Arlen
[00:00:56]
Welcome to the eCommerce marketing podcast. Everyone. I am your host Arlen Robinson. And today we have a very special guest Neil Patel who is a New York Times Bestselling author. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations. Welcome to the podcast, Neil.

Neil
[00:01:34]
Thanks for having me. I’m like, I’m starting to feel old. I’m like, I’m no longer 30. And then you’re telling me 35 and I’m like, wait, I’m, I’m not 35. I’m like, I’m getting old.

Arlen
[00:01:43]
Don’t feel bad, man. I’m in the same boat. You know, I told you I’m 21 years into this business. And man, I feel like a, a dinosaur at this point, man, but we’ve both seen a lot when it comes to the internet, all things, internet, all things eCommerce. So it’s, it’s been quite a journey. And as far as today is concerned, there’s probably not too many digital marketing topics that aren’t off limits. I know with you that you probably haven’t covered before, but one of the topics that always keeps coming up and seems to be a hot topic that I wanna kind of dive into is link building, because I think that’s kind of a, I guess you could say almost a cornerstone of achieving SEO success these days, having a solid link building strategy. So I definitely wanna pick your brain a little bit about that, but before we do get into that, why don’t you just elaborate a little bit more specifically into, you know, how you, you really got into what you’re doing today?

Neil
[00:02:36]
Years and years ago, I started a job board when I was like 16 years old. Cause I couldn’t find a job online. So I’m like, let me just start my own job website did that. Didn’t do well. And the reason it didn’t do well is cause no one came to my job website and I learned about this little thing called marketing. And you gotta do marketing to get people to come to your site. Right? Eventually I learned marketing got decent at it and started doing more and more more of it over the years. But what was interesting is throughout the whole process, I had a journey in which I did everything from helping companies grow their traffic, to creating software solutions, kind of like your background to solving problems that these companies had to going full circle in which you know, these days I have ad agency, Neil digital, where we help companies grow their traffic. And yeah, that’s been doing that for quite a while now. And similar to you, I feel like a dinosaur, although you don’t look like a dinosaur, so you’re good on that.

Arlen
[00:03:33]
Thanks a lot. You, you don’t either.

Neil
[00:03:36]
Yeah, but I do have to say you got amazing hairdo, you know,

Arlen
[00:03:42]
Thanks a lot, man

Neil
[00:03:44]
Alike. You

Arlen
[00:03:46]
Definitely as well. That’s awesome. Well, thank you that and you know, like I wanted, wanted to kind of focus on building, looking down at way building links, like I said, I think is really kind of a cornerstone of SEO and really why do you think that is? And do you think the way Google interprets their rankings, do you think it’s something that really is gonna change anytime soon because I know everybody is always wondering, all right, should I just focus so much on it? What if the algorithm pivots what’s your whole take on that?

Neil
[00:04:23]
So let’s go back with the notion of links. Okay. Okay. Think of links as in like votes. So we recently had a presidential election Biden won over Trump and it’s based on one simple thing in the United States. The person with the most votes tends to win. The reason I say tends to win is because in the United States, the system is on a state by state basis, right? Winner takes all the electoral votes per state, but generally speaking, the person with the most votes typically wins elections, right? The same thing is with the internet, see a presidential candidate without getting political. Whether you’re a Trump Biden can make all these claims, they can say one thing or another, but do they actually hold up? Do they actually do what they’re gonna promise? A website is similar. A website could say, I’m the best website for marketing.

Neil
[00:05:11]
So I should rank at the top. I’m the west website for selling dog foods. I should rank higher than chewy. Now what Google’s looking at is links. Links are votes. The more links a website has in essence, the more people are voting for that website and saying, Hey Google, we actually like this site. You should rank them higher, but not all links are equal. If I Neil Patel go out there and I say, go vote for this president or let me make it up. Even better. Example, my buddy Curtis is sitting next to me. If Curtis goes out there and tells everyone to vote for president Trump or ex-president Trump, let’s say the race is still going on. But Obama comes by and says, Hey, I want you guys all to vote for Biden who carries more weight Obama or Curtis, if you had to guess

Arlen
[00:06:02]
There were definitely Obama.

Neil
[00:06:04]
Exactly. And the reason being is he’s someone of authority and he also was a president. So he’s a better person to say, Hey, you should go do this. Forget Democrats are Republicans that doesn’t matter. In this example, Google has something similar. If I, Neil Patel say, or if Curtis has a website, curtis.com versus New York times, and they’re linking to your business or Curtis is linking to my business. New York times is linking to your business. Then New York times one is gonna have more authority and it’s gonna be more effective cuz it’s New York times and everyone knows New York times. So with the internet, Google’s looking at how closely relevant is it. Ex Obama is a president, a president talking to you about politics is more relevant than me. Neil Patel, talking to you about politics, right? They also look at authority. A New York times is more authoritative than Joe, the plumber.com.

