Best practices are there for a reason. For the most part, following them puts you in good stead with Google, with your audience, with social algorithms. But they are just that – best practices. Guidance rather than law. And as with anything in life, sometimes you have to weigh up whether it’s worth taking a risk to get better results.
Here are five best practices that I believe are sometimes worth gambling with.
Content consistency
I absolutely support the idea that it’s best to maintain some sort of frequency with your owned content channels. Huge gaps may leave potential customers wondering if you’re still in business.
But the idea that your blogs or email newsletters must be once a week on the same day earns a hard eye roll from me. There was a phase several years ago when it felt like this ‘tip’ got pushed everywhere “because your audience comes to expect content at a certain time.”
I hate to burst your bubble, but I’m pretty certain they don’t. Almost nobody is thinking about that except you. Go through your inbox and see if you know (without checking) when your marketing emails arrive. I’ll bet you don’t.
It doesn’t mean they aren’t interested or won’t read it, but their lives don’t revolve around your content schedule. Sorry.
Strong CTAs
Again, this comes with a bit of a disclaimer. I agree with the need for call to actions, but for me it’s more about navigation. In most cases I think making it as easy as possible to get in contact / make a purchase at the click of a well-placed button, is more important than the words used – and I’m a wordsmith at heart.
The obsession with direct, concise CTAs is, I think, a bit patronising. The idea that ‘Buy now’ or ‘Contact us’ would sway someone who’s on the fence insults your audience’s intelligence.
The copy that comes before it can be influential, but for me, having that button in front of me does far more than the actual words on it.
Positive language only
This blog has become slightly ranty, so it’s probably not a surprise to learn that I have a problem with only allowing positive language.
The idea that if a person sees a positive word they’ll see you in a positive light, and if they see a negative word, they’ll view you in a negative way, is so basic it hurts. I appreciate the general concept, but assuming your audience can’t take the context into account shows very little faith in them.
Acknowledging someone’s frustrations and challenges before offering a solution is a good way to show you understand them. I frequently see advice on how to flip this, but I find it often misses the point without that niche example.
Plus, you know what isn’t positive? Moaning about negative language….
Meta description and title lengths
If any of my clients are reading this, this might seem a little hypocritical. Let me preface this by saying that 95% of the time, I’d advise keeping to the suggested length for both page titles and meta descriptions. It’s all that’s displayed in the SERPs and it shows Google you’re paying attention.
However, if you create the *perfect* title and it runs over by a couple of pixels, it’s likely that Google will only cut off the end couple of letters, and if users can see what word it is, and that word makes a difference, I’d say go for it. You only live once.
I’m also not of the opinion that sticking to the same naming pattern across all pages is essential either. It’s a nice-to-have, definitely, but if a product name on one page is particularly long and you can no longer fit your company name in, I’d say just take it out. It’s in your URL underneath, and I promise you nobody outside your company (and possibly your competitors) is comparing page titles across your site. If they are, they’re probably the one that needs to make some adjustments…
KPIs
I’ve saved the biggest ‘taboo’ until last. I’m a big believer in measuring. I actually love doing client reports because it’s dedicated time set aside to dive into the numbers and what’s causing them. My next plans will literally revolve around the data I’ve been looking at.
But KPIs can feel like a bit of a ‘finger in the air’ job a lot of the time. Targets can be useful when they’re then reverse engineered to work out what needs to be done to reach them, but often I find that they’re just numbers to put in a board presentation. You should always be doing what you can to increase conversions, traffic, or impressions by as much as you can – I don’t see why a target makes you more likely to achieve that. I also believe that if you added up the time setting and discussing KPIs and spent it on actual marketing, you’d get closer to those KPIs anyway.
And yet they’re seen as the holy grail. I’m convinced it’s some kind of Emperor’s new clothes situation, where people are afraid to disagree.
Going rogue every once in a while and thinking for yourself is nothing to be sent to SEO jail for. But as I say, these are only my personal opinions. Don’t blame me if it all goes wrong…