Ikea’s crazy idea is paying off

FOR years Ikea has been doing a strange thing in China, letting people sleep in its stores. Weirdly enough, it could be the tool to save our economy.

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Stars of 'Breaking Away' reunite at Interbike in Las Vegas

Three actors from the 1979 award-winning, coming-of-age bicycle movie, "Breaking Away," staged a reunion at Interbike and the film's 36-year-old clever lines were heard being uttered throughout the convention center ballroom.

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Presidential debates sought for Las Vegas in 2016

Las Vegas is bidding to be a site for presidential and vice presidential debates in fall 2016 and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will conduct a special meeting Wednesday to consider a $4 million expenditure to host them.

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Watch these 'killer' clowns scare people in Las Vegas — VIDEO

Halloween is less than six weeks away, but that doesn't mean you can't get into the spirit now — with a few "killer" clowns scaring people around the Las Vegas Valley.

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I spy a $1 million buy on Google Earth

NOSY neighbours rejoice: you can now use Google Earth to check how much that house around the corner sold for.

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6 Reasons You Were Automatically Enrolled in a Target-Date Fund

Target-date funds are the most popular default 401(k) investment.

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How to Save on Travel With Expedia Coupons and Deals

Whether your dream vacation involves relaxing on a tropical beach or exploring Europe’s cultural capitals, you might be able to save money booking it with Expedia coupons. Photos: Maldives by Sarah Ackerman, Paris by Moyan Brenn

Sometimes it’s hard to know which website to check first when it comes to finding the best travel deals. Some people swear by one site while others brag about taking the most amazing and affordable vacation using another. Either way, most people can agree that Expedia is one of the top travel websites around.

An early pioneer of the online booking industry, Expedia maintains an excellent reputation — and because they make it so easy to find Expedia coupons and even last-minute deals, it’s quickly becoming one of our favorite places to find some great prices on travel.

Now, with every travel website, there is a specific strategy you have to use to find the best deals — and Expedia is no different. Here’s how to use Expedia to search for deals and make sure you get the best ones.

Finding the Best Expedia Coupons and Deals

While there’s nothing wrong with just going to Expedia.com, searching for your travel destination, and seeing what pops up, you may not get the best price with that approach.

Expedia groups its prime deals on a handful of separate landing pages, including ones for last-minute deals, hotel deals, vacation packages, and daily deals. Your best strategy is to check out each one to see what combinations are available before you pull the trigger and book anything.

Here’s a step-by-step approach to find Expedia coupons and deals for your next vacation:

1. Log in. Go to the Expedia homepage and sign in. If you’re not an Expedia member already, go ahead and sign up.

Essentially, the more you book and travel with Expedia, the more benefits you get. There are also certain deals that only show up to members when they log in, so before you even start your search for a travel deal, make sure that you’re a member and that you’re going to get the points you deserve if you actually book.

The points you earn from Expedia can be redeemed for travel later on, although some people have found Expedia points aren’t necessarily as valuable as using airline credit card points. It’s still worth a look though, even to see if you can get one or two extra nights in a hotel for free.

If you’re already a member, take a look at the points you already have in your account and see if you have enough to get Expedia coupons for hotel stays and more.

2. Check the home page for deals. Okay, once you’re logged in to your account and you can see whether or not you have points available, you can go back to the Expedia homepage as your home base to see if they are running any deals or sales at the current moment. You’ll notice that they’re typically advertising that you can save money if you book your flight and hotel together and that you can cancel at anytime. These are good things to remember as you go through and plan your trip.

Scroll down some more — at the time of this writing, they are offering $25 off your hotel booking and triple points if it’s your first time using their mobile app to book the stay. Keep your eyes peeled for little sales and Expedia coupons like this as each little bit helps when booking travel.

3. Dig deeper into Expedia’s specific deal pages. Next, you want to check all of Expedia’s specific deal pages for the best bargains, which I’ll explain in detail in the next section. Basically, Expedia advertises last-minute deals, hotel deals, vacation packages, and other promotions on several different pages, and before you settle on a trip, you want to check them all — because you never know where you’ll have the most luck.

4. Be flexible if possible. Ultimately, the best strategy is to be flexible and use all the information above to book your next vacation. The more open-ended you are about destinations and dates, the more money you can save.

For example, Expedia might be running a one-day sale on Caribbean vacations, and the perfect getaway might suddenly be less expensive than the trip you’d originally been planning. Keep an open mind and you could be in for a world of savings.

The Best Pages for Different Expedia Deals

As I mentioned, Expedia has a few different specific landing pages where you can find the best deals. These are pages you definitely want to visit before doing an initial search just to make sure you’re seeing the best Expedia deals right from the outset:

Today’s Travel Deals

Use this page to find deals that are specific to today. When you click on the page, it will pull up a search bar. Simply put in the destination you want and your desired dates, and Expedia will tell you if there are any specific discounts today for that location.

Scroll down a little bit, and you should see a box that says something like “Daily Deals”. Click that, and you’ll see several more options without having to insert dates. This is my favorite method to save. Usually, they’ll have a featured hotel that’s discounted only on certain dates or other hotel packages.

Keep in mind that they update these deals every day at midnight PT (3am on the East Coast) — so if you see something you like, you should book it.

Last-Minute Deals

The last-minute Expedia deals are probably the best part of their website. After all, who wouldn’t want to spend some time dreaming about where they could go in just two or three weeks on a spontaneous trip?

