Your content is garbage. Here’s why.
There is a metric shit-ton of content out there today.
I read some stat recently that said something like 27 million words are written and published everyday to company blogs (insert pointless citation to another blog exactly like this with equally low credibility quoting the same number so it looks legit)
“Here are 10 Content Marketing tips that will blow your mind!”
Seriously, who even reads these?
It’s rampant. Everyone’s content is completely generic, contrived, predictable & shitty.
The worst part is that everyone knows this.
Every single “marketing influencer” drones on and on (like I’m doing right now) about how shitty content doesn’t fly anymore, and that you have to add proper value.
Yet, when push comes to shove, they’re all still writing generic bullshit.
The Neil Patel Teardown
Probably the most influencer-y of content marketers, Neil Patel always talks about how the key to getting traffic through content is to give value and how generic content doesn’t cut it.
And yet, his articles are equally generic, clickbait-y nonsense.
Let’s take a look at one of the top articles on his blog right now (free backlink, Neil!):
It starts off with a stock image of a beautiful woman shushing you:
Seriously, what even is this? I get that sex sells, but Jesus Christ.
Moving on.
The article claims it’s going to show you The Secret™ to Neil Patel’s unabashed success at getting clicks to his website.
The Secret Behind My 1,866,913 Monthly Search Visitors (It’s Not What You Think)
Are you ready for this #highvalue madness? Has Nifty Neil lost his absolute mind, giving away the tricks of the trade that have made him so successful to his adoring public?!
And remember… it’s not what you think!
(Spoiler: it’s exactly what you think)
Here’s Neil Patel’s über-secrets on getting 2 million hits per day.
Step 1. Use Neil Patel’s software Crazy Egg to show funky, totally useful heat-maps about where users are clicking.
Are people not clicking every single meaningless widget you have on your blog? Well guess what you idiot! Your blog sucks and you should consider a different career.
Step 2. Are you optimized for mobile?
Did you wake up this morning and think “wow, it sure is 2008 today”. If so, you might have forgotten to make your blog mobile responsive! Don’t worry, there are exactly 3 other blogs in the world which aren’t mobile responsive too.
Step 3. Help all of your users
OK, in all seriousness, I have no idea what the fuck this point is trying to say. First, he talks about how much of a good samaritan he is for letting poor entrepreneurs access his magical content for free.
Basically, one giant advertisement of all the random tools and crap he’s made for you to click on.
Step 4. Get feedback
Again, Good Samaritan Nifty Neil gets a lot of feedback that he should offer hindi translations.
I’m not doing these to make more money… I’m not doing this to become popular… I’m just trying to do this to help out more people.
Yep. Definitely. Totally has nothing to do with the 1 billion-or-so audience that Hindi unlocks. No sirree-bob.
Step 5. Profit….?
Seriously, what an atrocious article. 2000 words of content that explained absolutely nothing. It was a giant advertisement for every tool, webinar and pointless other income or lead-generating tool that Neil has in place.
Neil isn’t the only one that does this — 99% of blogs do this. I’m only picking on Neil because he influences thousands of marketers and should know better.
This kind of generic garbage has diluted the internet’s information ecosystem. The amount of truly valuable content out there is incredibly hard to find because it’s flooded with millions of keyword-stuffed crap like this.
We’re guilty of this too. Our own blog has a ton of these shitty articles, mostly because our business relies on us giving samples for our customers.
But we’ve decided that we’re not going to do that anymore.
Lead-generation be damned, I refuse to continue contributing to this madness of pointless content. So, I’m going to try a different tactic: if you read a blog post we write and enjoy it, let us know and we’ll give you a $100 coupon for signing up with us.
Don’t write content that you wouldn’t read out loud, to a group of 10 random people you just met. Let that be your heuristic.
This 2019, say NO to shitty content.
