The problem with best practices

Best practices are a description of what worked for someone else in a different context at a different time. They're not instructions. They're history.

When everyone follows the same playbook, everyone gets the same results. Which means no one stands out. Which means the best practice has become the mediocre practice and no one noticed because they were too busy following it.

The companies worth studying didn't follow best practices. They did something that looked wrong until it worked. Then everyone else called it a best practice and started copying it, missing the point entirely.

Best practices are comfortable. They give you cover. "We did what the experts recommended." That sentence has never appeared in a case study about a company that changed its industry.

Do the work of figuring out what your specific audience needs. That's harder than copying a template. That's the point.