This page is very easy to use, and you’ll see the deals right when you pull up the page. They are broken down to show hotel deals and full package deals which include airfare, hotel, and taxes and fees.

Pay special attention to the dates that are available — the prices likely only include travel within the next month or two at most.

Vacation Packages

Planning a vacation is a ton of work, so sometimes vacation packages can be your best bet, especially if you’re super busy and don’t have the time to separately book cars, hotels, and flights.

The best part of this page is that you can let Expedia know all the services you need. So if you need a car in addition to a hotel and a plane ticket, you can book all that together. If you just need a flight and a car but are staying with a friend and not in a hotel, you can book that way too.

This allows for some flexibility and various options for everyone involved. If you need help deciding on where to go, this page also lists some of the most popular and trending destinations along with typical prices for those trips to help you with your search.

Hotel Deals

If you want to search Expedia just for hotels, then it makes the most sense to go directly to this hotel deals page. This will connect you with options in a variety of different price points.

However, if you want to get the cheapest hotels available, it’s best to go to this Expedia Top-Ten hotel deal page where you can see the 10 absolute best deals around on a given day. This can help you narrow down a destination and get a great deal in the process.

Frugal Travel Tips to Save Money on Any Trip

In addition to the tips above, there are many other ways to save money as you plan your next vacation — regardless of whether you book it using Expedia. Here are some of our top tips to remember:

Book a hotel with a kitchenette. If you do this, you can have several meals in your room without having to splurge on fancy croissants at the brunch place next door to the hotel. Booking a vacation rental through a site such as HomeAway or Airbnb is another affordable way to find lodging with a kitchen at your disposal.

Travel during the week or in the off season. Traveling when no else is may not be as convenient, but it remains one of the most sure-fire ways to save big bucks on any trip.

Visit a city with excellent public transportation. Car rentals can be extremely expensive — like several hundred dollars for just a few days of a rental. If you vacation in a city that has great public transportation, such as New York, Boston, or Washington, you won’t need to rent a car at all.

Ask locals for their favorite restaurants (or check Yelp or Foursquare). Don’t hit up the touristy spots. Instead try to find the diamonds in the rough, the ones that all the locals love to go to, without the high tourist prices.

Research deal days at museums and other places of interest. Most museums have at least one afternoon a week where they offer discounted or free admission, and many have other coupons available on their websites. Do your research before just walking into one.

Pack lightly to avoid baggage fees. You don’t really need all those shoes do you? Packing sensibly means you could save significantly, especially if you have a whole family in tow.

An Example of an Expedia Deal

Now that you have an idea of how to search for Expedia coupons and Expedia deals and know to combine them with other frugal travel tricks, here’s an example of what booking a trip on Expedia could get you.

Gorgeous, Beachy, and Luxurious for Less

Let’s pretend to go somewhere tropical where you can enjoy the beach and get a little tiny umbrella drink. Remember, our best tip is to be flexible, so don’t search for a specific beach or a specific date. Instead, search Expedia’s last-minute deals page to see what they have to offer.

Scroll down and you might see a bunch of expensive weekend trips to exotic places like Cancun for $1,000+ per person. But if you keep scrolling to the right, looking at all the last-minute deals Expedia has to offer, the cheaper deals are a bit more hidden on later pages.

Let the best-value deals help guide your decision about where you might want to go — instead of visiting Cancun, you might consider a place like Miami or Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., for example, since Expedia is offering a last-minute deal there at the time of this writing. Click on the destination, and it’ll take you to a new page with several different hotel options.

Scroll through, and you’ll see an incredible and complete vacation package deal where you can actually stay two nights at the Four Seasons Miami, one of the most luxurious hotel brands in the world, for a mere $394 per person — including nonstop roundtrip flights from New York, two nights at the Four Seasons, and all the taxes and fees (not to mention free fresh fruit and cold towels by the pools).

So for around $800, a couple can have a romantic, luxurious weekend in cosmopolitan Miami at one of the nicest hotels available.

If this couple makes sure to log into Expedia and get a free account with them, they can get rewards points for their travel. The more they travel using Expedia, the more points they earn and can use toward future travel.

After choosing a hotel, they simply pick the flights and voila! – they can spend 10 minutes deciding on a vacation instead of combing through tons of airline sites and tons of other hotel sites. To top it all off, they should do a quick search for other Expedia coupons before they actually hit the order button just to make sure there aren’t any outstanding coupons available on third-party sites.

For this particular vacation package, we can’t find any additional coupons, but we’ll be looking for an even better deal to pop up in the next 24 hours since Expedia will refund the difference plus $50 if you can find a better price elsewhere.

Ultimately, using a website like Expedia to book your travel can be a great tool. Not only can you get great Expedia coupons and Expedia deals on their various deal-specific pages, but you can earn points while you travel and let them help plan your vacation for you.

Have you ever used Expedia to book discounted travel? What was your experience like? 

The post How to Save on Travel With Expedia Coupons and Deals appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Aarrrrr, Ahoy Matey! Pirate’s Booty Campaign Celebrates International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Pirate Brands gets into the spirit of the occasion, offering parents activities and encouraging pretend pirate play as it seeks to build its brand.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Twitter Unleashes Special Hashtag Emoji For The 2015 Rugby World Cup

Rugby fans with countries in the tournament can celebrate with custom hashtags that reflect their teams.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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TapInfluence Brings Automation To Influencer Marketing With TapFusion

Company calls its new product the "first influencer marketing automation platform."

