- [Neil] Hi everyone, its Neil Patel and today
is another day of SEO Unlocked.
Now, we're going to dive into the advanced parts
of content marketing.
So this week's going to be really fun.
Last week, we learned about the basics of content marketing.
This week, we're going to get into the advanced elements
as well as writing content that you could be publishing
on your own website.
Before we get started, I love starting off with a quote,
Great content is the best sales tool in the world.
I've grown my businesses over the years through content.
It's been one of the most effective sales tactic for me yet.
Especially when you're starting off small
and you don't have the budgets as the big companies.
Again, here's a quick recap of SEO Unlocked.
Over the next few weeks, we'll then get into link building
and then we're going to get into mastering Ubersuggest
as well as branding and customer experience.
There's a lot of businesses that are successful at due
to content marketing.
From what we research around the web,
TechCrunch, over 20 million Huffington Post,
146 million, those are just some examples.
There's so many businesses that make millions
and millions through content marketing.
Another big one is NerdWallet.
I believe over time they can end up becoming
if they're already not yet a multi-billion dollar company
just through content marketing.
Quick recap, when we covered part one last week.
If you didn't watch that video, make sure you go back.
You can find on NeilPatel.com/training.
And go to SEO Unlocked or you can find on any
of the social channels where I'm publishing content.
Make sure you go and watch part one.
In there, I break down how to find content ideas
and I also give you the Google Sheets file
that will be helpful for you as well
as the 20/20 rule book that you need
to really create killer content.
When you're creating content,
there's many different content types out there
and you need to make sure that you master each
and every single one because different ones can be used
for different things.
Some are better for selling, some are better
for getting traffic, some are better for getting back links.
And I want to go over some of the main content type of pieces
that I use to generate more traffic.
The first one is list.
You've seen them.
Magazines are notoriously known for using them all the time.
They're scannable, they're quick, they're actionable.
Usually list post are either short or they're super long.
Like seven ways to lose weight or a hundred and one ways
to lose weight.
Typically, the longer the list,
the shorter information you're going to get for each point.
The shorter the list, like let's say it's seven,
typically, people go more in depth on each list points.
That's just something for you to keep in mind.
Here are some proof in the pudding.
If you look at Neil Patel, you know, use Uber Sist
to see some of my most popular post pages.
A lot of them are list based content.
It's that effective.
You can do list in a unique way in which when you're going
through it, you can integrate it in a conversational type
and here's the example of someone doing that.
So list don't just have to be one, two, three, four.
You can do it in a conversational way, answer questions
and that has been very effective as well.
And it's like, the reader feels you're talking to them
in a conversation versus just speaking at them on stage
and it being dry and boring.
Another content type, this is one of my favorites
as well, infographics.
My old startup, even though it did fail, Kissmetrics,
we were able to build over 2.5 million visitors
and 41,000 back links from over 3,000 unique sites
through 47 infographics.
Quick math for ROI on that.
If we had to pay for that and use other sources
to get that traffic, it would have cost us
over $948,000, but we are able to get those results
for less than 30,000.
We spent $28,200.
That shows you that infographics produce a huge ROI.
You can do it on any subject, any topic.
But the key with infographics is not to abuse it.
A lot of people go out there and be like,
oh this infographic on computers will do really well.
Let me publish it on my dentist website.
Well, if you have a dentist website that talks about teeth
and cleaning teeth, what does a infographic on computers
has to do with dentists and dental stuff?
Has to do nothing, so don't abuse it.
Make sure the infographic is very relevant to your website
and your content.
Next type of content, social media.
On social sites like YouTube, you can published video.
On sites like Twitter, one or two quick sentences.
Sites like LinkedIn, you can do paragraphs,
video, images, Facebook videos, images,
sentences, paragraphs, even whole posts.
Depending on the social platform, the type of content
that they accept is going to vary largely and a lot
of the content that you see on these social platforms
that you can also use even on your own website is video.
Video is the biggest booming content out there
that is going to be more and more popular
through the next coming years.
On YouTube alone, I can get on a bad month,
eight hundred plus thousand views.
On a good month, well over a million views a month on videos
and then I can make the same video content,
repurpose it on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.
So in total, I can get millions and millions
of views a month.
It's that powerful.
There's also podcasts as well.
On the NeilPatel.com/blogpage, you'll see a link
to my marketing school podcast every day.
I release a new episode there.
Of course, I link to my videos as well.
Then there's also webinars.
I used to use these way more in the past.
I don't do them as much anymore.
Just to time.
Although, my team and I,
we should probably start doing webinars
multiple times a month.
And you know what, we'll probably start doing them again
just because I'm seeing this right now.
You don't get as many people to attend a webinar
because it takes more time commitment from them,
but they're super engaged and they're much more likely
to convert into a paying customer.
Tools is one of the best form of content marketing
and it is my favorite, it actually produces a better ROI.
It is harder to do.
Within my articles,
sometimes I'll have interactive tools and widgets.
