Holy sh*t, I’ve diagnosed an epidemic

Holy sh*t, I’ve diagnosed an epidemic sweeping through content marketing: Best-Practicitis.

Symptoms include:

– Post-itis: “Post 3–5 times a week.” Why? No clue. Just do it.
– Word-bloat: every blog post must hit 1,500 words. Google said so. Or Bob on LinkedIn did.
– Video fever: every brand needs short-form video. Right now.
– Copycat flu: your rival starts a podcast. Quick. Buy a mic.

It’s highly contagious and mostly found in marketers who would rather copy an answer than find out what’s true.

The good news? I’m immune because I quarantine best practices until the results give them a clean bill of health.

On one ecommerce blog, following the data instead of generic content advice helped me increase blog revenue 4.7× in six months.

My rule:

A best practice is a guess. 

Test it. Keep it if it works. Kill it if it doesn’t.

What “best practice” do you wish would die?


First published on Eva Domijan Linkedin