From founding his first website at the age of 16, to helping major companies generate more traffic and sales, Neil Patel is one of the top online marketing influencers today. Read this exclusive interview with the guy that Entrepreneur magazine called the #1 marketer in the world, and discover how he scaled to 200K visitors a month, what is his best advice for marketers and what is the one online tool he couldn’t live without.
1. For several years now, you have been known as one of the top online marketers in the world. Can you tell Infolinks’ readers if your vision has evolved over the years, and where it stands today?
Everything I have achieved has been very unexpected. I think the trajectory has been phenomenal. My vision of helping others and being an educator has definitely evolved into something great. Nowadays my goal is the same, but I am focusing on international expansion.
2. You are the co-founder of four multi-million dollar software companies: Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, Quick Sprout and KISSmetrics. Can you share with our readers what inspired you to found them?
I think at the end of the day — I really focused on a solution that helped people who had problems similar to the ones I encountered early on. I wanted to provide like minded marketers with real world solutions at a reasonable cost.
3. What is your secret to scaling to almost 200,000 visitors a month “without spending a dollar on ads”?
I’m focused on content marketing. Having a great content strategy is the surest way to provide lean results. You really have to figure out what makes your audience tick — so you can provide the best results at the end of the day. I always focus on content that is informative and solution based. After you get that engine going you can then do manual outreach and focus on getting people to share your content on the social web. Just perform a few Twitter searches to see who shares content in your space, network with them, and ask them to share your content.
4. To what do you attribute your and your companies’ success?
Hard work and fast execution.
5. You were a marketing consultant for major companies such as Google, Facebook and ebay. What are your main “dos and don’ts” for marketers who wish to maximize their revenue and website traffic?
Continually test. For every business the solution is going to be different, but you won’t know if something can help a company grow unless you test. And when you come up with tests, go for the drastic changes as they tend to provide the best results.
6. What is the most common marketing struggle you find companies deal with, and what is your #1 advice for them?
They don’t understand what is causing them to gain sales. You need to look at your numbers every day and learn what causes things to go up or down.
7. Which one online tool you couldn’t live without?
Google Analytics – no doubt!
8. How does your SEO analyzer work, and who can most benefit from?
It provides a quality score on your overall page code, speed and link count. It highlights what needs to be updated or fixed on your site. It’s pretty intuitive and basic — which makes it easy to use and valuable.
9. Lastly, what are your plans for the future?
To keep helping others out and innovating, especially outside of the US where there aren’t too many digital marketers.