Bryan Driscoll from Motivated Leads & the Eat Sleep, and Invest Podcast interviews Neil Patel to discuss how to create user-focused content.
0:00 Intro
1:33 Most Important Part of SEO
3:17 Pillar vs. Detailed Blog Posts
6:55 AI Content
7:26 Making Personalized Content
9:42 Link Building
14:57 Bringing the Right Audience to your Site
17:42 Business Goals
18:35 Blog Emails
21:32 Social Media
22: 41 Neil’s One Tip
RESOURCES & LINKS:
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Motivated Leads:
Eat, Sleep, Invest Podcast:
BiggerPickets:
Zillow:
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The most important part of SEO is providing the most value to the user. At the end of the day, the sites that have the best content, the best experience, the best product, the best service are the ones that are going to win. For example, you can optimize the site however much you want, but if everyone’s searching for cheap laptop and you’re offering the same laptop, you’re offering the same laptop as me, but you’re at a $1000 and I’m at $500, I’m the one who’s going to eventually rank high because everyone’s like half the cost for the same product. So everyone’s going to be clicking on my listing and buying from me. That’s an example of like, it doesn’t matter how much you optimize, right? It is important, don’t get me wrong, but a good product and service really goes a long way.
Links are super important. Think of links as votes. The more people voting for a president, the more chances are that president wins. They say, the reason I say chances is because it’s also state by state basis where winner takes all in the United States. But generally speaking, for most elections, it is whoever gets the most of votes wins. Same with the internet. Whoever gets the most votes on the internet, a vote being a link. So the more websites that link to yours, the better off you are. But there are some caveats to it. If I was running for presidency and Obama went out on the campaign and said, I’m voting for Neil, you should you know, elect him and then President Bush came out and says, I’m voting for Neil as well, you should go and vote for him. Those are people who are known to be in politics and were presidents. So if they say hey you should vote for Neil, there’s more likely chance that I’m going to, those votes count for more. Even though they apply for one vote, they really sway a lot more people because they’re ex-presidents. So that’s an example of how you want to get a quality link.
In Google Analytics there’s something called first touch and last touch. It’ll actually show you what caused someone to first come to your website and then convert and what cause them to convert or what did they see right before they convert it. So then you can see like some of these informational keywords that are top of the funnel that really help get people into your community and then you can end up going down and then you can see what are the keywords that really drive the majority of the sales. But you need both, right?
I don’t really look at like what new algorithm update they’re going to do. I found that the key is you just do what’s best for the user and you win in the long run. Short run, sometimes you get dinged but long run you typically win. Do not obsess about an algorithm update obsess about the user Because that’s what Google’s doing. So if you obsess about the user you’re focusing on the right thing, not the wrong one.
Create content. If you don’t create good content, you’re not going to rank well. Be patient. You know like even if you do SEO, whether you do it yourself or hire someone or doesn’t matter, don’t expect the world within three to six months. You got to be patient, you got to be consistent, you got to do it for years and you’ll really crush it. But you got to be patient.
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– Do not obsess about an
algorithm update obsessed About the user Because that's what Google's doing. So if you obsessed about the user, You're focusing on the right
thing, not the wrong one. – That's huge advice there. (upbeat music) Hey, welcome back everyone
to another episode Of Eat, Sleep, and Invest. I'm your host Bryan Driscoll
and we have Neil Patel. What's going on Neil? – Not much. How's life? – It's going. It's going. Hey, so for anybody who doesn't know Neil, Neil crushes it. You're like the godfather of SEO, right? – I dunno about that. But I got started early in
the digital marketing arena. – Yeah. Give everyone a
little bit of background on Just on everything you have going on. – Sure. So I blog at
neilpatel.com about marketing. I run ad agency called NP Digital, Which stands for Neil Patel Digital. And we help companies of all sizes grow From really large corporations Like Fortune 100 to even
SMBs and mid-size companies. Some of our clients, funny
enough, are property managers. Some of them are decent size companies That have maybe a few thousand units Between different buildings that they own. But yeah, we just help
companies get more traffic, Get more leads, get more
sales, get more, you know, Tenants, whatever you may
want to end up calling, Depending on the industry.