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Marketing Day: Ad Blockers Round Two, The Modern-Day Publisher’s Dilemma & Periscope Profile Pages

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Volkswagen accused of design that can fool emissions tests

Volkswagen AG faces penalties up to $18 billion after being accused of designing software for diesel cars that deceives regulators measuring toxic emissions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday.

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Facebook Like And Share Buttons To Power Ad Targeting Based On Sites And Apps Users Visit

The omnipresent Facebook buttons used on other sites and apps pass browsing data that will soon be available for ad targeting.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Round 2: Peace Ad Blocker Pulled & CNET Fights Back

As concerns for and by publishers rise about ad blocking, the most popular new one for iOS bows out.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Five Signs Your Debt Is Threatening to Swallow You Whole

By Doug Hoyes

I was quite amused the other day to read my news feeds and see several conflicting articles about consumers and debt. In a historical sense, we use debt today much more than any previous generation. While in the United States excessive credit card debt may be down from its peak, student debt is on the rise; yet economists are not concerned.

Consumer debt is driving the economy, which keeps everyone working (theoretically anyway) — but it also means that we can afford our debt. Interest rates are low, so why not borrow today? After all, saving money doesn’t provide enough of a return to incentivize saving more.

And the final argument as to why our debt loads are not a concern is that debt builds wealth. If you buy a home, you’re building equity. If you borrow to fund your education, you’re investing in your future income potential.

That all sounds great at a macro level; however, for the individual, it’s all hogwash. How much debt you can carry depends not on averages and what pundits say, but rather, on how much you can afford to pay now and how much risk you are willing to take.

Let’s put this another way. Cars today are safer and more convenient than ever before. However, if you’re the one driving the car that keeps breaking down or running out of gas, the safety and gas efficiency records of the car company mean nothing. So the general fact that debt delinquency rates across the country have improved really means nothing to you, either.

Here are five signs that you may have more debt than you should, no matter how well you think you are managing today.

1. You’re just making minimum payments.

In our car analogy this is like putting $20 in your tank every two days because that’s all you’ve got. It’s enough to get by and no more.

Credit cards and lines of credit, from a lender’s perspective, are designed to keep you in debt. The longer you remain in debt, the more interest you pay and, by definition, the more your lender profits.

If you’re making interest-only payments or meeting the 2% or so minimum payment requirement on your credit card debt, you won’t pay that debt off.

2. You’re using credit to pay for necessities.

If you already carry a large credit card balance and continue to use your credit card to put gas in your car, pay for groceries and buy stuff, you are digging a deeper hole every time you use your card. The lack of a balanced budget is the number one reason people find themselves suddenly facing tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

The average person who files bankruptcy at our firm owed more than $20,000 in credit card debt — and no, they never expected that it would get that bad.

3. You’re using credit to pay for credit.

If you’re borrowing money from one credit card to make payments on another, or using payday loans or bank overdrafts to keep up with outstanding bills, you have a severe debt problem.

This is a little like siphoning gas out of your wife’s car so you can go to work today. It solves your problem right now, but how does your wife get to work? What about tomorrow?

4. You’re asking friends and family to co-sign a loan.

If your credit history is so bad that you don’t qualify for a loan, asking a friend or family member to co-sign a loan is not necessarily your wisest choice. Yes it may help you get a car loan or mortgage, but the real question you need to ask is can you truly afford the loan in the first place?

Look beyond your credit score to the real reason you may have been denied. Do you have a high debt-to-income ratio already? Will you be able to keep up with the loan payments for this new loan given future job prospects or earning potential?

This is like wanting to own a car but not being able to keep it on the road. If you can’t make the loan payments and can’t pay for insurance, gas, and all the repair costs, you could end up having to leave the car at home, or worse, having the car repossessed. When deciding whether or not to take on a new loan, don’t be over-optimistic. Sometimes thinking about worst-case scenarios is the route to a safer decision.

While all these types of activities work to keep yourself afloat and your creditors satisfied, in each case your overall debt is increasing until the final stage, the eventual tipping point:

5. You are tapped out and can’t get credit.

You bought your car and now can’t afford clothes to go to work. You need transportation and you need clothes, but you borrowed so much for one, you can’t do the other.

Now you are in the worst of all scenarios. Debt payments are using up so much of your income you don’t have enough to pay for the basics, but you can’t access any further cash.

The solution at any stage along the way is to develop a plan to deal with whatever debt you have. You need to create a balanced budget, one that means you spend less than you earn.

In addition, to deal with the debts you do have, you need a debt repayment plan as part of your budget. Your debt payments need to be large enough to pay down your debt within a reasonable period of time. If you can’t accomplish this, you may need to talk to a professional about other programs that can help you get out of debt; perhaps even bankruptcy.

I’m a bankruptcy trustee and by nature and profession, I’m pretty anti-debt. I’m willing to accept that we need to take on a mortgage to buy a home, borrow some money to go to school, and lease or finance a car. However, your debt needs to be manageable, which means you have to live within your means.

You have to be disciplined enough to buy a smaller home, think very carefully about the post-secondary program you choose, and consider buying a smaller car or keeping the old clunker just a little bit longer.

