About the Author
Corey Morris is the President and CEO of VOLTAGE, a search marketing and website agency for expertise-driven organizations. He has spent more than two decades in digital marketing and SEO, and he wrote the book on the Digital Marketing Success Plan® (DMSP), the planning process VOLTAGE uses with clients. Corey has published more than 150 articles and expert contributions across Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Forbes over nearly a decade, and he still writes regularly for the first two. His Search Engine Journal articles alone have been read nearly 1.7 million times. He has spoken at SMX, Digital Summit, and SMPS. He's also a sought-after podcast and media guest, with more than 75 speaking, podcast, and media appearances. He served as an officer on the board of the global search marketing trade association, founded a Kansas City search marketing conference, and was named the 2019 KCDMA Marketer of the Year.
Best practice checklists can stand in for real strategy.
In digital marketing, we are constantly surrounded by lists of “best practices.” Every time a search engine updates its algorithm or a new platform launches, a wave of generic advice floods the industry, and we are told the exact word count our articles should have, the precise number of times to use a keyword, and the optimal layout for a landing page.
These fundamental rules are helpful for anyone seeking the basics or a starting point, but relying on them as a substitute for strategy is very dangerous. Over my decades of experience, I have watched many organizations fall into the trap of cookie-cutter optimization and treat search visibility as a rigid checklist.
They apply the exact same formatting, the exact same tone and the exact same technical structure as everyone else in their space. When you do exactly what everyone else does, you guarantee that you will blend into the noise.
Generic strategies fail with complex B2B buyers.
In complex business-to-business (B2B) environments, your buyers are looking for deep expertise and risk reduction, and an average answer does not give them either one. If you build your digital presence strictly around generic best practices, your content will read like an encyclopedia rather than a consultative guide.
Search ecosystems, especially those driven by generative AI, are designed to reward unique perspectives and original data. If your website is simply echoing the same widely accepted facts as your top five competitors, search engines have no incentive to prioritize your brand as an authority. When industry best practices become your worst habits, you sacrifice your competitive advantage for the illusion of safety.
You can break free from cookie-cutter marketing.
To capture high-value opportunities, we have to be willing to break or push past the standard rules. Here is how we build a distinctive strategy that lifts your brand above the generic noise.
1. Optimize for your niche over search volume.
A common best practice is to always target the keywords with the highest search volume, and we have to abandon this habit. High-volume terms can be more competitive and take more time to earn visibility for, and they will often bring in broad, unqualified traffic.
Instead, optimize for your specific business niche. Target the long-tail, highly technical queries that your ideal buyers actually use when making a purchasing decision, even if the search volume looks very low, because profitable intent is always more valuable than empty traffic.
2. Lead with contrarian expertise.
Do not be afraid to disagree with the consensus in your industry. If a widely accepted best practice does not actually serve your specific clients, say so publicly.
Interview your internal subject matter experts and ask them where the industry usually gets it wrong. Publish articles that highlight your unique, lived experience and challenge the status quo. Strong positioning requires taking a stance, which naturally repels the wrong prospects while deeply attracting the right ones.
3. Build custom frameworks.
Generic advice tells you to write standard “how-to” guides. To stand out, you need to raise the profile of your solutions by naming your proprietary methodologies.
When you package your expertise into a documented framework, you create an intellectual asset that competitors cannot copy. It turns your content from a basic tutorial into a premium brand asset that search engines and AI models have a reason to cite by name.
Distinctive brands win by building past the basics.
Best practices are a starting point, and the finish line is a strategy that belongs to you. We have to stop relying on cookie-cutter checklists to drive our digital growth.
Get clear on your unique value, put your proprietary data to work, and have the courage to build a digital strategy that looks entirely different from your competitors. The question is whether you are leading your industry or just following the rules. If you want help turning your expertise into distinctive content, our content marketing team can help you build it.