Marketing School | Digital Marketing | Online Marketing

In Episode #52 Neil and Eric discuss the all-too-common challenge of finding great ideas for blog topics. Listen as they share a number of their favorite tools, proven techniques, and secret sources for marquee content. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:23 – Today’s topic: How to research new blog topics? 00:42 – Hold weekly meetings and crowdsource idea generation 01:00 – You can also tap into your email list 01:50 – Tap into feedly.com 02:05 – Neil only sources his audience for blog/podcast topics 02:31 – What type of problems are you hearing about again and again at conferences and industry events? 02:50 – BuzzSumo and Brian Dean's Skyscraper Technique 04:00 – TrackReddit 04:48 – Tap into article sub-headers and use those sub-headers to create individual posts 05:30 – What have people engaged with in the past? 06:56 – Digital Marketer – Headline Ideas 07:15 – Aaron Ageis Quick Sprout 3 Key Points: Tap into the hive mind (aka the crowd). Listen into your industry’s buzz. Try transformin

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! Links affect two types of traffic sources: organic traffic and referral traffic. In Episode #51 Eric and Neil discuss how to drive a lot of traffic to your website without building links. Enjoy! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #50 Eric and Neil discuss why they decided to do this podcast in the first place, what their hesitations were, and the benefits of doing it. Enjoy! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #49 Eric and Neil discuss how often you should be tracking your keyword ranking. Enjoy! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #48 Neil and Eric discuss their respective strategies for studying competitors. Listen as both hosts explain why examining the competition—while occasionally valuable—is not as helpful as examining customers, and why your big strategy shifts should be determined by YOU as opposed to the competition. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:10 – How much should you focus on your competitors? 00:15 – Neil doesn’t focus on competitors too much 00:29 – Remember that the market is HUGE 00:45 – There’s a LOT of room out there 01:03 – Making a shitload of money as #2 or #3 is awesome—you don’t need to be #1 01:47 – Just focus on building your OWN business 02:12 – SEMrush 02:15 – Use it to gain keen insight into what your competitors are doing 02:49 – AdBeat 02:54 – See what your competitors are doing with more granularity 03:13 – If you’re going to pay attention to competitors, may attention to new products and market shifts 03:55 – If you don’t, you’ll get left behind 04:10 – Don’t sweat the sm

In Episode #47 Neil and Eric walk through their Top 10 Plugins for WordPress—they’re not only talk about the plugins and their features, but best practices for making the most of these WP add-ons.  Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:15 – Sharing the Top 5 Wordpress Plugins 00:35 – Yoast SEO plugin 01:03 – ThriveLeads is all about content upgrades 01:20 – Allows for opt-ins that are relevant to specific content topics 01:52 – Allows for the addition of an easy CTA for every post 02:02 – Pretty Link 02:09 – If you’re promoting someone else’s product as an affiliate, you can cloak the affiliate link 02:47 – Also great for Facebook ads 03:03 – PolyLang 03:13 – Requires more work, but it creates SERIOUS ROI 03:49 – Most people don’t speak English, yet most of the content available is in English 04:16 – Manual translate your content 05:05 – CoSchedule 05:19 – A wordpress plugin that organizes everything into an editorial calendar 06:56 – WPSmush 07:09 – Condenses images to make to help pages

In Episode #46 Neil and Eric explain how to measure the results of your content marketing efforts. Listen as Neil and Eric illustrate why measuring your content marketing, while important, isn’t necessarily KEY until your content marketing and its reach has hit a certain level of exposure. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – How to measure the results of your content marketing efforts 00:40 – What gets measured gets managed 00:55 – One thing you can do?—start simple. Track what’s important using a spreadsheet 01:45 – With content marketing, it takes time to measure results so be patient 01:50 – Neil never measures ROI from content marketing 02:25 – When you’re spending your OWN time on content marketing, there’s virtually no cost 02:45 – Content marketing is a LONG-TERM play 03:00 – As long as traffic keeps going up, you’ll be able to find a way to monetize 03:20 – Once traffic exceeds 10,000, start collecting emails 04:15 – Calculated Risk 04:55 – Content marketing is a 12-18 month journey befor