Most importantly, don’t use debt to pay for consumables. Any debt that is used to pay for something today that is gone tomorrow is undesirable. You’ll have that item today, sure — but you’re risking your future for something that will vanish, so it’s just not worth it.

Related Articles: 

• Construct Your Debt Repayment Plan
• Six Factors That Make You More Likely to Go Bankrupt
• Nine Life Milestones That Double as Debt Threats

Doug Hoyes has extensive experience resolving financial issues for Canadian citizens. A Licensed Bankruptcy Trustee and co-founder of Hoyes, Michalos & Associates, he is also a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), Chartered Insolvency and Restructuring Professional and Business Valuator. He regularly comments on a variety of TV, radio, and other media outlets on topics surrounding bankruptcy and writes a column for the Huffington Post. Hoyes has been a Licensed Trustee since 1995 and testified before the Canadian Senate’s Banking, Trade, and Commerce Committee in 2008.

The post Five Signs Your Debt Is Threatening to Swallow You Whole appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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Nevada employers add 40,200 jobs year over year, report shows

Nevada's jobless rate went unchanged from July to August, sticking at 6.8 percent.

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A Simple Way to Save a Ton of Cash on Your Next Vacation

Going on vacation during the summer can be tough. Hotels are full, beaches are packed, traffic’s a nightmare and it’s not always easy to get the relaxing trip you crave.

If you’re not constrained by a rigid schedule, why not consider going on vacation when it’s less crowded? Traveling during the shoulder season is a great way to save money and enjoy fewer crowds.

Shoulder season is the time between a destination’s high season and low season — between the times everyone’s visiting, and the period when all the restaurants shut down.

When is Shoulder Season?

Every region or town has a different shoulder season, and it may not be when you’d expect it to be. You’ll need to look up the right times for your preferred destinations.

For example, I live in Jackson, Wyoming, a town that sees upwards of three million visitors each summer. Typically, people stop in town on their way to Yellowstone National Park.

After Labor Day rolls around, visitors often flock to town thinking they’ll find great shoulder season travel deals. But that’s not the case.

Coming to Jackson in September typically won’t be any cheaper than visiting in July. Why? After family summer vacations end and school bells ring, many couples decide to travel. Also, a huge art festival draws tons of visitors each September.

However, if you come to Jackson in mid-to-late October, you may be able to save quite a bit. Fall is typically gorgeous, though the weather’s a bit of a gamble.

Each area will have its own unique shoulder season, and it’s hard to guess. One great way to get an idea of potential shoulder seasons is to simply call local hotels and ask them when their prices will drop after peak times.

Typical Shoulder Seasons

Have a particular destination in mind? Here are some good times to visit these popular destinations, according to Budget Travel.

Mexico and the Caribbean

You don’t want to be around during hurricane season, and the holidays bring huge crowds. But sneak to this region in between those times and you can find some great deals.

Hit the beaches of Mexico and the Caribbean in November and early December.

U.S. Beaches

You can save up to 43% during fall shoulder season in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, says Yahoo Travel.

Be wary of heading to any hurricane-prone destination during peak storm season, though — and be sure to buy travel insurance.

Europe

March is often a good time to take advantage of nice early spring weather while traipsing around capital cities. Another good window is between Labor Day and late October.

Ski Hills

Skip the holidays and peak seasons to avoid the crowds. Either come in early December, when snow coverage may be low, or opt for late March and April, though snow may be slushy, for lower prices and fewer crowds.

For more ideas, check out this post on travel blog BootsnAll.

Be Prepared

Keep in mind the unpredictability of shoulder season weather — there’s a reason this isn’t high season.

Be prepared for adverse conditions, and have a backup plan if you’re planning outdoor adventures. Flexibility is key to enjoying shoulder season travel.

Also consider buying travel insurance so you’re prepared if an unseasonable blizzard or unexpected hurricane interrupts your plans. Be sure to check all the terms of your policy to make sure it covers weather interruptions.

Save on Transportation

When peak tourist season is ending in a popular location, many car rental companies let people drive one-way out of the area for dirt cheap. For example, many Florida car rental companies let people drive north inexpensively during the spring when they’re trying to relocate their fleet.

Also, keep an eye out for cheap airfare specials during shoulder seasons. Be sure to browse in private mode or clear your computer’s cookies and cache between searches, though, since sites often raise rates if they know you’re particularly interested in a destination.

Save on Hotels

During shoulder season, many hotels scramble to fill their beds. This is a great time to attempt to negotiate your room rate. Ask for a discount, especially if you’re staying for three or more nights.

If you can’t get a reduced rate, see if you can get the clerk to throw in a few extras, like free breakfast at the hotel restaurant or a spa service. Also be sure to take advantage of any deals you can get with memberships such as AAA or AARP.

Save on Activities

From whitewater rafting to horseback riding, you can probably find deals during shoulder season. When fewer visitors are in town, businesses still want paying customers to enjoy their activities, and they may be willing to offer reduced rates.

Ask about off-season discounts, group deals and other ways to save if you have a particular activity in mind. Check Groupon for off-season discounts as well.

The shoulder season might not be the perfect time to visit your destination, but if it means you save a bundle on your trip — or your vacation savings account hits your target this year instead of next year — you might decide it’s worth it.

Want travel hacking tips to help make the most of your vacation, or even pay for your trip with points? Check out the Travel Hacking Cartel, a community of travel experts.