And yeah, we've just been doing this For like 20 plus years now. Kind of love it. – Yeah. All right, cool. So, talking about SEO, So you've been in this since like Google Started pretty much, And I know what do you think
the most important part Of the, of SEO is? – The most important part of SEO is Providing the most value to the
user. At the end of the day, The sites that have the best content, The best experience, the best product, The best service are the
ones that are going to win. For example, you can optimize the site However much you want, But if everyone's
searching for cheap laptop And you're offering the same laptop, You're offering the same laptop as me, But you're at a $1000 and I'm at $500, I'm the one who's going
to eventually rank high Because everyone's like half
the cost for the same product. So everyone's going to
be clicking on my listing And buying from me. That's an example of like, It doesn't matter how
much you optimize, right? It is important, don't get me wrong, But like a good product and the service Really goes a long way. – Yeah, I agree there too Because Google's primary
job is to give answers To people what they're searching, What's what's most relevant. So I think a lot of people
get held up on that.
– You got it right. When someone does a search, They're searching for a
solution to their problem. Cheap laptop, you know, What's the best way to make a basement? Is it ICF or is it, you know, You do the wood, then
you add the concrete. Is LVL better than steel framing Or you know, how are steel
studs, can they bear weight? Like people are looking
for questions to an answer. And then this question is
who provides the best answer? – Now, you do you still do a
lot of your writing yourself? I know you're used to. – I do. We have a team that updates
a lot of my old piece Of content. I don't write
as much as I used to, But I still write quite a bit of content. – Yeah. Now what do you find, Not necessarily between
long form and short form, But talking about
relevance, things like that. Do you still recommend
like the pillar posts Having a long informational
one that breaks off Into more detailed pieces? Or how do you recommend people do that If they want to do a pretty
detailed informational piece? – Well, well let's go back a little bit. Most of the people are
listening are in real estate. What do they specifically
do in real estate? – Yeah, mainly investing. These guys are buying houses, Fixing them, flipping them,
or keeping them as rentals. – Are they raising money? – Some of them will be, yeah. – And then some of them are
looking for better opportunities
Of course, right? So you want to end up creating content Where people want to
end up working with you, Partnering with you, investing in you, Working with you. Could be they find you better deals Learning from you or doing
something cheaper rate So that way they can help
you out and learn from you. Investing in you of course
gets you more capital So you can end up buying more properties. But let's say you create a social content And if you create a content on like, This is why you shouldn't buy a house, These are the bad buys. Everyone's saying that
the market's going up And there's no, or market's
going down and there's no deals. Here's an example of
how you can make money In a bad economy. Here's examples of what you shouldn't buy. You know, even if the
market is frothy or bad, These are just bad deals. And like if you tear someone
down on social content, I think that'll do really well. If you are trying to
create your own website Or if you should ideally create your own Website with the portfolio
of all the products you did, The returns. I would also start creating articles On like what to look for when
you're renovating a house. How do you find a diamond in the rough? You know, how ugly houses
create better returns Than beautiful houses. And
then you can talk about How you can buy the ugly houses, What you need to do, what things sell,
Like kitchens really sell a house. School districts sell a house. The other thing that I'll
end up breaking down, Like in real estate if I was
doing a real estate website is I would be very, very specific. So with my content, I wouldn't just do generic stuff on like, Here's how to get rich doing real estate. That doesn't work really well. You got to get very granular. Like here's how you fix up low end houses. Here's how you make money on
luxury coastal real estate. Here's how you make money on multi-family Complexes that have more
than a hundred units. Here's how you do well with
four plexus, five plexus, Six plexus, et cetera like small amounts. So I'm getting very specific
as you can see, right? Like if I was into high
rise luxury condos, I would have a blog just
for high rise luxury condos. I would also talk about things like, Hey, it's harder to flip these Unless you get appreciation
because the HOA dues, So the rental economics aren't
as great due to the HOA dues. – Okay. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the phrases like our guys Are targeting like sell my, Like people would Google
sell my house fast, Sell my house for cash, Cash home buying companies,
things like that. – Yeah. So, if you want to
do like sell my home fast, You can write articles on like What's the quickest way to sell
your house at a good price. And then you create like step by steps. Here are the companies
that help with that.
