If you’ve been hanging around the 60 Second Marketer for very long, you know that I’m a huge fan of Neil Patel, who is the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He also has a massive following on his QuickSprout blog (which is totally worth subscribing to, by the way).
I’m not Neil’s only fan. The Wall Street Journal has called him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he’s one of the top 10 online marketers, and President Obama recognized him as one of the 100 top entrepreneurs under the age of 30.
The bottom line: Neil Patel is a pretty big deal.
That’s why we were so thrilled to have him on the latest episode of The Jamie Turner Show, where he talked about everything from his work ethic (7 days a week, in case you’re wondering) to his raison d’etre (to become a billionaire by helping other people grow their businesses).
If you’d like to listen to the interview with Neil, you can do so on iTunes, Stitcher, or by scrolling to the podcast player at the bottom of this post.
Of course, if you’re the type of person who likes to get to know someone before you listen to an interview with them, we’ve got you covered.
Here are the top 25 things I’ve learned from Neil by being an avid reader of his content.
- Great Content Leads to Great Engagement: Neil gets about 100 comments per post on his Neil Patel blog (one of five he manages). How does he do that? By writing in-depth, fact-filled articles and then engaging people with additional insights in the comments section.
- Facebook Drives Engagement More Than Twitter or LinkedIn: Facebook doesn’t make up the majority of Neil’s social shares or even traffic, but it is creating the most engagement. For every 500 Twitter visitors to one of his blogs, he receives 3 comments. For every 500 LinkedIn visitors, he receives 5 comments. And for every 500 Facebook visitors, he receives 8 comments.
- Quote Really Smart People to Build Your Personal Brand: Neil recently wrote a post for the Content Marketing Institute entitled How to Write Like a Pro in a New Content Niche. In it, he says that he’ll often leverage other expert’s authority by quoting them in his blog posts. It’s a great way to build other people’s personal brands while building your own, too.
- Have an Opinion: In the future, you’re going to start seeing more of this from me on the 60 Second Marketer website. Sometimes, I default to the “How To” post all-too-frequently. Neil points out, and I agree, that posts with opinions in them are much more interesting to read, which is why we’ll be adding more opinion pieces in the future.
- Use Buzzsumo to Come Up with Ideas: When Neil is doing research on topics to write for one of his blogs, he’ll visit Buzzsumo to check out what other posts have been written on the topic. He’ll then use that inspiration to write a post of his own. (I am so pissed that I’m just learning about this technique now. I could have saved hundreds of hours by using Buzzsumo.)
- Use Qualaroo to Generate Ideas from Visitors: One of Neil’s other techniques is to use a survey tool like Qualaroo to generate blog post ideas from visitors.
- Remove Trackbacks from Your Blog: According the Neil, trackbacks just get in the way of people seeing and reading your comments.
- Use Email Notifications for Comments: Use email notifications to let previous commenters know when new comments have been left. Neil uses the Subscribe to Comments plugin for this.
- Use Return Path to Increase Email Deliverability: Return Path’s Certification program helps ‘Best-in-Class’ email marketers reach their maximum inbox placement rate by simply following and maintaining the program’s proprietary standards.
- Stick to Your Schedule: It’s a good idea to have a regular posting schedule and to stick with it. Wither it’s once a week or once a month, stick with the program because it builds credibility and trust.
- Stick to Your Time of Day: You’ll notice that the 60 Second Marketer e-newsletter is delivered in the mornings. Neil follows the same technique. That’s because most people read blogs in the morning rather than in the afternoon or evening.
- Use Yoast to Improve Your SEO: Yoast is a WordPress plugin that can help you improve your SEO. If you’re not already using it for your blog, you can check it out here. Neil uses it on his blogs. And so do I.
- Use Flare to Boost Social Shares: If you look on the left-hand column of this blog post (or at the bottom if you’re viewing on a mobile browser), you’ll notice our social sharing buttons. We pay a small fee each month for the Pro version, which you can read more about here.
- Ask People to Share: Asking people to share content by clicking the social sharing buttons is a great way to broaden the distribution of your message. (Speaking of which, if you like what you’re reading here, feel free to share it with your friends by clicking one of the social sharing buttons to the left.)
- Keywords: Blogging is a long tail strategy, so don’t focus on optimizing your blog post for any particular keyword. “Just focus on writing high quality content,” says Neil.
- Write Longer Posts: Neil’s research has indicated that posts that are 2,000 words or longer are more likely to rank on page one of Google.
- Don’t Put Blog Posts in Your Emails: Even though Neil puts some of his blog posts into his emails, generally speaking, it’s a better idea to include a snippet of the blog post with a “click to read more” button. That way, you drive more traffic to your website.
- Avoid Self-Promotion: Your goal should be to help readers and not convince them to pay you for anything, says Neil. In the long run, this will help build goodwill and increase sales.
- Don’t Publish Everything You Write: Some of your posts are going to suck, and that’s okay. When you write a bad post, trash it rather than hitting publish.
- Let People Fail With You: When you fail at something, let the world know about it. They’ll appreciate your transparency and will see you as more trustworthy and human as a result.
- Try to Start Your Introduction with a Question: Have you ever noticed that the 60 Second Marketer e-newsletter almost always starts with a question? That’s intentional because it increases engagement. Neil uses the same technique on some of his blog posts.
- Don’t Click-Bait Readers: You’ll never see click bait on any of Neil’s blogs. Why? Because he knows that provides a short-term bump in clicks but a long term decrease in trust and readership.
- Use Words Like “You” and “Your” in Headlines: By personalizing your headlines, you invite the reader in to learn more and to do so in a more personal and engaging way.
- Keep Headlines Under 65 Characters: If your headlines are too long, they’ll get cut off within Google’s search results. Try to keep them to fewer than 65 characters.
- Use Odd Numbers in Headlines: People tend to click through on blog posts with odd numbers in them. Why is that? Because nature is not symmetrical, it’s asymmetrical, so in a sense, odd numbers feel more natural and real to people who are skimming headlines.
As you can see, Neil has a ton of great insights about digital marketing that are totally worth reading. But don’t stop here…
Get even better insights from Neil by listening to his interview on The Jamie Turner Show.
If you want to get the real scoop direct from Neil, then listen to his complete interview on iTunes, Stitcher, or by clicking the play button below.
In the interview, Neil shares what drives him to work as hard as he does. He also explores some of the mistakes he’s made along the way. And he provides some new tips and techniques not covered in the information above.
You’ll also get a chance to hear from Ludwina Dautovic, our special correspondent from Australia. She’ll share some of the new tools and techniques she’s uncovered in her research for the best digital marketing tools from around the globe.
It’s a fascinating show and I know you’re going to love it. Check it out. And be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher so you can get every episode as it’s released.