Why my content marketing blog often flies in the face of best practices

What you’ll read on my content marketing blog is a little different than the advice you’ll get from most content marketing resources. The advice on keyword research Neil Patel offers, for example, is based on the idea that you have to know what keywords your audience is searching for, how many people are searching for that keyword, and what your chances of ranking are. That’s how you’re supposed to decide what to write about.

Aside from the fact that I think small businesses and startups have better things to do than spending hours and hours on keyword research, that approach ignores the fact that, unless you’re just trying to generate traffic for ad revenue, businesses sell specific products and services.

And you can’t just ditch your whole business plan because the keywords stink.

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Oh, and tech companies, with all of those fancy terms like PCI-DDS, DDoS, W3C, etc.? No matter what your keyword research says, your content isn’t going to drive sales if your customers have never heard of those search terms. (The people searching for them are probably people who do what you do…i.e., your competitors.) For your customers, you need search terms related to the pain points that will cause them to search for your solution.

What you’ll read here is all about content that means business. Best practices are great if they help you accomplish your business goals; if not, trust me — it’s better to focus on what works! And if that makes me a content marketing heretic, so be it.

And, in a display of excellent timing, nDash just published a post on SEO based on user-intent, which makes a lot more sense than choosing your keywords based on just search volume and competition.
What is your audience really searching for? A guide to user intent.