This is what you should look for When you're talking to these people. This is how you know
you're getting a good deal. Here's how long you can expect it to close And get the cash. Things like that. – Yeah, gotcha. I'm sure you've seen it. What do you think about
all these AI content Writing things that came out? Like Open AI, Jasper,
all that kind of stuff. – They're not bad to get you a start, But they don't really write
a great piece of content. – Yeah, that's what I've seen too. It's, like you almost have
to think from the user's Standpoint, like you were saying before, What's going to answer their problem, Give them that stuff and then optimize it So that the, so Google and the
search engines can actually Know what it's like, know
what it's about also. – Exactly you got to write. – How do you, how do you make, Like I see a lot of people When they're writing their content, They're not easy to read and not personal. Like do you have any tips for people, Especially people that don't write a lot On how to make that relatable? – Yeah, so the biggest one is You want to use the words you and I a lot. Now here's an example of it. Let's say I'm writing an article on like How to sell your home really fast. I'm like, doesn't it
suck to list your house
And wait 60, 80, 90 days on average? I know the feeling. I remember when I sold
my house a few years ago, It sat on the market for
six months I kid you not, And that wasn't that bad. If you actually look at this quote By the Real Estate Association of America, The average home sits
on the market 73 days. Now here's a crazy thing. Why should it be that way? There must be a way to sell
your home really fast, right? Wouldn't that be a dream for all of us? I know it would've been for me, But here's a crazy thing, With technology and with real estate being Such a old market, There are now ways to actually
sell your home really quickly And save on a lot of fees. So here's how you can
actually sell your home Really quickly. And I wish someone would've told me this When I was selling my last home. I just made that up. – I can tell you got a lot of
experience. It's off the cuff. – Yeah. I wrote a lot of articles over my years. – No, and that's good too Because especially for people that don't Know how, not necessarily
don't know how to write But don't write a lot. A lot of people I think
get held up in their head. It's like, oh I got to do this, do this, Make this real proper. And like you were just saying,
That's really relatable. Someone reads that, they're like, Oh this guy seems legit. Maybe I should reach out to him. – Yeah, but you get how I'm relating, Telling stories using the words, Talking about my own experiences. Those are all examples. Any stats and data you can use helps. I made up the National Real
Estate Association of America Or whatever I call that I
don't know if that even exists, But there must be some stats somewhere On how long a home sits on the market Before a sell in the United States. – Yeah. All right, cool. That, that makes sense. So let's talk a little bit
about link building, right? So back in the day we used
to be able to spam links Out in rank like crazy. Like what do you, what do you think now? What's going on with
link building these days? – Yeah, so links are super important. Think of links as votes. The more people voting for a president, The more chances are that president wins. They say, the reason I
say chances is because It's also state by state basis Where winner takes all
in the United States. But generally speaking, For most election it is whoever
gets the most of votes wins. Same with the internet. Whoever gets the most
votes on the internet, A vote being a link. So the more websites that link to yours,
The better off you are. But there's some caveats to it. If I was running for presidency
and Obama went out on Campaign and said, I'm voting
for Neil, you should you know, Elect him and then President Bush came out And says, I'm voting for Neil as well, You should go and vote for him. Those are people who are
known to be in politics And were presidents. So if they say hey you
should vote for Neil, There's more likely
chance that I'm going to, Those votes count for more. You get what I mean? Even though they apply for one vote, They really sway a lot more people Because they're ex-presidents. So that's an example of how
you want to get quality link. So if it's authoritative
site, like a New York Times, CNN or anything that's related, Like if you're in real estate And have you heard of Bigger Pockets? – Oh yeah. – Of course you have. That's an example of a
popular real estate website. Like if they link to you or
Zillow or one of those sites, That helps more with rankings. So it's relevancy and authority. So if you get either of
those, it helps more. The spammy stuff doesn't
really do well or carry much And it's just short term And that's not going to help
you win out in the long run. – Yeah. What do you think
about the guys out there Selling link packages, things like that. Like gimme three grand or whatever.