Neil
[00:07:01]
And for those reasons, because it’s hard to build links. I do think it’s gonna be a piece of the algorithm for a long time, but I don’t think it’s gonna be as important as it used to be. And it’s been diminishing. And here’s what I mean by that. They’re using things like user metrics as someone clicking on a search result and then clicking the back button because when you do a Google search, are you ever like, man, this site’s amazing. They got a million back links. You don’t really care. If a site has one link million, you just wanna know how relevant it is. And is it good when solving the problems that you’re looking to solve?

Arlen
[00:07:34]
That makes sense. And I, that’s always a big question because you know, no matter what the SEO strategy is or tactic businesses, these days are wondering, you know, you can go all in on it. You can invest a lot into it. You can hire, you know, a bunch of staff to focus on that. Like you said, with link building, but the question is, yeah, where is this gonna be three, five years from now? And I understand what you’re saying, the bottom line. And this is, I think always been Google’s kind of mission in their credo is that, you know, they wanna provide the, the best possible results for that user. How can they get the user the best answer for their question? And so at the end of the day, doesn’t necessarily mean that the site that has more links point back to it is gonna provide those best answers.

Arlen
[00:08:17]
So I think you definitely always have to look at it like that. Now the next thing I wanted to ask with regards to e-commerce businesses, because you know, here with my business OSI foot software, we deal with a lot of e-commerce companies and it’s almost like a dance that I see business owners having to play with regards to coming up with, you know, as far as ranking and building links and providing not only selling their products or in service. Cause you know, their goal is of course to increase their sales, increase their traffic. But at the end of the day, like you said, Google’s, you know, main mission is to fi provide the best possible answer. And so there’s really always like kind of a dance people play with selling their product, providing, you know, a solid product pro solid service, but at the same time, educating their customer, providing the best possible information around that product. And so, you know, your experience, what are some specific strategies, as far as building links, growing your content that can, you know, help businesses be a little bit more, I guess you could say kind of focused as to where they really go with this whole strategy of, of, you know, building links.

Neil
[00:09:31]
It all comes up to content. And if, you know, I know is largely eCommerce. What I would say, one of the best strategies that I’ve seen for eCommerce is a create a good product that people wanna buy. But that’s a given and B create content that is super educational. Like we’ve all seen it, the 10 best toaster ovens, you know, those articles out there, the 10 best electric bikes. Yeah. And I’m not just talking about, have a list and your affiliate links in there, or have a list and just promote your own products. Like really do an in-depth analysis. This bike, the battery lasts longer. This one is harder to start this one, the seat’s not as comfortable. This one works better on offroading. This one is not street legal and you’re gonna get tickets and like just going super, super in depth and just like so much so that when someone reads it, they’re like, I know what bike I need to get.

Neil
[01:10:26]
This one works best for my family. It’s a safe, but a safe or it’s has a best safety rating. My kids are less likely to fall or, oh, I should buy this one on this list. Because even though it’s number three, it’s meant for outdoors and doing stunts that’s me. And this is like, when you get super in depth and someone doesn’t have any more questions where they don’t have to click the back button and go back to Google and read the next article, that’s the kind of content that’s gonna get you the links. The second thing I tell people when they write these kind of articles is you can’t forget the marketing and content marketing. So you gotta email out people. Let’s say I link to you. And you’re one of the bikes on the list. I would say, Hey, check it out. If you like it, feel free and share it on the social web, feel free and link to it. If you wanna talk to your audience about the ratings that we gave your bike right. And showcase it. But like people forget to do the marketing side of quote unquote writing content. Yeah. And in eCommerce, if you just write a ton of content, that’s super detailed and thorough like that, you can do well.

Arlen
[01:11:28]
Yeah. Very true. Now, as far as like link building, one of the example that you mentioned as far as the authority of a site, you compared president Obama to your friend Curtis, and as far as, of course, clearly I’ve, you know, I don’t know Curtis, so I don’t know what level he’s at, but you know, we’re assuming that Obama is, has a higher authority than, than Curtis. Yeah. And so

Neil
[01:11:50]
I love Curtis to death, but that’s a very, very fair assumption.

