The 7 rules of killer content

RIP doing homework for a living 🪦

Cause book reports on the top three articles on the SERP ain’t gonna pay the bills anymore 🤷 

Which means us content folks are gonna need to say “see ya later, alligator” to copycat SEO content if we still want to earn a living writing online.

Luckily, there’s a better way…

And Andy Crestodina has shown us the light 🙏

He casually slipped his Seven Steps To Creating Seriously Good Content into this article for the Orbit blog.

Stick to them like glue to make sure you're creating content that drives results, not SEO slop an LLM could've just as easily spat out.

Here's each of Andy’s steps – illustrated with some examples of the Orbit team practicing what they preach 👀 

Let's go...

1️⃣ Make the header and title a bit provocative and include the keyphrase

The titles of most SEO articles make Dwight Shrute’s “It is your birthday.” banner look poetic.

Yes, you have to fit the keyword in there.

But please, we’re begging you: give us some drama 🍿

Make us want to click, not fall asleep.

Three titles from Orbit that earned my click:

• How to Write AI Prompts That Improve Everything in Your Marketing

• These 14 Types of Evidence Instantly Build Trust… and Convert Visitors into Leads

• AI for Thought Leadership: 5 Prompts That Get You Halfway There

2️⃣ Hit a key point in the opening with an interesting point of view

How Andy could’ve opened his article about semantic SEO:

How Andy actually opened his article about semantic SEO:

Stories always beat facts (see: politics 💀)

3️⃣ Add examples, supportive research and data

Like your Covid-denying uncle, the Orbit folks do their own research. 

Unlike your Covid-denying uncle, they don’t just type “plz confirm my biases thnx xoxo” into Google.

They run tests, analyse the data, and turn it all into cheeky charts and gorgeous graphics.

This must take them hours.

But it’s what separates commodity content into that most coveted of things: ✨ thought leadership ✨ 

Check out this example from their guide to how inaccurate Google Analytics is to see what I mean👇

4️⃣ Add strong opinions and quotes from subject matter experts

No one does SME quotes as well as the Orbit folks.

They don’t bury those expert insights in the body copy.

They roll out the red carpet for them, giving them their own little section.

This does three things:

1. Makes the page more scrollable (which makes readers stick around for longer)

2. Shows anyone scanning the article (i.e. literally everyone who lands on it) that it’s packed with expert insights, so worth their time reading

3. Really showcases the expert, which helps legitimise the content (“oh shit, a quote from Cyrus? This must be legit”)

Check it out 👇

5️⃣ Structure it carefully with subheads and lists

The long-form content paradox: the more scannable you make an article, the longer people will spend reading it.

And the more subheads and lists you add to your content, the more scannable it will be 👀

If you can hit some secondary keywords in those subheads, too?

Just don’t forget me once you’re top of the SERPs 🙏

Need some inspo?

Check out this absolutely filthy exact-match H2 from the Orbit team 👇

6️⃣ Never miss the chance to add supportive visuals

Walls of text don’t hold readers’ attention.

And as content writers, we’re kinda in the business of holding readers’ attention 👀

So you’re gonna wanna spend a good chunk of time filling each of your articles with:

• Screenshots

• Infographics

• Memes

• Gifs

Take things to the next level by taking the time to annotate your screenshots, Orbit style 👇

7️⃣ Make the article long and the paragraphs short

Long articles have a lot of haters these days.

Andy ain’t one of them. Orbit’s articles are all still scraping the sky in 2025.

But the paragraphs are never more than four lines long (a tried-and-tested rule of writing online)

And you’ll never see more than three paragraphs in a row on the Orbit bog. They’re always broken up by subheads, lists, and infographics.

So those 2,000 words never feel like 2,000 words, as Ann Handley would say.

So, there ya have it.

Andy’s seven rules to creating great content:

1. Make the header and title a bit provocative and include the keyphrase

2. Hit a key point in the opening with an interesting point of view

3. Add examples, supportive research and data

4. Add strong opinions and quotes from subject matter experts

5. Structure it carefully with subheads and lists

6. Never misses the chance to add supportive visuals

7. Make the article long and the paragraphs short

(I grabbed those from this article btw)

Follow those rules to make sure every bit of content your create hits the mark 🎯

p.s. join 6,000 content folks in TOFU