– It doesn't work. – Yeah, I see that too. It works like short period of time And then your website could
disappear or whatever, you know? – Yeah. Some companies sell link packages But they're manually done And they're not buying
them, which is the key. You don't want them to buy them And they look at your website first And they actually look at your content And they try to figure
out if they can actually Build you links. Because if someone just
sells you a link package And they don't know your content And they don't know your space, It's going to be really
hard for them to fulfill Unless they're buying them And you don't want any bot
links going to your website. – Yeah. How about PBNs? I know. – No avoid those too short run Maybe they'll help, long run They're definitely going to hurt you. – Yeah. Give everyone a little, Just like a short
description on what a PBN is If they don't know what it is. – So PBN stands for Private Blog Network, That's someone owning
a lot of domain names In their own websites And then they'll link to you From their own properties. So it's really easy for them to add links Because they control the inventory. – Yeah.
Basically manipulating the search engine Or at least trying to. – Correct. – On like on links. So, these guys are all local Mainly all investors are local. What are your thoughts on going after? Like I know a lot of people
donate to the Cub Scouts, Things like that and they get links back From those websites. They're not necessarily real
estate but they're local. What do you think on those? – Those aren't too effective. You shouldn't be donating for links. You should be donating because
you want to support a cause, You want ideally links from
local communities and sites And don't try to donate to get a link, Just get it because you earned it Because the quality of your content Or you're doing great
stuff within the community. – So basically, yeah,
write kickass content And have people link back to you. – Exactly. Like a great example of this, I was at the grocery store this weekend, Saw some boy scouts, okay, I could have kept, you know, I gave him money for some
popcorn, they sell popcorn, I gave the kid a hundred dollars, He wasn't selling anything
and it's hot here in Vegas. So I gave him a hundred dollars. I took a bag of popcorn. I'm pretty sure a bag of popcorn Doesn't cost a hundred dollars. I didn't ask him what it cost,
I just took something
because it makes him feel Like he sold it and he
got a hundred dollars. So he was ecstatic. He tried to giving me a
change and I didn't care. I was like nah, keep the change. – That's cool. – I didn't ask him for anything, right? I didn't care if for more popcorn, I didn't care for any additional benefit. I didn't care for them to be
like, hey do you got a website? Can you link to me or any of that? The purpose of donating is Because it makes you happy. It fulfills something in your heart And don't do it for links. – Yeah and you know what, You probably made that kid's day too. He was probably pumped. – I don't know if he was
pumped. His dad said thank you. He technically was there with his dad So he wasn't really by himself. But I remember his dad came
after me as we were walking away Because I only picked one bag of popcorn. He's like, you should try this one too. And he gave it to me and I was like, okay. I didn't want to be rude, right? So then I wasn't trying
to take the popcorn Because I wanted look boy scouts. I don't know how that kind of stuff works, But I was like kid selling something. He's doing something good in
life, learning some skills. He's not there selling drugs or whatever. And when is a hundred degrees outside, You got to respect someone's hustle
For trying to sell popcorn
in terrible weather. – A hundred percent. So now, so you write your blogs, right? You, you have all this, All this content in
your website by the way, How much, how many
visitors do you currently Get organically on your
site now on neilpatel.com? – Honestly, I don't look
millions, but I don't look. – Yeah, it looked at me. I checked that it looked
like three four million From what I saw per month. – We stopped checking and
we have so many other sites Too that are really popular. But like I just stopped checking. – Yeah. – Because like it doesn't matter. I'll look at on a monthly
basis how many qualified leads Are we driving and how many
of those leads convert into Opportunities and of those
opportunities, how many close. Traffic's abandoning number, right? Like I can write articles
on how to get the most Amount of Instagram followers
and get a load more traffic. But that's not going to
get me any big clients. – You know that brings
up a good point too. So say say we're talking about traffic, We got like transactional traffic, Informational traffic
and you're talking about Looking at the KPIs. What, do you look at when doing content And trying to bring the
right types of people To your website? – So in Google Analytics there's something Called first touch and last touch. It'll actually show you what
caused someone to first come
To your website and then convert And what cause them to convert Or what did they see right
