Why 10X Content Needs to Die!

10X content is the absolute worst thing to happen to content writing. It hurts everyone in the internet community but most of all… it’s avoidable.

Marketing, perhaps more than any other industry, has changed a lot since the turn of the new millennium. The internet completely changed how we as society consume information and marketing as an industry was at the  pinnacle of this transformation. And as the industry transformed, so did the actors who worked within it. The new breed of marketer is results driven and detail oriented. 

But in their pursuit of results. They created something awful. They created the 10X.

What is 10X?

The term 10X for content marketing was coined by Rand Fishkin, formerly of Moz. In his egregiously titled post: Why Good Unique Content Needs to Die, he laid out the thesis of 10X.

10X content is “10 times better than the best results in there.”

Harmless in theory right? 

Wrong!

You see the problem of 10Xing is that it becomes a never ending cycle, not unlike the Ouroboros; the serpent that devours itself. 

This not stop regurgitation of online content leads to a graveyard  of nearly worthless content that is the search results.

If I want to search for a cool social media plugin for my site, I do NOT want to  read a post titled “The Top 490182 Instagram Plugins for WordPress [February 2020]”.

Who Suffers from 10X?

This sections is titled “who suffers” but it could easily be titled, everyone suffers. 10X is an exercise that no-one really wants to be a part of. The writers hate making it, the readers and seeing it, and I’m sure the search engines hate indexing it. All it does is take advantage of a search algorithm that is nowhere near complete.

But to be more specific, 10X clearly hurts two stakeholders.

Artists

Art is subjective and I know more that enough bloggers to realise that what many of them do is pursuit of art. But art doesn’t abuse the algorithm like 10X does. Art is created to delight and challenge, not “beat out the opposition”. But in the Machiavellian world of “search”, art has no value and is considered easy picking to destroy by opportunists who want to dominate more “long tail keywords”.

Facts

This is a concept that is too often ignored by marketers, when the question is “what is 2+2?”, the answer is always “4”. 

I did not say any of the following:

• The Top 29 Answer you didn’t know 2+2 equalled!
• You’re Wrong! 2+2 does NOT equal 4. Here’s why
• 2+2: A Not So Brief History [February 2020]

Sometimes the best answer cannot be 10X’d. And yet, marketers will still try. And that hurts everyone.

But What Can We Do?

It’s easy to feel like we have no choice. If you want to stand out, you need to play the same game as everyone else and just conform. Accept that the only way to be heard is to tear down the content that stands before you and that 10X Frankenstein’s monster.

But why not try standing out by… standing out. You don’t need soulless mountains of text to make a point. You just need a point to make.

If you have something to say… say it.

If you have art to make… make it.

If you have a story to tell… well you get the idea.

Focus on adding your voice to the conversation, rather than trying to scream over it. If you need any ideas on how to get started, check out this post.

If you want people to listen, sometimes all you need to do is speak.