Neil Patel: Full Analysis Of His Online Summit

I had the privilege of attending Neil Patel’s “The Future of SEO” virtual summit on October 22, 2020.

In this article, I’ll break down the summit, from Neil’s opening speech to his 3 guest speakers’ presentations.

I’ll also reveal some of the key questions posed during the Q&A session, along with Neil’s responses.

Before delving into his presentation, Neil Patel started off by introducing himself to us in a friendly and humble manner.

He gave us a rundown of some of his achievements, including being named a Top 100 Entrepreneur under 30 by President Obama.

Using an icebreaker to get the audience going, his down-to-earth, fun-loving nature was one of the first things that piqued my interest.

Now, you might be wondering who exactly is Neil Patel?

Neil’s first topic focused on marketing across different platforms.

He compared the conversion rate his company gets from each channel and found that Google Ads bring in the most conversions, followed by Facebook Ads.

Next was SEO content or blogs and lastly, social media.

Neil said that their biggest traffic gains have come from translations on their site, and by updating their content (which he shows us how to do later).

User signal is extremely important.

Neil provided an example of an entrepreneur who did an experiment that showed just how big of an impact user signal has.

Rand Fishkin, a fellow entrepreneur, tweeted to his followers to search for something on Google, telling them exactly what to enter into the search bar.

He said they should then click on the first result, go back and click on the fourth result, which was his site.

Within an hour, Google noticed the amount of traffic to this site and moved it to the first result.

Days later, it was the second result, so even though it dropped from the first spot, it remained higher up.

Rand has a tonne of Twitter followers so it was definitely possible. But what about those of us who don’t have as big a following?

Neil provided some hacks from Clickflow that aim to give a higher click-through rate (CTR).

From these tips alone, Neil says that his company sees roughly an 18% increase per year.

It doesn’t happen overnight though, so patience is key. It takes roughly 30 days to see changes.

“The key to building a brand is following the rule of 7.” - Neil Patel.

When someone sees your brand 7 times, they’re more likely to remember it.

Suggestions to increase brand awareness:

Engaging and interacting with your audience is necessary for building your brand.

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) aims to improve the speed of a web page.

If you have a delayed load time, revenue and rankings will decrease percentage-wise.

Neil’s company used a CDN to host their entire site, and their rankings improved substantially.

He advises you to use a CDN to see an increase in load time and rankings.

You don’t need to build or buy tonnes of links. In this case, Neil says it’s quality over quantity.

Take your time, build fewer, but relevant links with higher quality content.

Don’t increase the rate you build links at.

Be patient, it takes about 6 months for links to take effect.

Neil uses this strategy and sees huge ranking increases.

Traditionally, Western Union focused on the cash-to-cash method.

The sender would send cash via a Western Union branch in person, and the receiver would collect that cash on the other side of the world.

Gradually, people have been moving to the account-to-account method, sending money directly from one account to another via an app or website.

Western Union dominated the cash-to-cash market, but sadly, the method is dying out.

Muriel notes that as a brand, they were always famous for cash-to-cash and their challenge now is becoming just as famous for account-to-account.

She also states that their competitors, like PayPal and TransferWise, have the advantage of being known for digital money transfers.

But Western Union has the advantage of being well trusted because of their historical run.

So, what are they doing to adapt?

❖ Neil Patel Digital (NPD) has partnered with Western Union to help them with their marketing strategies and SEO management.

They are working on:

❖ Encouraging people to download their app or go to their website to carry out their transfers via these methods.

❖ Creating an “in-store experience” with a digital mindset:

❖ Managing the entire membership and loyalty program online.

❖ Using social media and bots to digitize customer care.

❖ Focusing on advertising to ensure that they come across as a relevant and modern brand.

Muriel tells us that to successfully digitize a brand, you need to define how you want to run the business and focus on the mindset and behaviors of consumers, not just strategies.

She also mentions that you shouldn’t lose who you are as a brand.

Don’t lose your purpose and values, but rather find a modern way to express them.

Western Union has seen the digital aspect of their business grow exponentially during the pandemic, and they’re well on their way to digitizing the brand successfully.

Becky Ruden walks us through the development of XD Ideas, a project with Neil Patel Digital (NPD) to refresh content, with a focus on SEO.

After establishing their challenges and goals as a brand, Becky jumped straight into the solutions.

The result of NPD’s strategies brought in 29.6K downloads, $12 million in potential revenue, and over 1 million site visitors in under a year!

NPD helped Adobe XD to achieve this with almost no marketing budget.

What was their formula for success?

This formula resulted in SEO success for the brand and Becky tells us that they were very appreciative of NPD’s assistance.

The pandemic resulted in Mayvenn’s stylists losing out on work, as well as their products not being sold.

Most of their stylists couldn’t qualify for unemployment grants as they’re often classified as independent contractors or freelancers.

Candice tells us that the company focused on what they could do to help their stylists, instead of focusing on the negative impact the situation had on their business.

Their goal was to raise $1.25 million to be able to send their stylists $500 each, which would be the first relief money some would receive.

This is how they did it:

➔ They created a movement.

➔ Once they’d met their goal, they sent $500 to 2,500 stylists via Mayvenn’s digital InstaPay system.

Appointment bookings have since increased due to the lifting of restrictions, but things are not up and running 100% just yet, and they won’t be until the pandemic is over, but thankfully they have a starting point.

Candice gave us some of the key takeaways from this situation:

Mayvenn has been able to tell their stylists’ stories utilizing the press, social media, and PR.

Putting faces and voices to the campaign helped them to evoke emotional responses.

This is what ultimately brought in the donations they needed to help their hairstylist community.

I’ve picked the questions that had the most votes from other attendees and the most helpful answers for people across the board.

Neil said that he usually creates content by looking at what’s out there and writers better versions than competitors.

He then publishes the content and shares it on all social profiles, messaging individuals directly to ask them to share his content.

He also emails every person he’s linked to and asks them to share the article.

Neil: “Always team. I believe it’s the team that builds the company, not money, not ideas, the team.”

He goes on to say that even with all the ideas in the world, it’s a struggle to execute them without a good team.

Neil responded that if you need the money, do ads first.

If you can, focus on SEO first because it produces a higher ROI in the long run. But you need to be patient to go down this route.

Neil said that you should write articles that will drive traffic to your site and bring in sales.

If you’re selling a product, write an article comparing an older version with a newer version of that product.

Articles like these will encourage sales for your product.

Neil: “No. That’s a big misconception.”

He tells us that you should only use links when it’s relevant for the user.

Don’t do it to try to get a higher ranking on Google, link when it provides a better experience and put users first.

Neil Patel’s summit was enlightening and incredibly beneficial.

He gave us intel on how to optimize conversions through SEO and marketing, by using examples from his own company and experiences.

The guest speakers gave us case studies that proved how important marketing and SEO are to get results.

The main takeaways from this review are:

Use these helpful tips from Neil and go out there and win!