before they convert it. So then you can see like some
of these informational keyword That are just top of level, That are top of funnel that
really help get you people Into your community and then
you can end up going down And then you can see what are the keywords That really drive the
majority of the sales. But you need both, right? Because you want to build awareness And the trust factor as well. And you can use tools like
Ubersuggest to find them out. You can put in any competitor URL And it'll tell you all their, It'll tell you all their keywords That they're going after and
what's driving them traffic. – Now Ubersuggests that's
ubersuggests.com right? Okay so that's a tool you,
when did you make that? Was that like six years ago or something? – No, someone else made it And then we bought it for like 120 grand Years and years ago and
then we improved upon it. – Okay. Yeah I heard you
talking a long time ago. It's before you charge anything for it, You're like we're just going
to give it away for free And keep making it awesome And figure out how to make
money on it in the future. Which I don't think you even
really charge a lot for it now. – Like I think like 10, 20
bucks or something like that, 30, I don't know, Somewhere in the price range, That's what happens when
you have a lot of people. You end up forgetting a lot of stuff
Because there's just so
many different divisions And people and you know,
we're expanding so fast. I think we just added Germany That we're looking to add in France, Italy, soon, Spain, Portugal, We'll add Malaysia and Singapore soon. Not just for the tool but tool Is already works globally
but it's more so headcount And offices within these regions. – So, like you're obviously crushing it. Like what are your goals now? Like what really what's
really making you tick? Is it grown buying other businesses Or growing your business or what? – Growing my own business. We do buy other businesses. We bought a business in February
for like eight and change I think 8.6 is what we paid for it. Something like, I don't know exactly, But it was somewhere
around that price tag. It was a Euro conversion or
not Euro pound conversion Dollars to pounds. It was a company in the UK. But yeah, we keep buying stuff. We try to keep growing organically And we just love what we're doing. Want to create the biggest
digital advertising Or marketing agency out
there and I think we can, We'll probably have a long way to go But if I fast forward five years, We'd probably be at two, 3000 employees. So hopefully we can keep
growing and cranking. – That's pretty solid. Yeah, you have crazy, crazy growth too.
Yeah. You're growing really quickly. When you write your blogs. So how much, cause I
know you sent an email, What is it, once a week. – Twice a week usually sometimes three. – Okay. What made you
come up with a PS in the, The call to action in the PS section? – It converts, if you send out emails, But PS if you want to sell
your house really quickly, Click here this works really well. You'll end up getting a lot of leads. – Yeah. Because I see that a lot I'm like, I'm like that's genius
you're sending out content Giving value like most
people send out content, Hey do you want to sell your house? They're like just asking for things. You're giving something And then it's like, hey here's an awesome Piece of content on how to rank, How to rank with these 10 steps. And then, oh by the way, if
you need help we can help you. – Exactly. Because a lot of people won't do it So then you're just selling
them at the same time But you're selling them
without really selling them. Because you'll be like more like You're selling by helping them. – Right. And I noticed too that you have, How do you choose the anchor text is, It looks like you link
twice per email, right? – Once, sometimes twice. At least once though. And there's no anchor text. We do the anchor texts based on what
We think is going to get the most clicks. – Okay, gotcha. Do you use any, you have, you use, You have heat mapping software
too that you guys own, right? – Crazy yeah. – Yeah. So tell everyone that doesn't understand What heat mapping is a little bit about Because they can grab that software From you as well. – So think of you got a website, You're trying to get people to buy, Sell their houses to you really fast, You're getting the traffic, How do you know they're clicking
on your call to actions, Your form skills, Your phone numbers and
it's in the right place And you're optimizing
how many leads you get From your website. The heat mapping software shows you Where they're moving,
their mouse movements, Where they're clicking, Where they're not, And what typically will drive the most What you need to adjust with your site So that way you can get the most revenue From those visitors. – Yeah, which is huge. Especially on conversion tracking. – Yeah. – What, so what do you
see coming on the local, Local SEO space like with
Google and everything? Like what kind of changes
are you anticipating? – I don't, they make a lot
of algorithm changes per day.
