- Paid ads suck.
Yes, they provide a ROI and if you're getting an amazing
ROI from them, you should be doing them
and you know what?
Even though I'm saying they suck,
I still use paid ads and I use them each and every
single day.
But that doesn't mean that's the only way to grow
your business.
Hey everyone, I'm Neil Patel
and today, I'm gonna share with you five sneaky ways
you can grow your blog without paid ads.
(gentle music)
Step number one.
Go on social web.
So whether it's Facebook or Twitter, and go see what
people are saying about your competitors.
Everyone's talking about your competitors.
I hate to say it, you're not the only popular one out there.
That's just the reality and you know what,
your competitors may even be more popular than you.
But when you see more people talking negatively
about your competition or you see them talking
positively about your competition, you wanna engage
in their conversation and if they're like,
"Oh my God, you're ya know, X-Y-and Z company
"has this amazing post."
I would go respond to that person and be like,
"Oh, did you know we also have a similar post
"but ours covers A, B and C that theirs doesn't cover?"
It's like take that!
And you know, by doing that one little simple thing,
you'll start getting more traffic, more people familiar
with your blog and it really does work.
How do I know this?
My competitor, mixpanel, used to do this with
my company, kissmetrics, back in the day.
I was like, "Crap, why didn't I think of this?"
But now, I know about it and I'm sharing that with you.
The second strategy you wanna do is go comment
on your competitors blog.
Your competitors have blog posts.
Who says you can't comment on 'em?
If you comment, you engage and don't be negative.
Don't be like, "Oh, we're better than you
"or we have better content."
You can just be like, "Nice post.
"I love how you covered X, Y and Z."
You can give some tips and then you can even say,
"Oh, we also cover this, that and the other
"that you don't on your blog post and if you're interested,
"you can check it out here," and link back to your site.
It's an amazing way to get traffic from your competitors.
The third strategy I have for you
is go to ahrefs.com, put in your competitor blog URL
and go see who's linking to them.
Hit up each and every single one of those people
and send them a simple email.
"Hey John, I noticed you're linking to XYZ.com
"and you linked out to this specific article related to
"online marketing.
"We actually have a similar post but ours covers
"20 more advanced ways you can double your traffic.
"Cheers, Neil Patel."
By doing that and shooting out emails to other people
or linking to your competitors
and it's just a casual email.
You noticed, in that email, I didn't say,
"Hey, you should link out to me.
"You should promote me."
No, I'm not being that direct.
I'm just starting a conversation, making it super casual
and by doing that, more people are likely to start
including my blog posts on their website
and link to me.
I'm getting all that data from ahrefs.com
because it shows me every single site that's linking
to my competitor.
So, Buzzsumo shows you the most popular articles
or the least popular articles that your competitors have.
If you put in their blog URL and it'll show you
all of their most popular posts sorted by social shares.
Once you have that, what you wanna do with Buzzsumo
is take their most popular posts
and go write better versions of 'em.
So, use Brian Dean's Skyscraper Technique.
So if they wrote a post on 20 amazing ways
to do yoga poses, I would write a article on
101 advanced ways to do yoga poses, right?
As a beginner or something like that.
As you can tell, based on the title,
I don't really know much about yoga.
But you get the point.
I'm just one-upping 'em and doing something
that's way more detailed.
And then, in Buzzsumo, it shows you who shared your
competitors content when you click on the View Shares link.
Then I would hit up each and every single one of
those people and then ask 'em to share my content as well.
Last but not least, no one's perfect.
Everyone has a complaint.
If you say you don't have any complaints, I call bullshit.
I complain about stuff all the time
and I bet you people are complaining about your competitors
each and every single day.
So go on the social web, find out who's complaining,
help 'em out and tell 'em about your blog
and everything you have and all the solutions you have
to help them out and by building that bond
and helping them, you're gonna turn their haters
into your evangelists.
That's amazing because you're just fueling the fire
making more people passionate about your company,
your blog, you're blending this community,
you're creating more evangelists and everyone's gonna be
like, "Yeah, let's share your content and let's do
"really well."
And do those five sneaky things and you will get
more traffic to your blog without spending any money
on paid ads.
(upbeat music)