It’s often difficult to know what works and what doesn’t work in internet marketing. It’s even worse when things are at odds with each other. For instance, it’s often a wise decision to follow one or two people quite closely, maybe even get mentored by them.

But what happens when something isn’t congruent?

This happens quite a lot: someone will say “you should do such and such a thing” and it’s tempting to take that suggestion at face value. Most of us do that a lot – life’s too short to go back to basics on everything and society needs a degree of trust to be able to function.

There are various reasons why things can get out of synch between what’s being suggested for you to do and what the person suggesting those things is actually doing in real life.

One reason could be that they’re using short-cuts that work fine once you’ve been doing something for a while but aren’t recommended for a beginner.

For instance, I won’t always follow the easy formula I suggest for writing content – I haven’t done so here – but that doesn’t invalidate the formula I suggest of coming up with a headline and between 3 and 10 topics to cover in the content, each with their own section or sub-heading.

I’ve created enough content to know that I can break that formula and still get results.

Whether or not this particular piece of content would be better if I did as I say rather than not isn’t something I’m going to worry about too much.

You’ll need to decide for yourself if that relatively small amount of rule breaking is OK or if it’s diverging too far.

If the person you’re following has a blog, you might be able to ask the question in the comments section of the relevant page. Or you could submit the question via the contact form.

The bigger problem comes when what’s happening in real life is at odds with what’s being taught.

Maybe someone is telling you to use Facebook retargeting ads but not using those same ads to stalk you almost as soon as you even think about visiting their website.

That then calls into question whether or not you should be following what they’re teaching at all.

It happens a lot in internet marketing.

It also happens in other markets – I know of at least one self-help “guru” who preaches that everyone should be in a high state of enlightenment and should let things go but himself clings on to power with an iron grip. Not someone I follow any longer, even though what they teach is good and works very effectively.

Going back to internet marketing, things change incredibly fast. Which can account for this phenomenon – if something was published a few months ago (or even a few days if Google has had one of its regular tantrums about the results) then it’s perfectly feasible that whatever was being taught is no longer working.

You then have to either ask the question directly or make your own mind up.

I find it’s often best to follow what someone is doing even if that conflicts with what they’re teaching. Especially if they have different levels of teaching and the publicly available content is only the tip of the iceberg. Or if they’re in the habit of regularly testing things to make sure that they’re still working rather than resting on their laurels.

Ultimately it’s a call that only you can make but I think you should at least be making it every now and then rather than just blindly following advice that may no longer be working.

If you’d like help with deciding where to go with your internet marketing, check out my coaching and mentoring.

Or check out this page about internet marketing in an hour a day.