In this interview, Neil discusses his proven secrets and strategies for creating a successful blog. Digital marketing is ever-changing and it’s important to be adaptable. But how?
0:00 Intro
0:53 The biggest shift in marketing
5:33 Personal brand in a blog
9:23 Business brand from a blog
10:35 How to niche down
11:35 You need to do this
13:33 How to start writing content
15:18 Optimizing Content
16:45 How to grow your business
20:33 Neil’s Blog Creation
RESOURCES & LINKS:
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Ubersuggest:
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Clubhouse:
Rev:
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The big shift that we’re seeing right now in marketing is that marketing changes super fast. In 2001, if you put the keyword that you’re trying to rank for in the title of the page, you used to rank pretty easily. By 2003 if you did that, it wasn’t as easy and that was the speed then. Now, of course, it changes much more rapidly. There are many more algorithm updates, at least when it comes to SEO. There are many more platforms on Facebook. MySpace was, back in the day it was popular, but now Facebook, Instagram, everyone’s talking about, but the list goes on and on. So things change, times change, and the big thing that I ended up learning is whatever you think is working isn’t going to work forever in the long run, so you better learn how to adapt and keep learning. And that’s one of the best things you can have if you want to do well in marketing is the ability to learn and continually get better.
Is it easy to gain popularity on LinkedIn right now, yes, why? Roughly around 3% of the people on LinkedIn only post content which means a majority of the people don’t post content. They want more people to post content. Now if LinkedIn had 30% of its people posting content. You just got to get creative and that’s why in marketing, I think one of the best skill sets is creativity. Yeah, sure, you can read and learn, but if you can’t think outside the box especially when everyone else is doing the same thing, you’re not going to do well. There are so many people with more money, more employees, and more resources. You got to really think outside the box to win.
Be consistent, everyone expects results right away. So there are two things, right? One, you have to be consistent and two, you have to be persistent. So persistence, you keep pushing. Consistent is you have to do it on a regular basis. So if you’re blogging, blog once, twice, or three times a week. But you got to do that for a long period of time. It used to be where you can be popular or grow your traffic within three to six months, or one month, or even a year, but now it really takes two to three years to really see the results and that’s where most people fail. It’s not that they’re doing the wrong things. They just don’t do it long enough.
It’s still very possible to rank, just not in the short run. If you want results within three months, you’re not going to do that. Well, if you have an old established site, sure you can. But generally speaking, you need to give it a year to two years and you can do well even in the UK. But the problem is most people don’t want to invest the time and the money for that long before they see results because you’re burning the money and you’re not really generating any revenue in the short run. But that also creates an amazing moat because most people aren’t willing to invest the money.
If you are writing an article about a credit score but don’t talk about the credit score in the article, it wouldn’t be as thorough, right? So if you talked about credit score which you should, it’ll be a little bit longer. So don’t think about the article as in how long it should be. Think about did I cover everything that needs to be covered. The second thing is it needs to be fresh and updated. So after six months is old. Are some of the things antiquated and need to be updated? If so, you need to keep updating. The third thing is when you have that content, you want to keep it on your blog first but share it on the social web, and a week later by all means, repost it on Medium, LinkedIn posts, Facebook posts, and the list can go on and on. There’s nothing wrong with repurposing and duplicating the content ’cause it just gives more awareness to you.