Your Turn: Have you taken advantage of shoulder season? Where did you go, and how much did you save?

Disclosure: We have a serious Taco Bell addiction around here. The affiliate links in this post help us order off the dollar menu. Thanks for your support!
Kristen Pope is a freelance writer and editor in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The post A Simple Way to Save a Ton of Cash on Your Next Vacation appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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6 of the Most Unusual ETFs You Can Buy

If you like off-the-wall investments, these exchange-traded funds are perfect for you.

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What to Do If Your Child Drops Out of College

How to help your child get back on track.

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What to Be When You Grow Up: 5 Books That Inspire Kids to Become Scientists and Engineers

Like any child of the 90s, I fondly remember characters like the Berenstain Bears asking, “What will I be when I grow up?”

Brother and Sister Bear introduced me to Firebear Bob, Police Officer Marguerite and others, opening my young eyes to the plethora of careers I could consider.

Now I’m watching my friends and sisters raise the next generation of kids, and rapidly advancing technology is opening a slew of new job prospects in areas that didn’t exist when we were kids.

Get your Generation Z kiddos excited about the career possibilities in engineering, computer science and entrepreneurship early on with these books recommended by Business Insider. I know what’s on my to-read list next time I see my little nieces and nephew!

1. What Do You Do With an Idea?

By Kobi Yamada and Mae Besom

Ages 3+

This beautifully illustrated story is for anyone who’s ever had an idea that seemed a little too odd.

Encourage your kids to explore their unique ideas with this simple, inspiring message:

“And then, I realized what you do with an idea. You change the world.”

2. Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became An Inventor

By Emily Arnold McCully

Ages 6-10

Inspire your kids with the true story of 19th-century inventor Margaret E. Knight.

The marvelous Mattie started designing new tools as a child, with only a sketchbook labeled “My Inventions” and her father’s toolbox.

As an adult, she was the first woman ever granted a U.S. patent, and through her life’s achievements, she earned the title “the Lady Edison.”

3. Hello Ruby: Adventures In Coding

By Linda Liukas

Ages 4-8

Want your kids to understand programming, but have no idea where to start? Introduce them — and yourself! — to the basic concepts with the hands-on activities and storytelling in Hello Ruby.

This project was a runaway success on Kickstarter, because, as BI explains, “you want your kids to speak code the same way your parents wanted you to speak Spanish.”

4. If I Built A Car

By Chris Van Dusen

Ages 3-5

This fun take on the “car of the future” and one little boy’s imagination comes out in Dr. Seuss-esque rhythm with nostalgic 1950s-style illustrations.

Young Jack takes the reader on a tour of the car he’d like to build, including a pool, a robot driver and the ability to dive underwater and fly through the air.

5. The Most Magnificent Thing

By Ashley Spires

Ages 3-7

Making “the most MAGNIFICENT thing” is anything but easy, but you can do it with a bit of perseverance, ingenuity and hard work.

This funny story of a girl overcoming her frustration with some encouragement from her best canine friend teaches kids what they can achieve with a positive attitude.

Learn more about each book and read the rest of the list at Business Insider.

Your Turn: Which childhood books inspired your job search as an adult?

Disclosure: We have a serious Taco Bell addiction around here. The affiliate links in this post help us order off the dollar menu. Thanks for your support!

Dana Sitar is a Staff Writer at The Penny Hoarder. She also writes about writing, work, life and love for blogs and books and sometimes things people care about, like Huffington Post and that one time she had an article published in the Onion. Follow along on Twitter @danasitar.

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14 Examples of Truly “Epic” Content: How Does Yours Stack Up?

The word epic is overused.

It’s become watered down over the years, and most people don’t seem to appreciate what it means.

Which is a problem.

Why? Because the first rule of content marketing is:

Create epic content.

I’ve written about creating great content many times before, but epic is a level above that.

According to the dictionary, epic describes something that is:

• heroic; majestic; impressively great

OR

• of unusually great size or extent

In plain English, it refers to something that’s so much better than any other thing out there that you can’t help but to be impressed with it.

And although you can’t always hit the epic level with your content, it’s something you should strive to reach at least a few times a year.

That’s when you’ll start getting hundreds of links to your content and tens of thousands of views.

But here’s the problem: You can’t create a guide to making epic content because it comes in many different forms.

Great content is fairly predictable, but epic content often requires creativity and a hefty investment.

So although I can’t tell you exactly how to make epic content for your specific business, I can show you what epic content looks like.

I’ve put together 14 examples of epic content across many different niches so we can study them together and you can start to piece together what makes epic content epic.

If you want to be successful, do this: Many of these ideas aren’t that complicated. I’m sure you’ll think many times throughout this post, “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

That’s a good thing!

Try to take the concepts and ideas in these examples and apply them to your niche. 

1. The Ultimate Guide to Making Money

We’re starting off with a guide written by Ramit Sethi, someone I mention in my articles often.

He has a lot of content that I consider epic, but I chose to single out his ultimate guide to making money here.

Right away, you can tell that it’s not the standard content you see on blogs. He went to the trouble of having it professionally designed and formatted:

On the left, it has a table of contents—how many blog posts have that?

As you can see by the number of social shares, this guide is incredibly popular.

Epic content can produce epic conversions too: One mistake that I see many content marketers make is producing great content but not wanting to collect email signups right away.

They figure that if the content is good enough, the visitors will eventually think of it again and come back to read other content on the site. But it doesn’t usually work like that.