In Episode #45 Neil and Eric talk testimonials—what they are, why they’re important, and how you can go about collecting them for your business. Listen as Neil and Eric share their personal experience with testimonials—both good and bad—and illustrate why you should never create a fake testimonial. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – How you can get testimonials from your customers 00:39 – Testimonials are KEY because they do all the hard legwork in terms of winning new business 01:28 – Add company badges and testimonials to your homepage 01:49 – YesInsights 02:39 – Email people asking for feedback 03:03 – Roughly 3 people out of every 100 will give you feedback…at least one of those should be good enough for a testimonial 04:32 – A testimonial will give you a conversion lift of around 8% to 10% 05:19 – Net Promoter Score 06:05 – Be sure to ASK people if you can use testimonials…if you don’t, you can get in BIG trouble 06:15 – However, when it comes to logos, it’s better to ask for forgiveness tha

In Episode #44 Neil and Eric talk about generating more blog topics for your website—why it’s so important and the tools you can use to ensure your content is always fresh. Listen as they share their personal strategies for creating winning blog content that’s not only interesting to them, but interesting to their readers. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:30 – Generating more (and more exciting) blog topics 00:37 – Use BuzzSumo 00:53 – Take what BuzzSumo gives you and IMPROVE upon it 01:54 – Look at posts that are fairly new 02:20 – Take the sub-headers and turn those into individual posts 02:58 – Use Google News or Trends to see what’s hot 03:23 -- Learn how to write content that’s fresh AND informative 04:00 – The internal search feature on your website isn’t sexy, but it is valuable 04:35 – Go to NeilPatel.com in the footer click on TOOLS and then type in your competitor’s URLs 05:00 – Don’t copy your competition, outperform them 05:55 – Convince and Convert 06:30 – Look into your analytics

In Episode #43 Neil and Eric hammer out the realities surrounding YouTube advertising. Want the two-word summary?—it’s awesome! YouTube advertising is one of the easiest ways to revolutionize your business, listen as Neil and Eric show you how. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:30 – Does YouTube advertising REALLY work for your business? 00:38 – It’s a hidden GEM! 00:55 – Any time you’re running display, you’re looking for TRACTION more than anything 01:45 – Going all-in with YouTube advertising saved a company 02:10 – At CrazyEgg, YouTube advertising generated more revenue in one month than any other medium 02:52 – Check out Tai Lopez 03:33 – YouTube advertising is extremely profitable—but it is expensive to set up and it’s a lot of work 04:05 – Bid on pre-roll and search ads 04:40 – Leads coming in at less than $1 a pop 05:10 – For Growth Everywhere, we’re targeting entrepreneurial viewers 05:39 – Other people being lazy is your opportunity 06:41 – The key to getting an add that works really w

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #42 Eric and Neil discuss their favorite marketing tools, like Infusionsoft & LeadPages—and why. Enjoy! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #41 Neil and Eric talk about how to generate more leads. Neil stresses the importance of not just getting people to sign up, but getting qualified leads that are viable for your business. Learn as they share. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:30 – How to generate more leads for your website 00:39 – Tools you can use 00:40 – Hello Bar 00:45 – SumoMe 01:03 – Figure out why someone should become a lead 01:19 – Give something to convert them into a lead 02:15 – Make sure content is categorized 02:35 – Segmenting your audience 02:57 – Example on marketing funnel post 03:15 – Give a bonus on the topic 03:39 – Sending people to case studies 04:33 – It’s about getting qualified leads 05:01 – Taking people down to a long funnel 05:16 – Putting click to action after getting leads to sign up 05:35 – Drip and Infusionsoft 05:50 – Make sure to segment people from your website 06:04 – Lead scores 06:39 – Breaking leads into multiple steps 07:14 – Try storytelling as a strategy 07:5

