7 Marketing Blogs With No F*ing Fluff

(F*ing = fluffing. No fluffing fluff. What did you think we meant?)

Imagine this scenario:

You’re skimming the web for an article that teaches you about how to create better calls-to-action (CTAs). Every single article you click on falls into one of the following categories:

It isn’t helpful whatsoever.
It gives you a rambling 1,400-word attempt at answering the question without providing a single, solid action step.
It provides you with “inspiring” ideas for better CTAs without backing those ideas with any kind of data.

Now you’ve wasted part of your day parsing through useless content, and your CTAs are not going to benefit at all.

Sound familiar?

Well, I’ve been there. Actually, all of us at Nectafy have. (And frankly, we have some content on our blog right now that definitely falls into this category!) We call this content fluff.

What Is Fluff?

We think of fluff as mindless, silly, vague, or actionless content. When you read a fluffy article, you may walk away with some low-impact advice or knowledge, or you may feel like you’ve wasted five or 10 minutes of your time on lifeless filler words and lackluster advice. To clarify, not all fluffy blogs are bad blogs—they just don’t leave you with a roadmap of exactly what to do once you’re done reading.

Now, that’s not to say that every blog post needs to be 100% business all the time. But as inbound becomes more and more competitive, the quality of blog posts must match the competition, and continue to provide more help to readers. Simply put, if the majority of the content a blog offers feels like a big, steaming pile of jargon-laden crap, you can bet I won’t be returning to see what else they have planned (and I’ll bet you’re in the same boat).

Then What Defines A Great Blog?

Excellent articles should provide readers with primarily tangible, results-based, data-driven content. Regardless of whether or not I enjoy every topic discussed or agree with the final conclusions drawn, you can bet that I’ll return to these blogs simply because they educate and entertain simultaneously. Blog posts that contain step-by-step instructions, listed directions, people to follow, productivity hacks, etc., will always draw my attention and hold it through the end.

With all this being said, we understand that it’s hard to create incredible, actionable content over and over again—but that’s why we’re so amazed by these blogs. So without further adieu, here are our seven favorite marketing blogs without the fluffing fluff.

1. Backlinko

Marketing guru Neil Patel has called Backlinko founder Brian Dean “the best in the [link building] business”, and we agree with him. Take this article, for example: How To Get Backlinks With Guestographics. Brian walks you through the exact steps that he takes to get loads of backlinks by “bribing” interested websites into publishing your infographic. He is honest, candid, and he writes in a conversational tone that anyone can understand.