “Date range” to the past 3–6 months for a recent snapshot
3. Toggle on “Average CTR” and “Average position” at the top of the report
4. In the “Pages” tab, look for URLs you want to review

Switch to the “Queries” tab while a page is selected and sort by “Impressions” (highest first). Once you have your report filtered down, look for the following:

• Valuable head term with high impressions but low click-through-rate: Your page is showing up often in search results, but few people are clicking. That gap signals an opportunity to improve titles, meta descriptions, or on-page clarity so you capture more of the traffic you’re already exposed to.
• Declining clicks or average position over time (via date comparison tool): Content that once performed well is slipping. Usually, that means competitors have refreshed their pages, the SERP has shifted, or your content no longer matches user expectations, making it a prime candidate for a refresh.
• Pages that still earn traffic but haven’t been updated recently: Even if they’re steady performers, stale content risks losing relevance. Updating these pages can extend their lifespan and push them higher, especially against competitors with fresher publish dates.

Once you’ve identified pages that meet any of the above criteria, review whether the drop or stagnation is due to outdated info, weak visuals, missing related queries, or AI Overviews pulling clicks. 

That will give you an idea of how likely you are to see rankings improve with a refresh.

Find content gaps (high impressions but low click queries)

Content gaps are topics or angles your site doesn’t yet cover but your audience is searching for. 

These gaps are where you’ll create something entirely new to meet search intent and capture untapped traffic.

To identify content that fits the bill, head to Google Search Console and follow the same filtering steps described in the previous section. 

Once you have your report filtered down, look for the following:

• High-impression queries with no (or very little) associated clicks: These are terms where your page is already showing in search results, but users aren’t clicking through. That usually means your title, meta description, or content angle isn’t compelling enough compared to what else is ranking. 
• Terms that have significantly lost clicks or strength in rankings over time: This indicates content that once performed well but has slipped. This could be because the information is outdated, competitors have refreshed their own content, or new SERP features (like AI overviews or featured snippets) are pulling attention away.

From there, plug those queries into Google and see what’s already ranking. 

This will give you a clear view of what competitors are doing differently and will highlight how you can refresh your content to regain visibility and traffic. 

Collapse related queries (people also ask) into a single, definitive page

“People Also Ask” (PAA) boxes are a consistently quick way to identify related search clusters. 

PAAs are also gradually disappearing (along with other SERP features) in favor of AI Overviews.

That shift means it’s worth going beyond a PAA:

• Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity to see which follow-up questions or related searches they surface when given your target keyword.
• Review AI Overview snapshots in the SERP to identify which questions Google is grouping in its generated summary.
• Compare AI-generated clusters with PAA data you can still find (via tools or manual searches) to spot the most common overlaps.

When you see the same set of queries grouped repeatedly, it’s a signal that users (and Google) view them as part of the same intent. 

Building one page that covers them all can help you own that search intent entirely, no matter if it’s surfaced in a traditional SERP, an AI Overview, or a future search format.

Spot unique questions in forums and social posts

Increasingly, Google surfaces results from Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, and other community-driven platforms directly in the SERP (and sometimes even in AI Overviews).

These platforms are goldmines for uncovering nuanced, experience-based questions your competitors haven’t addressed. 

Look for:

• Threads with lots of engagement but no strong authoritative content to link to
• Questions that reveal pain points or edge cases missing from top-ranking pages
• Repeated themes or advice requests in niche communities (e.g., industry Slack groups, Facebook groups, or LinkedIn comment threads)
• Specific threads that appear as top results in organic search

One caveat with these results is that it may be challenging to outrank with a traditional page. 

If the SERP is primarily showing forums or social media channels, Google is favoring those platforms for that query (at least for now). 

That said, there’s still value in producing a stronger, more accessible version of what people are asking for. 

By making sought-after information easier to find, navigate, and trust, you’re serving your target audience now while also staking your claim if Google shifts what it prioritizes in the SERP. 

Want to 10x your content? Don’t just publish more, publish better

If your content blends in, it doesn’t rank. Your goal should be to build something that makes people say, “This is the one I’ll share.” 

That’s 10x content, and it earns its high spot by delivering more value. It’s built for humans first and crawlers second. And the best of it doesn’t just rank—it converts, gets shared, and lays the groundwork for authority.

And when approached thoughtfully and strategically, it’s more achievable than you think.

If you’re rethinking your approach to content strategy in light of this guide, start thinking about how to adapt to AI Overviews and new SERP features, and how they are reshaping discovery. 

Check out our content strategy guide to learn how to future-proof your content, identify shifting intent signals, and align your strategy with where search is headed.