The Content Framework That Worked In 2019 Is Now Working Against You

Jun 20, 2026 09:00 PM - 2 hours ago 52

Taylor Borden, an editor astatine LinkedIn, emailed maine past week pinch a mobility she’s putting to a fistful of writers for a typical version of her newsletter, The Work Shift. The premise was backed by information that shows entrepreneurship connected LinkedIn is up astir 70% twelvemonth complete year, much than six successful 10 of those entrepreneurs besides place arsenic contented creators, and group who station play spot up to 4x much floor plan views, pinch commenting driving 2.5x more.

Her mobility was simple: What’s 1 instruction that changed really you attack contented creation? And if you were starting your LinkedIn travel from scratch, really would you attack your first 10 posts?

I almost answered pinch a framework. Then I remembered why frameworks are the problem.

4 Categories Felt Complete. The Data Disagreed

Back astir 2009, Guy Kawasaki asked maine for a fewer pages for his book “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.” I outlined 4 ways brands could create YouTube videos that genuinely enchant an audience: inspire viewers pinch affectional stories, educate them pinch useful information, enlighten them pinch documentaries, aliases entertain them by making them laugh.

Four felt complete. It was clean, teachable, and easy to remember. I utilized it. Other group utilized it. I moreover built it into a portion for MCP years later, “What Is a Content Marketing Matrix & Do We Need One?”

Then the information kept arriving. By 2023, I was penning a different SEJ article pinch not four, but 39 emotions – count ’em.

I had ne'er connected those 2 pieces until Borden’s email forced maine to. The spread betwixt them, 14 years and 35 emotions, is the astir useful point I person learned successful 24 years of penning astir this industry. The four-category model wasn’t incorrect erstwhile I wrote it. It was conscionable the size of the dataset I had entree to astatine the time. The correction would person been treating it arsenic finished.

The Practitioners Who Get Stuck Are The Ones Who Fall In Love With Their Framework

This is the portion of my reply to Borden that applies straight to anyone doing SEO, contented marketing, aliases societal media trading activity correct now, not conscionable LinkedIn posting.

Every model you build, each class system, each “the 4 types of X” aliases “the 5 stages of Y,” is simply a snapshot of what the grounds showed you connected the time you built it. AI Overviews didn’t beryllium erstwhile astir of our contented frameworks were written. Neither did AI Mode, Gemini-embedded search, aliases AI Overviews appearing successful 2.5 cardinal users’ results. The frameworks built for a 10-blue-links world were not incorrect for that world. They are simply the size of the dataset that existed then.

The practitioners who get stuck are the ones who support applying 2019’s model to 2026’s information because the model is acquainted and the caller information is inconvenient. The ones who support increasing are the ones who enactment funny capable to ask, “What would this model look for illustration if I rebuilt it today, pinch everything I now cognize that I didn’t cognize then?”

This is precisely the trap a batch of AI Overview content strategy is falling into correct now. The “answer the query successful 40 words astatine the apical of the page” model was built for a world wherever the extremity was winning a featured snippet. That model wasn’t incorrect for that world. But AI Overviews don’t reward the page that already said everything; they reward the page a personification clicks done to aft the Overview, and they’re rewarding it for being much than the summary that sent them there. A page built to triumph the aged model is, by design, the page pinch thing near to connection that user. The four-category exemplary and the 40-word-answer exemplary grounded for the aforesaid reason; some were vanished products built for a dataset that kept increasing aft the deadline.

What I’d Tell Anyone Starting Their First 10 Posts

This is the reply I gave Borden directly, and it’s the aforesaid proposal I’d springiness to anyone successful SEO, contented marketing, aliases societal media trading starting from scratch, connected LinkedIn aliases anyplace else.

Find thing you judge confidently. Then find the investigation that complicates it. Write astir the gap, honestly, including the portion wherever you were incorrect aliases incomplete.

That azygous move does 3 things astatine once. It gives you a taxable (your existing belief), it gives you a hook (the information that challenges it), and it gives you credibility that a polished, unchallenged model ne'er can, because readers tin show the quality betwixt personification defending a position and personification genuinely updating one.

2 Steps To Apply It This Week

First, propulsion up the oldest framework, list, aliases “the X types of Y” portion you’ve published, the 1 you’re proudest of, the 1 that still gets cited aliases linked. Search for what’s been published connected that nonstop taxable successful the past 12 months. If a four-category model from 2009 softly needed to go 39 by 2023, immoderate you wrote successful 2019 aliases 2021 almost surely has a similar spread waiting successful 2026’s data. Don’t take sides the aged version. Write the portion that updates it, and opportunity explicitly what changed and why.

Second, earlier you people thing framed arsenic “the X ways to do Y,” inquire whether you’re presenting a snapshot aliases a conclusion. A snapshot says, “Here’s what the grounds shows arsenic of now, and I’d expect this number to grow.” A conclusion says, “This is the complete list.” The first framing ages well. The 2nd framing is the 1 you’ll person to locomotion backmost successful beforehand of an audience, the measurement I conscionable did pinch my ain 2009 framework, successful public, 14 years later.

The entrepreneurship information Borden shared, the 70% growth, the 4x floor plan views for play posters, isn’t really astir LinkedIn specifically. It’s grounds that much group are now doing what writers and SEO practitioners person ever done, which is putting a belief successful nationalist and uncovering out, often quickly, whether the grounds agrees pinch it. The instruction is the aforesaid either way. Stay funny astir what the information says next, particularly erstwhile it disagrees pinch the model you already published.

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