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(light music)
– You got to make sure You're including the key words. You got to make sure it flows, It's appealing, it's conversational. And then from there… (bright music) – So Neil Patel, thank you for giving up Your time this afternoon, But I understand it's this
morning where you are. – That's right, thank you for having me. – For the audience who haven't met you yet Which is crazy if they
haven't seen you online Or in marketing in some
way, shape, or form, Do you want to do a little bit Of an introduction for yourself? – Sure, I blog at neilpatel.com Where I blog about marketing,
sometimes entrepreneurship. Other than that, I have an ad agency Called Neil Patel Digital, Named after me funny enough, Where we help companies grow their traffic And their revenue online, And I have a marketing
software called Ubersuggest. – What do you think have been The biggest shifts in marketing? – Yeah, the big shift that we're seeing Right now in marketing And keep in mind, I was
doing marketing before 2003, But 2003 is when I really
got into it, right? Marketing changes super fast. In 2001, if you put the keyword That you're trying to rank
for in the title of the page, You used to rank pretty easily. By 2003 if you did that,
It wasn't as easy And that was the speed then. Now of course, it changes
much more rapidly. There's many more algorithm updates, At least when it comes to SEO. There's many more platforms from Facebook. MySpace was, back in
the day it was popular, But now Facebook, Instagram,
everyone's talking about, But the list goes on and on. So things change, times change, And the big thing that I ended up learning Is whatever you think is working Isn't going to work
forever in the long run, So you better learn how to
adapt and keep learning. And that's one of the
best things you can have If you want to do well in
marketing is the ability to learn And continually get better. – That's a principle for
business though, isn't it really? The ability to be able to
change and inspire the team And people on your team
really don't like change Has been one of the big
things that I've seen, But it's a natural progression. You have to completely
continually keep pivoting And changing as journeys go And the business grows, right? – Exactly. – Yeah, so I've heard a saying That the 2010s, for
example, in social media Were very much a case
of building audience, Building communities, building following Which now kind of moving into the 2020s, It's all pretty much all about ads. Everyone's got 5,000 friends. There's groups and communities
With hundreds of thousands
of people in them. Facebook's got a monetize. Other social media platforms
have got a monetize. So kind of the personal brand element Is becoming harder to build organically And you must be using ads. What's kind of your thoughts behind that? – Yeah, totally agree, ads
funny enough won't go away. They want to continually
charge you for more reach. That's how these platforms make money. When you look at the organic
reach, it's harder, harder, But here's the thing. There's new platforms
that always come around And make it easier to get reach. For example, I was on Clubhouse
literally right before we Ended up doing this
podcast interview, okay? And I started with 100
and something followers. I joined a room, talked
for literally 30 seconds, And now I have 400 and
something followers. Now is it going to be that
easy to gain followers on Clubhouse if they
maintain their popularity And their growth rate
within a year or two? Of course not, right? Is it easy to gain popularity On LinkedIn right now, yes, why? Less than 3% or roughly
around 3% of the people On LinkedIn only post content Which means majority of the
people don't post content. They want more people to post content. Now if LinkedIn had 30% of
their people posting content. Do you think you would
gain as much followers And reach when you post your content? Of course not, and why? Because there's
competition already getting
What they're looking for. So these platforms will
encourage you really early on And give you what you want. But the moment they
start doing well enough Where they don't need it as much, Then they turn the little
knobs and throttle it And that way they start making more money. But it doesn't mean you
can't grow in marketing. You just got to get creative And that's why in marketing, I think one of the best
skill sets is creativity. Yeah, sure, you can read and learn, But if you can't think outside the box Especially when everyone
else is doing the same thing, You're not going to do well. There's so many people with more money, More employees, more resources. You got to really think
outside the box to win. – Yeah, that's why quite a
lot of people have made it With the likes of TikTok and
things like that, haven't they? Because they've been able to do things. I've seen people in the mortgage space Which is my background
who are doing crazy things From a marketing perspective That you just wouldn't put
such a professional industry With the stuff they're doing, But their pages and profiles
are blowing up because of it. – Exactly, and what's funny is it's I know Real estate agents who have done well Purely because of LinkedIn. One of my buddies, Todd,
who's in the mortgage industry Has gotten quite a few
customers from LinkedIn as well. Who would've ever thought the, right? But you can end up getting
business from these sites
And these platforms if you participate. – Yeah, that's exactly it, isn't it? You only get out what you put
in effectively from doing it. And I think one of the