If you’ve blown away a visitor with your content: capitalize on it right away.

After consuming a useful guide or some other piece of content, most visitors will be happy to sign up for your email list. They aren’t going to get annoyed—you did just provide a ton of value to them after all.

If you take a close look at this guide, you’ll realize that it’s set up as a highly optimized lead generation source.

At the bottom of every single section, it has an opt-in form along with a brief pitch for signing up.

Despite that, it still got thousands of shares, and I’m sure it’s had hundreds of thousands of visitors.

The two main reasons this is epic: The first I already touched on—the formatting. When you make content look amazing, it stands out from ordinary blog posts. People value it more, just like they do paid content.

The second reason is the incredible value in the guide.

Ramit includes his techniques in the article (through text, images, and video), and he also includes multiple detailed case studies:

Case studies make anything more actionable because they help the reader think of the advice in practical terms.

2. NomadList

What do you think of when you hear content?

Most marketers and business owners think of written content, mainly blog posts.

That’s completely natural, and obviously I am a big fan of blogging for business.

However, what you can’t afford to forget is that writing is only one form of content.

And although it’s great for certain topics, other topics are better presented in other forms of content. 

NomadList is not a blog post. It actually has barely any text at all. If anything, it’s more of a tool or database of information.

But it’s still content. Content is really anything that you can consume or learn from.

Like all great content, NomadList solves a problem. It just does it better than any other tool.

Digital nomads are people who work remotely and who love to travel the world.

One of their biggest problems is finding great destinations that are both good for work and fun and safe for travel.

NomadList is essentially a directory of popular destinations for digital nomads:

The top bar is a beautiful collection of filters for the user to apply to narrow down the results, and the results are ranked and shown below.

There’s a lot of other great content out there on this particular problem. However, most of that consists of a few pictures and usually long lists in no particular order.

Not only does NomadList rank the destinations, but it also makes it incredibly easy to quickly compare the results to each other.

You can see the average cost of rent per month, the average Internet speed, and the temperature of each destination all on the card for each place:

This goes to show that the form of your content is just as important as the information you’re presenting.

Coming up with a simple visual way to display important to the users information about possible travel destinations took NomadList from great to epic.

Content can evolve: NomadList also illustrates one other concept that you should never forget.

Epic content doesn’t always start off that way, especially if you have little experience creating it.

That’s why you shouldn’t get discouraged if you put a lot of work into something and it doesn’t catch on quite as well as you hoped.

This was the initial version of Nomad List:

As you can see, it’s nowhere near as useful.

It’s still pretty great, but definitely not epic.

But the creator got good feedback from the users of the initial version. They gave encouragement and suggestions, and after a few refinements, the creator took NomadList to what it is today.

If you already have good, or even great, content that solves an important problem, you don’t necessarily need to start from scratch.

Instead, re-evaluate the way you could make it even more valuable to visitors, and create a new iteration.

There’s no rule that says you can’t update or republish old content and promote it again.

3. How to Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Get Paid to Change the World

While epic content doesn’t have to be written content, it certainly can be if it’s telling a story.

Jon Morrow, founder of BoostBlogTraffic.com wrote this guestpost on ProBlogger. It exploded.

There are a few key reasons why this post is epic, so let’s break them down one by one.

Reason #1 – It makes a lofty claim…but it delivers: Who hasn’t thought about quitting a job and moving to a tropic paradise at one time or another in their life?

We’d all love to do it, but we get scared or find other reasons not to.

So when you read the title of Jon’s post, you automatically think:

Holy crap, someone actually did it.

But this isn’t an article saying how awesome Jon is.

Instead, it’s a set of blueprints of how he did it. He backed up his claim and gave actionable advice to anyone considering a big change in their life.

Reason #2 – It inspires: People are full of excuses. It’s always easy to find a reason not to do something.

So when you read a story about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on clothes to make money, you say:

Sure, it worked for them, but I can’t do that for reasons X, Y, Z.

People react similarly to any content that makes them think a big accomplishment is possible.

And it’s what readers do when they read about other success stories about quitting jobs and moving across the globe.

But be honest. Jon had some of the worst circumstances possible and still made it work for him. He had a terrible disease, expensive medical bills, and limited resources.

He still did it.

He moved to Mexico on a whim and started on a path to becoming a hugely successful business owner.

Can you still come up with an excuse of why you couldn’t do the same (assuming that’s something you wanted to do)?

Overcoming obstacles is inspiring. Being transparent about overcoming your obstacles with your readers forces them to take action because they can’t make excuses.

Getting people to take action is the only way to impact their lives in a significant way.

Reason #3 – It resonates with people: Jon is an amazing writer, but that’s not something you can learn overnight.

However, if you start paying attention to how guys like Jon write, you’ll start to understand why readers relate to their writing so much.

While most people write about surface topics, Jon isn’t afraid to be vulnerable and say what people aren’t expecting to hear. Another word for it is authenticity.

It would have been easy for Jon to lament about how hard his life was—to be a victim.

Instead, he writes about the “freakin’ bills”. That’s something almost everyone can relate to.

All of a sudden, you’re not feeling bad for Jon—you’re feeling angry with him.

When you can find ways to make a reader stop reading about you and instead feel and read with you, that’s when you can make a real impact in their life.

I’m no master at this. However, I do get better over time by practicing. And that’s what you need to do too.