Like I have a blog post on how to start a blog and in there,
I have a little widget/tool that teaches you,
hey, how to find the right domain name.
You also know about Ubersuggests,
that tool drives more traffic than any singular piece
of content on my website.
You also have the SEO analyzer, which goes into Ubersuggest,
that's the site audit report.
Also have an A/B testing calculator.
Again, another really popular page.
And when you look at my top pages in Uber Sists,
you'll see that a lot of them are tools.
It's that effective.
Checklist, people love having the sense of accomplishment
and you can give them that with checklist.
So you can create a blog post that has eight steps
or seven steps or ten steps and people
can go through them step by step.
In addition, you can create a PDF file
and let them download the checklist and in exchange
for downloading it, you can get their name
and email address, which is another amazing thing to do
because it will help you grow your email list,
build up your brand and of course,
get a really loyal following.
I use the hybrid approach more frequently
than any other approach.
What I mean by the hybrid approach is, a lot of times,
I'll do how to articles and blend a list in there
with videos and images.
I'm mixing everything together.
Whether it's even on the social Web or even on my own blog
because people interact and comprehend content
in different ways.
So for example, I'll write a blog post on ways
to get more search traffic, but then, there's some people
who prefer it in video format.
So I'll do the same thing in a video format.
And over the years, I've released so much content
and video lessons on SEO, but a lot of people want to step
by step way of learning SEO.
Hence, I release SEO Unlocked.
You guys are all listening in right now
and this isn't me on camera,
this is more so me doing a voiceover
over a PowerPoint presentation.
And then, on top of that, I'm also including worksheets,
PDFs, this is another form of content marketing.
So you got to look at the hybrid approach
and the reason I say that is, everyone comprehends
and understands content in a different way
because our brains all operate differently.
So by using a hybrid approach, you can make sure
that no matter who the person is, they're getting value
from your content.
I also did a hundred K challenge to prove to anyone
that you can build a business
that generates a hundred K a month in less than 12 months
through content marketing and I was able to do that.
I did it without using my name and in a random industry
that I don't know anything about.
The audience picked nutrition.
The only thing I know about nutrition is I'm skinny
because I'm a poor eater as my mom would say.
Funny enough, I will eat junk food every once in a while
like ice cream and stuff.
I love ice cream to death, but I don't know much
about nutrition and other than, I'm skinny
because I run a lot or work out, whatever it may be.
Or just good genetics.
But yeah, I was still able to build a nutrition site
that did really well.
We cut through a lot of emails and eventually,
we hit the over a hundred grand mark selling supplements.
Doesn't mean I did a hundred grand a month in profit
or anything like that, the challenge was
to create a business
that did a hundred grand a month in revenue.
Eventually, I stopped dealing with the nutrition site.
It was called Nutrition Secrets.
Reason being is I wasn't passionate about nutrition,
so Legion Athletics, one of my buddies eventually,
ended up taking it over and then redirecting it to his site
and it caused organic traffic to go up.
If you want that case study, you can download it
at NeilPatel.com/training.
Go into SEO Unlocked, you'll see the whole reference
to how I did it step by step.
But when you're doing content, there is a secret sauce
and most people don't talk about it.
Just creating lists based content or creating infographics.
It doesn't always produce the results
that you're looking for.
And I wanted to go over my secret sauce.
It's not that complex.
It's really simple to follow.
It really comes down to these 10 commandments
of content outlines.
And that's what my secret sauce is.
If you follow these ten steps, you're much more likely
to produce content that hits and gets traffic
because no matter what people tell you
about content marketing, there is no guarantee
that if someone or you publish a blog post and write one,
that it's going to hit.
A lot of times, even me, my blog posts don't hit,
but sometimes, actually a large portion of the time,
they hit and the reason they hit in many cases
because I follow this formula right here.
So the first one is word count.
I look at my competition.
And is my competition writing blog posts
that are 1,000 words, 2000 words, 5,000 words.
If you're not sure just copy and paste their webpage
or their blog post and put it into Microsoft Word
or Google Docs and it'll tell you what the word count is.
I look at it, word count and I'm like, all right,
can I make my content better more thorough,
more valuable than theirs?
Or do their article, does it contain a ton of fluff?
Because if it does, I can make mine shorter,
more condensed and give people the actions
that they need quicker and better, so that way they're happy
and have a better user experience.
And I also try to write content on a consistent basis.
So that helps me crank up the word count that I need
on a regular basis.
Second thing is tone.
I love being positive.
A lot of people are negative.
If you're negative, people just hate that.
There's no reason to be.
Try to be positive and also use your musketeer persona
to become their hero.
So you already know the musketeer intent.
If not, go back to the previous lessons
and go through the musketeer worksheet that is provided
on NeilPatel.com/training.
Just go to SEO Unlocked and you'll see it there
and once you download that, fill it out and it'll help
you understand the right tone
so you can mimic your audience.
Then it comes down to the introduction.
Introduction is super important.