things that dawned on me When you said earlier. Right at the very beginning you said You set up the website neilpatel.com. One of my first lessons Because in my first 10 years of business, I basically didn't know marketing Which is why I'm so
passionate about it now. My journey in marketing started 2016. But one of the first lessons I learned Was don't name things after you. Do not call your business
Gary- Mortgage Broker. You know you need a bigger brand Because otherwise it only
just becomes about you. So what prompted you to go that route? – So what was funny is
when I first started off In the marketing realm, right? Forget my first business, But let's go into the marketing realm Because that's when I really started. When I looked at that, My first ad agency was called ACS. Got crushed during 2008, During the financial crisis, right? The mortgage industry at least in the US. I don't know how it was on
the other side of the pond. – Horrendous. (light music) – So when you think about it
from that perspective, right? That business was gone, had
some software companies. Neilpatel.com was a place for me
To just blog about marketing. I didn't expect my brand to grow. I was just blogging on marketing Because it was fun, it was my passion. It has nothing to do with business. Eventually my team's like we should go And create a ad agency, right? One of my buddies, Mike,
who's now my co-founder, And I was like eh, that's a
lot of work, I don't know. And we're thinking about names And what was funny is he's like, "Look, everyone's trying
to pay you for marketing. They're not trying to pay me. They're not trying to pay someone else Because you have such
a loyal blog audience." At that time my blog was getting Maybe four or 500,000 visitors. He's like, "We should end up naming The ad agency after you," And that's how it ended up starting And then we took it from there. Now here's the issue when you
name something after yourself. Tony Robbins is only so big. LeBron James is only so big. Ronaldo is only so big. These brands are not as big
as Apple, Google, Amazon And the list goes on and on. I am stuck in that boat. My brand is nowhere near
the size of Ronaldo, LeBron James, or any of those people And so my personal brand is much smaller Which means my total amount of money That I can probably make is
going to be smaller as well. But when Tony Robbins passes away
And I hope he never does, amazing guy, I don't know him, but great content And we all eventually pass away. At least currently there's not technology To keep us around longer, what Do you think is going to happen
to the Tony Robbins brand? It may not go to zero, But it's not going to be worth the same Compared to when Tony Robbins was around. And that's the issue
that we all end up facing That people don't really think about In which look, if you have
a brand around yourself, It's harder to make it everlasting. And in my space, sure,
there's been some people That have created a brand That'll last a very long time like Ogilvy. He passed away, known as one
of the best ad execs out there. There's people like Michael Jordan. When he passes away, I think his shoes will
still be super popular. But I think that list is really tiny And if I recommended
people to go with a brand, I would tell him don't
build a personal brand. People don't want to buy personal brands. Then you have this key man syndrome In which if something happens to you, The business goes away. – Yeah, that was the
message that I kind of took And it's that three elements
of brands, isn't it? You have the personal brand
which is you, Neil Patel. But if you had the business brand, It can live on after you And then you can create product brands Underneath the different businesses
Or the business as such. So have you not given any thought To releasing a business brand And kind of slowly pivoting, Or do you think it would
have too much of a hindrance? – We think it would impact
the business in negative way. So we took the ad agency. We changed it from Neil Patel
Digital to NP Digital, right? Because it's just initials, Not everyone will know it's around me. But what's funny is when our sales reps Still talk to people, They say they want to hire Neil. So that doesn't help. We created a software
product called Ubersuggest And that product, not named after me So it's standalone which is great And we'll continue to
spin off more like that, But it's just a long journey. – Yeah, and when you
started your ad agency, You said you'd been blogging And you built that blog up, And that enabled you, Your team wanted to
move into an ad agency. Did your ad agency initially
only deal with blogs and SEO Or did it kind of go out
wider and further than that? – We only ended up starting with SEO And then we added paid
media, so paid advertising. Now we'll do things like
CRO, and affiliate marketing, And email marketing, and
the list goes on and on, But eventually we expanded to many areas. We don't do all of them, But we do the majority. – So that brings, I'm glad you said that
Because that nicely leads
into my next question Which is how important do you think From a marketing perspective
it is to start with a niche? – I think it's important. Marketing is super competitive. If you don't start with the niche, You're going to be screwed. I think you need a niche down And then after you do well in that niche, Then expand, but start smaller. There's nothing wrong with starting small And then growing from there. – Yeah, I think that's
a business principle That applies out. I started in self-employed mortgages And solely but surely we branched it out, Branched the business out over time. That's now led into
coaching, and mentoring, And teaching, and training,
