How To Create A Blog Neil Patel

How Neil Patel Built One of the Most Iconic Marketing Agencies in the Last Decade

Lessons from the guy who failed to find a job, so he started companies that would earn millions of dollars.

Neil Patel's story in entrepreneurship has priceless gems for aspiring entrepreneurs.

If you've ever searched anything related to digital marketing on Google, there's a significant chance you must've landed on Neil Patel's blog. Right? His blog ranks for almost everything under the sun related to digital marketing.

Neil is the co-founder of NP Digital — the ad agency that helps large businesses like Google, eBay, and General Motors grow. Forbes named him as one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies.

Wild dreams of a 16-year-old

Neil started his career at 16. The age when I knew nothing except playing cricket. He started a website where people could find jobs as he failed to find a job for himself. He didn't want to be an entrepreneur, he only started this job board to find a job for himself and help others. He didn't realize, but he was running a business.

Soon, young Neil hired ad agencies to help him grow, but they all ripped him off. He lost his hard-earned money to them. In result, he had to learn digital marketing to grow his job board. He learned it and got visitors to his job agency. Although he didn't earn any money yet, he had gained valuable marketing skills.

This minor success sparked an idea that if he could bring visitors to his website, he can help other businesses grow as well. This idea was the beginning of his digital marketing career.

Neil's story and thoughts — taken from these three interviews and his blog.

Focus on your set of skills + market need

Neil never thought about creating an ad agency until he was running his job board. He got the idea of starting an ad agency after analyzing his skills in digital marketing and realizing that other businesses need efficient ad agencies to help them grow too. This realization led to the creation of his marketing agency.

He found a problem he could solve and took quick action. His first client was a power supply manufacturer. He helped the firm generate over $25 million in sales.

To build credibility, teach the skills you have mastered

Neil has supported his ad agency with his blog, where he teaches digital marketing for free. His blog has been active since 2008. He was an early bidder in this industry, as Facebook had introduced its advertising program just before a year in 2007.

His blog teaches topics like Content Marketing, Email marketing, SEO, paid ads and entrepreneurship.

But why does he teach his skills for free? Isn't he increasing his competition?

The answer is yes; he is increasing his competition by teaching his skills for free. But, if he is the one who teaches, he will always have an extra edge over his competitors.

These are some direct benefits of teaching your skills in a blog or YouTube videos:

Your potential clients will easily recognize your skills and know what they can expect from you.
Blog posts get more traffic by SEO. This traffic results in future customers. Neil Patel's blog ranks for the most competitive keywords in the marketing industry. The keyword "affiliate marketing" gets 49,500 monthly searches and Neil's blog ranks second in Google Search for this high-traffic keyword.
Blog posts get more social shares than sales pages.
Blog posts can help you connect with your customers and make them spend more time on your website.
Prospects say this while reading a fabulous blog post, "Wow, these guys are great, Why don't I just hire them instead of learning this?"

Neil Patel has used blogging cleverly to increase his customer base and build a brand.

Build your personal brand — it's priceless

"I think branding is priceless, the bigger your personal brand the more opportunities you have," Neil.

Ponder on these statistics for a minute.

Content shared by employees receives 8 times more engagement than content shared by brand channels.
Marketers, who prioritize blogging, are 13 times more likely to enjoy positive ROI.
82% of people are more likely to trust a company when their senior executives are active on social media.
92% of people trust recommendations from individuals (even if they don't know them) over companies.

In a nutshell, personal branding can get you more attraction, leads and sales. Personal branding is the tool Neil Patel has used to gain value in the industry.

People don't connect with brand names as fast as they connect with personal brands. Personal brands are easy to relate to. Personal brands stand out in competitive areas.

Neil Patel said that his personal brand has helped him generate millions of dollars. These are some tactics he agrees that you can use to build a valuable personal brand online.