4. One Year After Getting Laid Off – My Annual Passive Income Report

One major component of epic content is doing something that no one else has done before—that readers actually want to see.

Now, it’s pretty common for site owners to reveal their incomes, but it wasn’t always like that.

Pat Flynn published his first annual income report in 2009 (in addition to monthly reports), where he shared everything:

In the make-money-online niche, secrecy is the norm.

It’s hard for readers to trust bloggers because they could just be making things up.

After many months of revealing his personal online income, Pat convinced his readers he wasn’t making up his income numbers.

He was one of the first online marketers to promote transparency:

The lesson here: Give readers access to something that no one else will.

Showing income reports is more common these days, but not very many successful marketers will share their own processes or tools. That’s how you could stand out if you run a business in the make-money-online niche.

It can apply to any business. If you run an auto garage, for example, let your customers watch a video stream showing the work in progress, or show them pictures of their problems so they don’t feel like they’re getting tricked.

If you run a clothing store, show your customers where the clothes are made (i.e., not in sweatshops).

5. Link Building Tactics – The Complete List

If you’re interested in SEO, you might have seen this one before.

There are tons of different link building tactics, but they are all very different from each other.

What this means is that only some tactics work for certain situations and businesses.

So, it can be difficult for SEOs (especially beginners) to find the right tactics for their businesses. Plus, they don’t want to miss any good ones.

Instead of just writing an extensive list of 30-50 tactics, which would be very good, Jon Cooper took it a step further.

He compiled all of the link building tactics he could find. The page has at least 100.

But he didn’t just stop there. Someone also helped him create filters for the content.

People can filter the tactics based on the time-frame, effectiveness, and dependency on other sources. This way, readers know that they’re seeing tactics they can actually use:

The list is formatted consistently throughout the page. Each tactic has a description below it:

Epic is a spectrum: If you have some experience with SEO, you’ve probably already noticed that although the number of tactics in the list is amazing, the descriptions could be improved.

Some of the tactics have support links, but the author could add links to tutorials and case studies for each of the tactics to make the page even better.

It could be even epic-er (not a real word).

So although a piece of content could be epic, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be improved.

This list was created a few years ago, and at the time, it was far better than anything else available on SEO tactics.

However, the standards for content usually rise over time. Although I still think of this page as an example of epic content, it doesn’t stand out quite as much as it used to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone created an even better version, updated to match today’s standards.

6. Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List

Here is another one you might be familiar with.

SEOs love to talk, especially about Google and its ranking factors.

Up until recently, SEOs were always discussing whether or not certain factors were included in Google’s algorithm, and if so, how important they were.

Many years ago, Google released a statement saying that there were over 200 ranking factors:

Who knows how many there are today?

It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that SEOs were always wondering about what might and might not be a signal…always searching for more.

Then, Brian Dean put together this epic post.

He dug deep and was able to come up with a list of over 200 ranking factors (which he keeps updated). Most of them link to sources when possible:

Can you emulate this? What do readers in your niche always talk about? What are they curious about?

Once you figure that out, don’t just create a large list of the answers—create the complete list.

Go all out, and put in as much effort as you can in order to make an epic post. The results will be worth it.

7. How We Got 1,000+ Subscribers from a Single Blog Post in 24 Hours

How many posts have you read that are about how to promote a blog post?

Probably a lot.

Most of those are trash. They’re simple lists of briefly described tactics. They all sound like a recycled copy of another blog post.

The guys behind Groove are different—in a good way.

The first thing they did was actually test their promotional strategy. They used it themselves and were able to get over 1,000 subscribers from their first blog post.

Not only did they achieve an amazing result, but they also showed that it’s actually possible.

In the post I chose for this list, Alex from Groove broke down that entire promotional process in great detail.

He included everything from the names of people they targeted to his exact outreach email and the reasons behind it:

This post is insanely practical, which is why it stands out among most other posts about this exact topic.

It also shows some behind the scenes details, which is something I mentioned earlier (see a pattern?).

When it comes to this specific problem (promoting a post), readers crave actionable examples, and Alex delivered just about as well as one could:

8. You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children’s College Chances

Let’s get away from the written content for a little bit.

The New York Times published this amazing piece of content to illustrate an important concept: how wealth impacts the chances of children going to college.

Instead of just putting the results in a table, like everyone else, they had a goal: show people that reality is far different from what they imagine.

Near the top of the article is a graph. You can click and draw a line to indicate how you think income corresponds to college attendance:

If you’d like to try it, do so before I spoil it for you.

There are two main factors why this content is amazing.

Factor #1 – It’s entertaining/fun: Do you know what sucks about serious topics? They’re always serious.

Sometimes, it’s good to take a different approach to content. Readers will appreciate it, and your content will stand out.

News articles, in particular, are typically very one-sided. They’re not even conversational like blog posts, which makes them even more boring to read (not that they aren’t important).

A little game like this is always welcomed by most readers.

Factor #2 – It’s surprising: While the end result seems pretty simple, a lot of work went into this content.

Not only did they have to make the interactive graph, but they also had to put a lot of work into researching the actual findings.

These findings were also highly interesting. They were not what most people would expect.

You can read the post if you’re interested in knowing why the results are surprising (a bit off topic here).

Think of an average reader coming to this page.

First they see the interactive graph. They think, “This is pretty cool…maybe I should share it.”