and courses, et cetera And I think that wouldn't have happened If I'd have been a generalist And not focused on one particular area Because in a smaller pond, You can be a bigger fish
potentially, can't you? That's the thing. Yeah, so what's one of the must-do things That you think people need
to do now in marketing then? – Be consistent, everyone
expects results right away. So there's two things, right? One, you have to be consistent And two, you have to be persistent. So persistence, you keep pushing. Consistent is you have to
do it on a regular basis. So if you're blogging,
Blog once, twice, three times a week. You're participating on social media, You got to participate
multiple times a week. But you got to do that
for a long period of time. It used to be where you can be popular Or grow your traffic
within three to six months, Or one month, or even a year, But now it really takes two to three years To really see the results And that's where most people fail. It's not that they're
doing the wrong things. They just don't do it long enough. – Yeah, I think the blogging side, I dunno what it's like
here in the US or wherever, But in the UK certainly
the thing that I've heard Is it's almost impossible to rank for SEO. – They say that in the UK. They say that in the US. They say that in Australia. It's still very possible to rank, Just not in the short run. If you want results within three months, You're not going to do that. Well, if you have an old
established site, sure you can. But generally speaking you need to give it A year to two years And you can do well even in the UK. But the problem is most people
don't want to invest the time And the money for that long
before they see results Because you're burning the money And you're not really
generating any revenue In the short run. But that also creates an amazing moat Because most people aren't
willing to invest the money.
– Yeah, everyone's looking for
the quick win, aren't they? And as you mentioned, three years. So you mentioned there
two to three blogs a week Which is going to be 100 to 150 blogs Over the course of two, three years. That's some commitment to keep doing For the consistency in
the persistence of it. – Yeah, and it's expensive. If you're not writing for yourself, Let's say you're paying
100 pounds per blog post And you do three a week, right? You're looking at over 150 a year, right? It adds up very, very fast. Over three years, that's a ton of money. – So how do people who are starting out And want to write content, I'm a massive video fan. I love being on video. It's so much easier. You can equally create the
written and the audio out of it, So it's a massive leverage of time. But for those who don't want
to put their faces on video, How can they even try to dominate In terms of they've just
literally got to write Three blogs a week. Is there a a perfect length Or a place to post them? Is it website now? Is it LinkedIn articles, is it Medium? How do you focus that? – Yeah, so the length is whatever
length provides the reader With everything they need to know. So if I creating an article
on self-employed mortgages, I would talk about everything.
How to qualify, what sizes are easy, What do you need a show to qualify, What banks offer these mortgages? I'm making this up Because I don't know much About self-employed mortgages period. So the more detailed you get, the better. For example, we have something In the US called credit score. I don't know if there's
a credit score in the UK. – Yeah, yeah. – If you didn't talk about the
credit score in the article, It wouldn't be as thorough, right? So if you talked about credit
score which you should, It'll be a little bit longer. So don't think about the article As in how long it should be. Think about did I cover everything
that needs to be covered? The second thing is is it
needs to be fresh and updated. So after six months is old. Are some of the things antiquated And need to be updated? If so, you need to keep updating. The third thing is when
you have that content, You want to keep it on your blog first But share it on the social web And a week later by all means, Repost it on Medium,
LinkedIn post, Facebook posts And the list can go on and on. There's nothing wrong with repurposing And duplicating the content 'cause it just gives
more awareness to you. – Yeah, I see, I see And that's probably the same.
Do you think it's okay
from my perspective then, If I were to do a video And then get that video
transcribed by Rev.com, It's going to need some editing
to make it keyword rich. Or can you just kind of
make it better English Because my spoken English
isn't particularly good And then put it up, and job done? Or do you have to do a
bit more to it than that? – Yeah, you have to do a
little bit more to that. I do the same thing. So we'll create videos. Funny enough, we use Rev.com as well. Transcribe it, they're pretty fast. You still got to modify it Because even the
transcriptions aren't perfect. And even if their
transcriptions were perfect, The way we talk doesn't always work out In a paragraph form for blog content. You got to modify it. You got to make sure you're
including the keywords. You got to make sure it flows, It's appealing, it's conversational. And then from there, you can post it up, But it typically requires
a lot of editing. What we've seen is there's
nothing wrong with that process But sometimes it's just easier to write A blog post from scratch And not transcribe the videos. – Yeah, yeah, that's very true. Maybe start with bullet points And then expand it out
from there perhaps using, I often do my videos with bullet points So maybe it's just taking them from there And then writing the blogs afterwards.
