Neil Patel, Co-founder, Neil Patel Digital

With over a billion blogs and billions of old pieces of content slowly dying in search, what should you do and how do you maximize your results?

Neil Patel opened his presentation by saying that his company sees both ends of content marketing. His calm and confident way of introducing himself left the audience feeling reassured. In an approachable and conversational manner, he equipped the crowd with multiple clever tips, tricks, and cheats they can use when looking at their old content. 

Blogs and Content at a Glance: 

• How many blogs are there on the web? There’s roughly one blog for every seven people
• How many enterprises companies are leveraging content marketing? All of them 
• Why are startups raising hundreds of millions of dollars? Marketing, sales, expansion AND especially marketing—there's a lot more competition out there
• What percentage of searches will be voice search by next year? According to Comscore 50%, will be voice search 
• What happens to Google’s revenue during recessions? It increases! 

Fact #1: Content marketing is going omnichannel 

• Google AdWords is the most expensive channel
• Why do most people spend money on paid ads? Because you can control the landing page 
• Where are you publishing your content? Are you sharing on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.,? Repurpose things that are doing well
• People spend so much time making new content that they forget their old stuff
• Neil Patel Digital updates at least 90 pieces of content a month 
• What has led to the biggest traffic gains for his company? Translations, updating content, blogging more, and reusing content, videos, and infographics  
• Omnichannel invites you to repurpose your content. A lot of times you can use the same content, across different channels  

Fact #2: User metrics are key 

Tips:

• Old content isn’t getting as much traffic - look at your analytics. 

1. Look for keywords that have a click-through rate that’s lower than 5% 
2. Look for pages that have a click-through rate that’s lower than 4% 
3. Make sure that the keywords you rank are in the title tag and within the content 
4.  Once you make changes in your meta tags and content, have Google re-crawl your site 

• Keywords to skyrocket click-through rates: 

1. How to
2. [List related numbers] 
3. Free
4. You
5. Tips
6. Blog Post
7. Why
8. Best
9. Tricks 
10. Great

• You have to give it 30 days to see results
• Comments help drive engagement even further. Say “let me know,”  as opposed to “leave a comment.” People want to answer and engage the way they want to 

Fact #3: You Have to Focus on Branding

• You need to build a brand 
• “Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”
  —Eric Schmidt 
• The key to building a brand is following the Rule of Seven: When someone hears about your brand seven times and sees your brand seven times; they’re more likely to interact with it   
• How can you build this Rule of Seven: 

1. Emails are still effective. Every time you publish or update old content, email it out!
2. Push notifications make up 60%-70% of Neil Patel Digital’s traffic 
3. Don’t forget about bots! Facebook messenger is becoming more and more effective because of them
4. Use tools like Google Correlate to help potential customers before they ask for help. Google Correlate shows the trends and patterns that users may be searching for similar to your brand 

Fact #4: Conventional CRO doesn’t work anymore

Tips:  

• Traffic is great... but the real formula is traffic + conversion = success
• You need lead magnets
• Emails will be your highest converting traffic channel
• If you already have the traffic, you need to work on the conversion 

1. If you ask a “yes” or “no” question first, you can generate 20 to 30% more leads 
2. Journeys and courses convert better than eBooks by 16% 
3. You should have multiple lead offerings throughout your website (homepage, blog, header, exit pop-up)
4. A good lead magnet will generate five emails for every 100 unique visitors 
5. NeilPatel.com generates roughly 7.4 emails for every 100 unique visitors 

Fact #5: To win, you’ll have to think like a winner

What do Michael Jordan, Michael Phelps and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They all have mentors. invest in mentorship and learn from the best 

Tips:

1. If you want to climb Mt. Everest, would you climb without a Sherpa?
2. It doesn’t have to cost money… you can read blogs, podcasts, watch videos, etc.
3. Your competition is spilling all of their beans online. Have you taken time to learn from them?

The reality is: 

1. Marketing never stops. What works today may not work tomorrow, so the best approach is to keep testing and learning. 
2. You’re going to be overwhelmed with information overload.. .and that’s okay. Just focus at first on the low-hanging fruit

Key Takeaways

There are three types of people:

1. People who make things happen
2. People who watch things happen
3. People wondering what just happened

Be the person that makes things happen. 

What would Neil do if he were you? 

Go update your old content.