credit: nickwheeleroz

Always Be Testing leveled a challenge against a very popular concept, Best Practices.

What are best practices?

A set of commonly employed policies and actions that are know to produce high results in a business vertical or industry.

Many people talk about best practices when talking about SEO, Usability and Analytics. There is a trap in there. Yes, there are some common basics in each category:

SEO

• Unique title & description
• Keyword in header
• Body content that uses popular phrases

Usability

• Navigation on the left
• Light background & dark text
• Obvious links

Analytics

• Implement the code the same way on every page
• Pair performance indicators
• Look at trends; not specifics

However, especially in usability, what does amazing for one industry WILL be wrong in another. SEO, usability, and web-analytics are not the business that defines your best practices; they are tools that serve your business. Spending a little bit of time looking around the Internet to find out the basics of search engine marketing will likely find at least one common tactic that is played out, or never was effective, in your industry.

The best practices for your business are going to be a combination of factors that leverage how your audience engage the Internet and your site. A/B testing has gained attention in the last 6 months because blindly applying a checklist of factors does not achieve your best results. If you try to replicate the successes of Amazon and Dell you will discover an undeniable fact; you are not Amazon or Dell.

Successful sites take into consideration who they are trying to bring in and focus their attention on fulfilling the visitors needs. Most important to in finding your best practices is not letting yourself be taken in by what seems to be successful for your competitors. Mimicking your competitors is one of the best ways to always be behind them.

Make a list of the most useful benefits your competitors, and sites you like using, have implemented. Look to see if they have a value to your customer, and then tackle your search marketing campaigns with these goals in mind. Making clear milestones will help you keep on track and improve more rapidly as you choose your search marketing priorities.