That's actually not a bad idea. I mean, it's a bit more effort, But as you say, It'll probably read a little bit better. – And it'll perform much
better too in the long run. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. So I'm interested, we've
covered a bit around marketing And I know that's your core topic, But I'm always interested. This is aimed at business owners And we get a lot of
self-employed entrepreneurs Who listen to this from
startup through to scale up, And I think how many people
are on your team right now? – I don't know, globally
had to guess, maybe 400. – So 400, so from that- – I honestly don't know. – So one of the things
I'm always interested in, I know I've seen your
kids in your videos before And you're a family man, And how through the journey Of getting to 400 people on your team Which most people listening
to this, let's face it, They're never going to have to deal With businesses of that size. But how have you managed to
maintain a work-life balance Through that journey of
going from what was just you Perhaps initially I would assume And then the scale-up phase? – Amazing managers and partners. That's really it, I'm
not the best operator, So my business partner, Mike. He ends up dealing with all that And I'm not good at that stuff. He's the one who hired
Pretty much almost all the people as well. – Right, so when you started out, Was it in your vision to get to the scale And size that you are now? Or was that more kind of Mike's vision Or it's just happened
organically over the time That you've been doing it? – Happened organically,
neither him or I were like Yeah, we don't care if we have 400, 500, Or 1,000, or even 50. We care for the people, But we don't care about the number. We don't want to fire people, Don't get me wrong on that end. But when we started, We never had this vision
that we want to have 1,000 Employees or 500 or 400. It's we want to create
an amazing environment For all our team members
where they enjoy working. We want to create amazing results For our customers where they're happy And we can help them succeed. But generally speaking, it
just organically happen. I think it's too hard to plan
out how many people you want And typically if you can get
more done with less people, The better off you are. – Yeah, and it definitely stems. You've got that passion for marketing Which is clearly evident And it's what's driven
the business forward For such a long period of time, isn't it? Without that passion front leading it And someone operating it
effectively, as you say, And your operations manager,
Then it just never would've
got to where it was. – Exactly. – Yeah, do you think it's, Has it been stressful for you Over that journey of going through it Or do you think that's mostly been carried By your business partner? – It's mainly through my business partner. I didn't have to deal
with literally anything. – Nice, so what's a typical
day then like for you In terms of coming up? Are you the ideas man And doing all that side of it? – I focus on the marketing traction And going from there. I spend a lot of time
with family, but yeah, no, And then things are growing decently. During times like this, What most people don't
realize is bigger you are, The harder it is to stay afloat, right? You got more expenses, more people. The business may not grow As fast during times
like this which is fine. I look at things And there's way more
people struggling harder And more than me which sucks. I'd rather struggle a little bit more And make sure people have food On their plates at night, stuff like that. But keep in mind, The size isn't always a good thing And the reason I want to emphasize that And especially in the mortgage industry, You see a lot of people that
are like I want a massive team.
I want people dialing,
getting me tons of leads, And closing tons of deals. We have to remember when
you grow really large, It also makes it easier for you
to potentially fail as well. – Yeah, so what's next
for Neil Patel then? Where's your brand and business going? – Just continually grow
or try to at least. Hopefully, I'm going to knock on wood. A little superstitious,
but we'll try to grow And see what happens. – Yeah, are you going to continue
to keep doing the blogging? Do you do the blogging yourself now Or is that leveraged out to somebody else? – Blogging is me, my team
updates 21 old blog posts To keep them fresh that they do. I don't have time to do 21 updates a week, But I rate at least one post a week. – Crazy, nice, so in terms of if people Want to find out more about Neil Patel Or connect with you on socials, What's the best thing and where to go? – NeilPatel.com. – Thanks very much indeed, Neil. (light music) It's been really a
pleasure to have you on. Thanks for sharing your wisdoms
on marketing and business And I look forward to
watching more of you online, – Thanks for having me.