Arlen
[01:11:55]
Gotcha. Gotcha. So if a company is just launching, let’s say they’re, e-commerce startup, they’re just launching a brand. You know, they really don’t have any authority. As far as the eyes of Google are concerned. The goal is, of course you, you’re trying to get higher authority sites to, you know, link back to you. So you can start to build your authority. But since you’re kind of fresh out of the gates, you have no authority, no real brand recognition. What does a company do in that case to try to attract higher authority, to get links from higher authority sites? Cause that’s, I think a, a really a difficult task, especially for startups and people that are you just getting out there.

Neil
[01:12:33]
So what I would do is I have a free tool about a neal.com/backlinks, B a C K L I N K S put in your competitor URLs. You can see what pages that high authority sites are linking to your competitors. Go look at their content, go create better content than that and reach out to those same sites and tell ’em, Hey Curtis, I know you linked out to, or Hey, you know, Curtis, I saw in your New York times article you linked out to the site, they didn’t cover one, two and three. We sell toilet paper as well. But like, look at this test, like we had running water drip through the faucet and look what it did to our toilet paper. It still works. The other player’s toilet paper doesn’t work. And we did all this analysis and all these toilet papers out there to figure out the durability, the softness. So that way your tissue is comfortable when you use toilet paper of making up, that’s probably not the best example of, you know, the old overall concept of seeing who links your competition, seeing what content is popular in their website, getting them most things from these authority sites, writing similar content, that’s just more thorough, better, more useful, and then hand up those sites and gave ’em to link to you is super effective. Just people don’t wanna take the common effort to do it.

Arlen
[01:13:46]
That’s the big thing. And that makes a lot of sense. It’s you can’t just go out there and expect to get a link if you, because I know a lot of business owners that everybody’s in a hurry, they can see other similar content and yeah. Okay. You can do your own take on it. But the thing you want to focus on is how do you make that content better? Cause the bottom line is, especially if you have no authority, no brand or recognition, what is your offer? What are you gonna provide that other company with? And so, like you said, if you add something to that article where you, like you said, you did the test of the toilet paper, which is definitely really interesting and I’m sure that would catch people’s eyes, drive attention, could drive more traffic to that. That would go a long way rather than taking the competitor’s article. Just kind of cloning it, putting your own, spin on it. It’s really, you just really regurgitating the same information. I think that’s a lot of times businesses do that, but the, the focus is on how can you make it better?

Neil
[01:14:40]
Correct. Cause if you just regurgitate, it’s not gonna work. Cuz at the same time, why would they wanna change a link? This worked for them. You gotta give ’em a good reason.

Arlen
[01:14:49]
Yeah, exactly. Now of course you did mention that you seeing now a less of an emphasis on this, you know, links and building links within the eyes of Google. It may not be as important as you, as you mentioned, the bottom line is of course providing the, the best answer. Where do you see this shift going? Like where do you see things going? As far as what would be more of an area that in the future businesses eCommerce businesses need to, will start to focus more on as opposed to link building

Neil
[01:15:20]
User experience. Here’s what I mean by this. Okay. Let’s say you have a product page and you’re selling a television. Okay. I’m looking through a computer screen. You can talk about how your 4k eight K ultra HD, I’m making up some of these words 16 K and how can you really tell through a computer screen? Cause my computer, screen’s not 16 K HD.

Arlen
[01:15:42]
Right?

Neil
[01:15:43]
So when I mean user experience, I’m like showing other competing products and showing the difference in video quality.

Neil
[01:15:51]
Gotcha. Because even though I’m looking through my computer screen, which isn’t 16, K if you’re showing me what it means to be different, that’s an example of how having me better understand which is user experience. Another thing would be show me different aspects of the TV. Hey, here’s how many ports it has. Here’s how it’s easy to set up. Here’s the reviews and ratings of this. Here’s not just the pictures. Here’s also the profile of the TV. And oh, even though this is the profile, when you put it on your wall, here’s actually how deep it is because, oh, you’re gonna have some wires on the back of your TV. So it’s not as skinny. Oh. And then by the way, here’s a video giving you a tutorial on how the TV looks like, what it works and all that kind of stuff. That’s example of user experience. The more in depth you get, the better off you are.