Focus on one channel. Find out where your potential customers spend time and invest in creating content on that platform.
Document your journey. Tell people about how you started and what are your goals. They want to know about your likes and dislikes.
Research topics that people are interested in. Look at Quora, what questions are people asking? Look at Facebook groups, what are people talking about?
Respond to comments. Respond to your audience and make them feel valued.
Do a podcast and go for interviews. Search for influencers who are targeting entrepreneurs from your niche and contact them. Ask them if they'd like to interview you. You will land in front of a convertible audience easily.

I've observed that Neil has also used these tactics to strengthen his personal brand:

He has placed his personal photo on several pages on his website.
The favicon of his blog is his animated photo.
He has been published on renowned websites like Forbes and Entrepreneur.
He dresses like a nerd. His dressing helps him connect with other professionals and tech guys. If he had thick biceps and an immense chest, it would be harder for him to connect with tech geeks who keep sitting in front of their laptops all day.

Connecting with your customers gets easier by building personal brands. Neil is an example. A personal brand can take you from zero to hero.

Study humans to communicate better with them and build a powerful network

"In the business world, people think you have to have the best product and be the smartest to win. It's usually the person who is most liked and the most well-networked that typically wins." Neil Patel.

Neil has always been keen to study psychology. It helps him to connect better with his customers. Understanding the human thinking process as a marketer gives him the insights of his prospects, which helps him win their trust.

Sometimes, humans think from their hearts. If they love you, they forget all your mistakes.

This story from Neil shows how he has used psychology to build a better company and gain profitable clients.

I met a billionaire the other day that I am working with… he's in his late 80s and he's trying to figure out how internet works. I figured out that I can get along with him, I can tell him stories related to me and I was able to get a big seven-figure contract by just teaching him how the internet works few hours every single week. All because he could relate to me and he liked me. He got along and we had tea together and we chilled. It's all about networking.

Neil's advice on how to network better by using human psychology:

Try to figure out what makes you unique versus anyone else.
Try to figure out what appeals to your prospects in life and adapt it (The nerdy clothing hack).
Tell stories that share the same elements which are liked by you and your whom you're communicating with to connect faster.
When someone has money, and you're trying to deal with them, do the opposite. Never try to ask him for anything. Executives get lots of requests for money every day. If you go out asking them for money, you get lost in the crowd. But if you connect with them before pulling money in your conversation, you stand out.

Experiment, learn, apply

"I look at the business as tons of tiny experiments. You don't build a huge business through one simple marketing strategy or tactic."

Humans are programmed to make mistakes and learn. That's how we improve.

Neil grasped the fact that to build a better company, he had to conduct experiments and design the future of his company based on the results of his experiments.

Neil's major experiments

Acquiring Ubersuggest was 1 of the 7 experiments Neil did to grow his website traffic. Fortunately, this worked out. Ubersuggest gets over 1.5 million clicks every month. He discovered the value of giving people a free tool on his website by this experiment.

Likewise, as an experiment, Neil purchased the KISSmetrics website (not the company) for $500,000. Just like Ubersuggest, that website wasn't generating him any revenue. So why would he buy it? He merged the KISSmetrics blog with his original blog and his traffic exploded. That traffic would further lead to paying clients.

That's how Neil embraced experimentation to increase his traffic and revenue in the long term. Remember, only 1 out of 7 experiments worked, that means you have to wait and keep trying until you see results.

Work hard — until you pioneer a change in your industry

Neil is the one who pioneered content marketing. All online businesses do that today, but he discovered it.

Content marketing is the art of creating quality content that brings you easy traffic, leads and conversions. When people see the great content you have, they trust in you.

The lesson here is to get reputed in a competitive market, you can take two roads. 1. Be the first to introduce an enormous change, as Neil did. 2. Have a unique selling point (USP) to stand out in a competitive market.

All this hard work has resulted in the success of Neil Patel and his ad agency, NP digital. Today, his website gets over 3 million monthly visits.