But then, they see the surprising results and think, “People need to know this!”

Great content usually stands out in one area. Epic content often stands out in many. If you can combine multiple things from all of these examples, you’ll be on the right track.

9. This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

One of the main limitations of written content is that it takes longer for it to get a point across than for other forms of content.

In addition, it’s really hard to compare multiple things.

That’s why people love images.

This content example is composed almost entirely of images.

But not just any images—they are professionally designed, and they communicate meaningful data.

If they had only created that first one, the article still would have been great.

But they went the extra mile.

They created many additional graphs so that they could go into detail on each important social issue:

When you overwhelm your readers with value, they will love it.

I think the results speak for themselves:

10. Which Phone?

Android vs iPhone, which side are you on?

iPhones are great because they’re simple. The average owner just wants a quality phone, and Apple makes it easy to get one because there are very few models.

Android phones, on the other hand, are made by many different manufacturers.

Although there is more flexibility, not everyone needs all that flexibility.

What Android did with this piece of content was brilliant.

They created a quiz that allowed users to describe what they wanted in a phone in plain English:

First of all, it’s designed beautifully.

But the reason why it’s so valuable is that it solves a huge problem of being overwhelmed by phone choices:

After you answer a few questions, you get a list of the phones that would suit you best (it’s incredibly easy for a user):

Compare this shopping experience to that on any other site, even Amazon.

You go to the cell phone section and are presented with hundreds or thousands of different phones.

If you want to sort them, you have to do so by factors such as the number of megapixels on the phone camera or the phone’s processor:

The average user doesn’t know anything about these things and doesn’t care. All they want is a phone that does what they want.

Complicated questions have complex answers: If there’s a complicated question in your industry that you always hear customers asking about, answer it.

But instead of trying to answer it in a typical blog post, using language they don’t understand and don’t care about, find a way to simplify the answer in the terms that your customer cares about.

Since it’s a complicated problem, this won’t be easy, which is why no one else has done it before.

However, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, your epic content will be talked about for years.

11. The Advanced Guide to SEO

Okay, I’m a little biased, but I had to include a Quick Sprout post on this list.

All of my advanced guides have received hundreds of backlinks (or more).

Like Ramit’s guide that we looked at earlier, these guides are all professionally designed.

It’s clear to any reader that this isn’t ordinary content.

These guides are also incredibly thorough, covering everything on that topic in great detail.

The best thing about these guides is that anyone can make one like them. However, you will have to invest capital or time and effort in order to make them. That’s what epic demands.

12. What 2,000 Calories Look Like

Epic content often makes your jaw drop.

This piece of content was also created by The New York Times.

One of the most common misconceptions people have is the number of calories they eat. Most people almost always underestimate that number.

Instead of just telling people that (e.g., “This One Mistake That All Dieters Make…”), they showed people just how wrong they usually are.

They created several high quality pictures of actual meals that people eat at common places:

All of these meals have 2,000 calories, which is the average recommended daily intake for most people.

And people were shocked.

They found out that they regularly consumed their daily calories in just one meal.

The takeaway? Look at a common myth or mistake that your target audience makes. Then look at it from a different angle, and show it to them.

13. Slightly More Than 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism

It turns out that I’m not the first person to compile amazing content.

This article in The Atlantic consists of links to 100 top journalism articles:

The reason why this piece of content is epic is two-fold: its quantity and its quality.

A great article usually has one or the other.

Obviously, with 100 articles, the quantity was there.

But what really pushed this piece of content over the edge is that it was compiled by an expert—an expert who read thousands of pieces in order to find the best 100 to include in this article.

Curated content is very popular right now, and it usually produces great results. But if you want to produce epic curated content, make sure that you’re actually picking the best of the best that all readers will find valuable.

Any journalist or journalism student has seen this page or has it bookmarked.

14. Lionel Messi Is Impossible

Epic content is possible in any niche.

This final example is about Lionel Messi, who is the greatest soccer (football for non-Americans) player alive right now.

But people like rivalries, and for years he has been compared to another amazing player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

So what do people do? They compare single highlights and certain stats, sharing their opinions on which one is better.

But not Benjamin Morris.

Instead, he created a masterful data-driven post to settle the debate once and for all.

He analyzed thousands of datapoints, players, and different stats in order to get a complete picture of it all.

He created several high quality graphs that showed how Messi and Ronaldo compared to all other players (and to each other):

Note that I said several graphs.

To get a complete picture on a topic, you need to approach it from all possible angles:

His conclusion: Ronaldo is a great player, but Messi is impossible. He stands out so much on these graphs that no one can really make an argument against the conclusion.

Of course, Messi fans loved this article and shared it like crazy. They were excited to share it due to how epic the analysis was.

The takeaway? If you’re going to try to settle a common debate in your industry, be prepared to put in the work and finish it. Put in so much work that readers are left impressed and convinced with your conclusions, unable to argue with the results.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, epic content can take many forms.

But all these examples have one thing in common:

Readers love it.

Creating epic content is not easy, even if that’s your goal. It’s often not cheap either.

You need to continually practice improving your content creation to give yourself the best chance at regularly creating epic content that readers flock to.

While it may be a ton of work, I promise you that the results are worth it. Just a few epic pieces of content can create or sustain many businesses.

If you’ve seen any other pieces of epic content you want to share here, or you want someone to take a look at yours, leave me a comment below with a link.

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