Most of them are minor. I don't really look at like What new algorithm update
they're going to do. I found that the key is
you just do what's best For the user and you win in the long run. Short run, sometimes you get dinged But long run you typically win. Do not obsess about an algorithm update Obsess about the user Because that's what Google's doing. So if you obsess about
the user you're focusing On the right thing, not the wrong one. – That's huge advice there. Like everyone go back and listen to that Because people are always talking about, Hey, what's Google doing? What's the algorithm? If you focus on what is
going to help the user, It's playing by Google's rules And you should get rewarded. Like that's huge. – Yeah. Because most people are like, Oh I need to obsess about Google. Well Google's obsessed about the user. So why would you obsess about Google? Obsess about the thing
they're obsessing about Because that's how you win. – Exactly. Yeah. Are you, how much do you
do in the other spaces Like Facebook, Google Pay Per Click, TikTok, things like that? – We do quite a bit. We do
all of the main channels. Reddit, Pinterest, Facebook,
TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, like the list goes on and on.
– What's the top one that most
people wouldn't think about? – We love LinkedIn. It works really well. TikTok funny enough Is starting to do really well
for people to generate leads, Especially in real estate
but people ignore it. – Are you talking about the paid ads On LinkedIn and TikTok or organic? – Organic. Okay. Like you can create a
TikTok video on like, Here's how to sell your house in one week. You get step one, do
this, step two, do this. Step three, do this, step four, This is how I know you got a good deal, Step five, like the deal, take it, Step six, don't like the deal, go here And then rinse and repeat. – That's solid yeah. And I do see this, the tips like, Like you're talking about right there too, They're what's getting engagement. That's what people want to see. All right, cool. Well we're almost out of time. What is the one tip that you'd
give real estate investors In the SEO space? – Create content. If you don't create good content, You're not going to rank well. – Okay. That yeah. Good answer. Good answer. Is there anything else we missed? Just talking like on a basic level. – Be patient.
You know like even if you do SEO, Whether you do it yourself or hire someone Or doesn't matter, Don't expect the world
within three to six months. You got to be patient,
you got to be consistent, You got to do it for years
and you'll really crush it. But you got to be patient. – Yeah, that is true too Because yeah, a lot of people I know, Even from experience way back in the day, You make a change on your website And then you keep tweaking it, Try to make it right or you're not patient And then you just go nowhere. – Yep. – Oh, hey, one other
question I wanted to ask you On the, are you have any tips on ranking, Not necessarily in the real estate space, But just in general in the news. News sections for like
bigger publications. – Right on card events, You can find out what's
happening through tools like AnswerThePublic and Google Trends. You can see what's hot right now. Right on those and I'll, You're more likely to
show up in Google News. – Cool. And if anybody ne wants
to reach out to you Is looking for your help, What's the best way for them to reach you? – NP Digital, N as in Nancy,
P as in Paul digital.com. – Hey, well thanks for coming on Neil. We appreciate you. – Thanks for having me.
