Have you ever discovered a source of incredible information that you are so excited to find? I have. Since getting involved in the world of blogging and online marketing, there is a name that I simply could not escape if I wanted to – Neil Patel. What is Neil Patel about?
He is all about SEO and anything and everything to do with online marketing – the critical elements that will make or break your online business.
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Why can I not escape Neil Patel?
Because he is only a total marketing genius! No matter what I am searching for he is there. No matter what keywords I use, whether I am on YouTube or doing a Google search, he is right up there.
It might be linked to his own website or to a post he has written for Forbes (who say he is one of the top 10 marketers) or Entrepreneur (who say he created one of the top 100 companies) but either way, I always check it out because the content is consistent, of very high quality, and relevant to what I was searching for.
Consequently, I thought he might know a thing or two and have started paying attention to what he says. If you are in the same world as me, I highly recommend you do too.
I should say that I am not affiliated with Neil in any way and this post is just about sharing the great source of fantastic content that he is (not to mention being an all-around good guy who is very generous in sharing what he knows).
“The key with blogging is to lay it all out there because sooner or later, people are going to know what you know – so might as well be the first one to share the information and get credit for it.” – Neil Patel
Who is Neil Patel
Neil was born in London in 1985 but at the age of 2, his parents moved to California with Neil and his sister. Apparently, he was surrounded by entrepreneurs – I’m not sure if he sought them out or if they were in the circles that his parents moved in but either way, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with (yikes!) so this was a very smart move.
At the age of 15, he sold burned movies and CDs to his friends at High School for $2 – $5, then went on to sell black boxes and Satellite TV cards which made him a tidy profit so that entrepreneurial spirit was in him from a young age as it very often is with super-achievers.
Fast forward to today and Neil is now a New York Times best-selling author. Along the way, he was recognized by President Obama as a top 100 entrepreneur under 30 and made the top 100 entrepreneur list under 35 by the United Nations!
His own blog neilpatel.com achieves over 3 million visitors per month and he has his Marketing School podcast that generates over 1 million listens monthly. As if that wasn’t enough, his YouTube channel has over 20 million views! (Quite a lot of which are mine lol.)
It might be worth mentioning at this point for anyone who is new to online marketing that this traffic took years of study and perseverance to build up. As with anything worthwhile in life, there are no quick fixes.
As you can imagine, he has hoards of Facebook fans and Twitter followers too. He has helped companies such as Google, Airbnb, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, and Amazon and, as you can imagine, is in huge demand as a speaker around the world.
He created Crazyegg, a tool that allows you to see what interests visitors when they visit your website via ‘heatmaps’ which then helps you to create future content to better cater to their needs. To date, over 300,000 websites use Crazyegg.
What is so great about this guy?
He is generous with this knowledge. It is so refreshing when someone talks so freely about what they know without an agenda. You could argue that is not true because Neil has a digital consultancy business and a keyword research tool that has a paid version, (plus CrazyEGG) but literally millions of people will consume his content without ever paying for anything.
It comes from a place of service and genuinely wanting to give value which he does in spades. He could easily charge for the free courses he offers.
I am currently part way through his SEO course which has got a ton of content including keyword research, on and offline SEO, content marketing, supercharging content, link building, and developing a brand. He also has an ECommerce course which I don’t doubt will be of similar high quality.
His keyword tool, Ubersuggest, will give you literally hundreds of suggestions for keywords in the key ideas section that you can download for free! I only discovered this today when I needed to improve my keyword selection for a Google Ad campaign I was running.
It took me literally seconds to add hundreds of new keywords! You can also put in competitor website addresses to find out what keywords they are ranking for. Knowledge is power!
There is something about his delivery that is captivating. So few people nowadays are absolutely present – he is totally engaging because he knows that what he is sharing works and is genuinely excited to share it. Check out this video to see what I mean.
What have I learned from Neil recently?
While researching for this post, I found a really interesting YouTube video he made about personal branding.
One thing that is impressed upon us (especially if you are in MLM!) is that you have to brand yourself, particularly if you are selling an identical product to many other people or the same service.
However, Neil says that if he was starting today, he would not use Neil Patel as his brand name for the simple reason that we all have a limited time here on earth and once we are gone, the business doesn’t stand much of a chance!
So much for leaving a legacy…
(I recently saw an advert for the wonderful Zig Ziglar offering advice on Facebook ads. I must admit I thought it was a bit odd as Zig passed on in 2012! It turns out that his son has taken over the company. Who knows, maybe his son has the same attributes as his father but I wasn’t convinced.)
More importantly (I think) is that if you build up a fantastic, profitable website, it is a valuable asset. People are prepared to pay serious money for profitable websites but are unlikely to do so if you are inextricably linked to them!
He says that blogging is the best way to get your message out there as it is evergreen. Don’t go for newsy topics as they will date. Video is also great but your written content should take priority and will be getting searched for many years to come.
With regards to the content, Neil says it’s not so much about quantity but quality. Find something or an angle on something, that is different from what everyone else is doing. Yes, pick your keywords with care, but if you get it right, you only need to post once a week.
Oh. My. Days! That is music to my ears! I have heard that if you are in the competitive world of the MMO niche (make money online), you have to post on your blog every day (around 2,000 words) and ideally have a writer doing the same to get enough cumulative traffic to rank. Without a doubt, Neil will have in-depth content about this which I am going to search for just as soon as I have finished this post!
*NEWS JUST IN! So I checked out more content from Neil concerning this one post-a-week thing and it’s not as straightforward as that unfortnately. He gives tips on what to do in your niche to learn how to write the right number of posts and type of content in his video here.
I could go on and on, but the last tip I will share here is that he recommends linking out to other websites that are relevant or perhaps you have sourced information from for your post. Let the creator of that blog know that you have linked out to them and let them know that you would be grateful if they had an opportunity to share it.
In Conclusion
You may have heard this before but the best way to get good at something is find someone who has done it already and copy what they did! No one is better at online marketing and makes their training easier to access than Neil Patel. Note to self – stop consuming his content long enough to take action!
How I became interested in digital marketing
When I was in the world of MLM, I had tried to build a website on my own without the technical know-how and naturally got completely stuck. However, I got turned on by Affiliate Marketing (it was time for a change after 10 years in MLM!) and conceded that I would have to learn how to build a website after all.
As luck would have it (or rather, down to some clever SEO!) I found a training website and community where I could learn what I needed to learn and get started for free. I am still loving that program but am also on high alert for brilliant people who can add their own unique slant to what I am learning. No one person has all the answers.
If you haven’t started your online business yet, check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate here to see if it could be what you are looking for to inspire you to take action!
Is there a ‘guru’ who you find offers fantastic value and you just have to know what they have to say? If so, I would love to hear about your experience in the comments.