There's a lot of aspects of the introduction.
The first sentence has to have a purpose
to entice the reader to continually read.
If your first sentence is a hook them and entice them,
they're going to drop off and just click the back button.
I also love asking readers questions in my introductions
because it creates an engagement and it creates that bond
between me and the reader.
I also use words to create that story
in their head, that imagination.
So by using words that are very descriptive,
it allows me to help paint that picture for the individual.
And when you're thinking about your introduction,
there's many ways of doing it.
Another way and this generates a lot of sales
is through pre-selling.
So Apple introduces their products through launches.
And what they'll do is they'll pre-sell before their launch
and get you a hot and ready for you know,
one of their phones and this is old now.
But Apple's had many different versions of a watch.
Like, a watch just came out or iPhone 11 or iPhone 10
or 12 or 15 or whatever number that they're going towards.
And when they're doing it, it's not as simple as,
hey we're Apple and we have this idea
and then we're going to have an event.
There's all these things that happen in between
and usually what those things
in between are is announcements.
Those announcements, when they're slowly releasing
what features are giving out or what's going to happen
or how it can help you, that's when you start seeing huge,
massive lifts in sales and traffic.
Then you get into the trigger section.
This is all about the stuff in the body
from things like, showing your rags to riches story
or covering the main problem and diving really deep
and even discussing the solution.
And I love doing problem solution based stuff,
especially in the trigger section.
I use a lot of data.
I really break down how the problem can be solved,
why it really matters because these are the trigger points
that really appeal to people.
And get them going so then that way,
they're like, all right, I can relate to this.
I have this problem.
I need this solution.
It keeps them going and going.
Then, of course, you really dive into the solution
and the solution solves their problems.
Because once you know their trigger points
and your pushing them,
you also want to give them the solution as well
because if you don't give them the solution,
they're going to be like wait, you're telling me
about the problem.
Yes, I know the problem.
I'm feeling this pain, but you didn't tell me
how I can solve it.
And if you don't back this up with data
or give them a product or a service or teach them
how they can solve it, then they're going
to be really upset with you.
You also want to cover the subtle musketeer intent.
This is super important.
What I mean by this is you got your musketeer intent.
You don't have to address it head-on, you can blend it in
with your content.
Offers suggestions, offer your expertise
through product, brand imaginary.
This has to blend in so that way it's really subtle.
You don't want to be really aggressive.
If you're confused on this part and you're not sure
what I'm referring to,
that means you probably haven't filled out
your musketeer worksheet.
It's in the previous lessons.
You can find this at NeilPatel.com/training.
I also love going over business wins.
This is a huge part of my outline process
because when there's wins, not only does it build hope
for other people,
but if you give them step-by-step instructions
on how they can also get the wins when it comes
to solving their problems and do it with ease
or do it in a speedy way, that really helps.
And I can't emphasize that enough, so I'm going to repeat it.
Ease or speed.
So if your business wins and you can show people
how to do it in an easy way or in a quick way,
they'll love you to death or if you can show them how
to do both of them in a fast way
and it's easy, even better.
Then we get into internal linking.
This is one of the main reasons NeilPatel.com ranks so well
on Google, it's because I interlink my website so heavily.
Whenever there's another relevant piece of content
that will benefit the reader, I let them know about it.
And that not only lets them continually go
throughout my sight, read more and more
and build a better connection with me, it also allows Google
to see that I have so many pages and allows them
to start ranking them all higher and higher
versus Google struggling to find my content
because if I wasn't using interlinking, well,
after they're done cloning that page, where they go next?
By interlinking, it keeps the Google ball on my site longer,
keeps them crawling more and of course,
there's also sitemaps for this as well,
which we discussed in earlier lessons,
but you still want to interlink.
Then number nine, we get into personalization.
You need to add in your own opinion, your own voice,
your own flavor, you're on slant, your stories.
Personalize it, when you personalize your content,
that's how you stand out from the competition
because with over a billion blogs,
how do you stand out compared to the competition?
Well, you intertwined your
own personal experiences and stories.
Then of course, last, but not least,
there is a source materials.
This is where you cite all the references,
all the data that you're using.
That way people can see you as an expert.
If you're using stats and data, don't just make them up.
If you're getting them from other places,
don't steal them either, cite them.
And if you don't know how to find the source data,
we covered this last week.
Where you just Google for any term that you're looking
for information on and then you type in data
at the end or statistics.
So I'm a type in, SEO space statistics
or SEO data and you'll end up finding a lot of sites
that have stats and data that you can end up citing,
assuming it's relevant to the article
that you're publishing.
So last action steps, I want you to download
the ten commandments of the count outlines.
Then, I want you to create your first outline.
And then, I want you to review your competitors content
with these commandments in mind.
You can find all these sheets and PDF files
at NeilPatel.com/training.
Head over to SEO Unlocked and then from there,
within this video, you'll see the files right
below the video.
Thank you and I look forward to helping
you grow your Google traffic.