Arlen
[01:16:36]
Yeah. I get that. And it’s because I think all of that, not only will it help your rankings, if you have a better user experience on the website, that’s going to lessen the bounce rate. People bouncing from your search result, query to your site and then say, okay, this, this site is trashed. I’m gonna go back to Google. Look for another one. If that time on site is, is very low and they’re bouncing back looking for other results, then you’re gonna have a problem. But like you said, if there’s a great user experience and like, and like you said, in the example of those TVs, if you’re able to show that level of detail and have a good comparison, that’s gonna compel people to stay. And it makes a lot of sense. And I can definitely see how things are shifting

Neil
[01:17:18]
When you wanna think in depth, think about how apple really goes through their products. Explain when they have new products that come out, right, how it’s unique and their features and how many pixels now keep in mind, they’re missing some elements that you would want, like reviews and stuff like that. But they’re apple. They got a big brand. What they can get away with you, can’t no offense to anyone. That’s just the reality. I can’t get away with what they can get away with. And they built up a strong brand with a loyal following. And a lot of trust, not saying you can’t do that over time, but in the short run you need to, you know, think apple combined with Amazon.

Arlen
[01:17:55]
Yeah. Very true. Yeah. The level of detail is definitely a great takeaway. As far as their whole user experience that apple does provide with everything that they put out. Well, no, as we rated to wrap things up, Neil, many people know that, you know your brand in the whole digital marketing space, ne patel.com, Nitel digital, all your brands have been pretty prominent these days for the past few years. And so I know you’ve been really successful building links over the years. What are some key things or I guess some quick key takeaways that you’ve learned over the years, I guess maybe a few quick dos and don’t when it does come to link building, based on your experience,

Neil
[01:18:34]
Don’t try to focus on building tons of links. Focus on quality. Number two is don’t build links too fast. It’s not everything. I found that when you build less links, slow and steady, you tend to rank better. Okay. The third thing that I mentioned to people is the best way to build links is not actually try to go out there and break guidelines and buy links or do anything shady like that. I would avoid that. It’s more so to create mating product, amazing service, creating amazing content. That’s the stuff that really helps. And it’s much more efficient and effective to do that kind of stuff. Then it is to spend a ton of money, paying people to help you build the, the links, right? It’s like spend that money on actually creating a better product service. Yeah. Content like that’s a real way to win.

Arlen
[01:19:19]
Yeah. That makes sense. Definitely. I’m glad you said that because these days, I think everyone is really looking for, you know, so many quick wins. There’s, you know, there’s a, there’s a ton of services where you can buy a ton of links. You can get links, you know, really quickly, but in the long run, it’s not, you’re not gonna have as much success where as if you were to go slow and steady, focus on, you know, eventually getting the higher enough higher authority links to your site, you know, that’s just more natural. And I think also that also helps with, with Google as well, because of course, you know, if overnight, let’s say you have 10 links now, and then overnight you got a thousand links pointing to your site. Obviously that’s a red flag of, you know, in the eyes of Google and you know, things like that. And you can get in some trouble with that.

Neil
[02:20:02]
Totally.

Arlen
[02:20:03]
Well, it’s definitely been awesome talking to you now. I’ve definitely learned a lot and I know our listeners have as well because you know, everybody really wants to know, you know what? You gotta focus on link building, like I said, is, is always been well. It has been at least for several years now, kind of a cornerstone, but it’s good to see that as things are shifting the user experience is what you really wanna focus on. The bottom line is making the customer happy, providing the right information, the best information for people that are visiting your site. So I’m glad you were able to share that. But lastly, before we let you go, I always like to switch gears here with my final question. Just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact with us that you think our audience would be interested to know about

Neil
[02:20:46]
Yourself. I’m O C E D. I’m like a sneak.

Arlen
[02:20:50]
OK. I’m in that same category, actually

Neil
[02:20:53]
Every little thing, like I can’t have toothpaste squeeze in the middle of a tube. Like I’m very particular saddle.

Arlen
[02:21:00]
Gotcha. No problem, man. I’m the, I’m the same way. I’m a bit of a neat freak. If I go in somewhere and things are outta place. If the kitchen is dirty, a lot of times I can’t go to bed. If there’s one fork in the sink, it’s gotta be clean put away. So I know what you mean, man. I’m the, I’m the same way. I’ve always been kind of neat and orderly and yeah, it’s good to know, man. Thanks for sharing that. Well, great Neil. Well, lastly, before we let you go, of course, if anybody wants to reach out to you, pick your brain anymore, learn about blink building or any other digital marketing tactics. What is the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Neil
[02:21:33]
NP digital.com.

Arlen
[02:21:34]
Okay, great. That’s easy NP digital.com. So we’ll definitely have our listeners reach out to you there and then see what you have to offer. And it definitely has been awesome talking to you, Neil, we appreciate you coming on today on the eCommerce marketing podcast.

Neil
[02:21:48]
Take care. Thanks.

Speaker 1
[02:21:50]
Thank you for listening to the eCommerce marketing podcast. 

Podcast Guest Info

Neil Patel
CMO and Co-Founder of NP Digital