In Episode #40 Neil and Eric discuss the 7 simple SEO tactics for increasing your web traffic. Neil shares the reason for his long blog posts and why you should link them to your most popular page. Learn how to optimize your website’s exposure with these easy, non-technical steps. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:29 – 7 Simple SEO tactics to sky rocket your traffic 00:49 – Linking to your most popular pages 01:19 – Make sure to link on every blog post 01:29 – Featured snippets 01:53 – How to Rank Zero 02:01 – Make sure you have a H1 title and tag 02:19 – Google’s role 03:01 – Click through rates 03:18 – Optimizing title tags 03:48 – Think of title tags as human 04:14 – People love to Google, “What is SEO?” 04:27 – Second order page scraping 04:37 – Getting into Google search console 05:25 – Google likes to audition you 05:50 – Neil’s loooong blog posts 06:05 – More keywords you have, more long tail terms 06:38 – More detailed content, more sure traffic 07:02 – Transcribing videos

Welcome to The Marketing School Podcast—your 10-minute resource to learn, grown, and nurture your passion for online marketing! In Episode #39 Eric and Neil discuss why webinars are great for generating sales. Enjoy! Leave some feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below. Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with us: NeilPatel.com Quick Sprout Growth Everywhere Single Grain Twitter @neilpatel Twitter @ericosiu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Episode #38 Eric and Neil teach you how to promote a blog post. Whether you have a tight budget or an endless one, one of these plans will help you get people to read your content and share it. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:24 – How to promote a blog post 00:43 – In the beginning, 80% of your time should be spent on promotion. 01:00 – Find people who have already shared content 01:15 – Use Buzzsumo and Twitter 01:50 – Think about how you can stand out. 02:10 – Link out to influencers within the blog post. 02:55 – Link out ten times for every 1000 words. 03:10 – Linking to companies. 03:28 – Paid social ads. 03:40 – A huge chunk of funds go to promotion. 04:14 – Drive people to your site using Facebook. 04:29 – Also use Google. 04:40 – Figure out how to write amazing headlines 05:00 – Copyblogger Headline Formulas 05:30 – Headlines make a huge difference! 05:45 – Portent Headline Generator 06:05 – Build up a group of people that will help promote your content. 06:35 – It wi

In Episode #37 Eric and Neil discuss the value of a good infographic. Neil has seen more traffic and backlinks from infographics than from anything else. Learn how you can create an all-star graphic that drives up traffic on your site. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:24 – What goes into creating a viral infographic 00:40 – Links effect Google rankings 00:53 – Take complex info and make it visual, and people will link to it. 01:15 – Your rankings will skyrocket 01:30 – For Neil, backlinks and traffic have come mostly from infographics. 02:00 – There are a lot of crappy infographics. 02:10 – Start at Visual.ly to see examples of good infographics. 02:40 – Pull out elements that work in those designs. 02:50 – Dribbble is another resource to contact designers. 03:17 – The first step is to get good data. 03:28 – Get a researcher off of Upwork to collect and outlined data. 03:45 – Don’t have more than six main points. 04:05 – Flow these points into a story. 04:25 – Publish the blog and get an embe

In Episode #36 Eric and Neil talk about why you should create blog posts, and what the best process is to do it. Learn the tricks of the pros, and find out what resources are available to you to make your blog writing not only entertaining or educational but actually capable of converting customers. Time Stamped Show Notes:  00:24 – How to write amazing blog posts 00:35 – Educate and provide great information, and people will see you as an expert. 00:55 – People will share you and refer friends to you. 01:15 – The number one way they generate sign-ups for multiple companies. 01:20 – Thomas Tunguz’s Post 01:55 – The effects of content marketing over time 02:05 – It’s like compounding interest. 02:34 – You need one thing that stands out. 02:45 – Long-form blog posts backed by data. 03:04 – Not just content for content’s sake. 03:15 – Show something unique and useful. 03:29 – eHow is a great example of what you shouldn’t do. 04:12 – WaitButWhy.com 04:25 – Humor and long-form articles with

In Episode #35 Eric and Neil debate whether marketing certifications are worth it—and here’s a hint: they’re not! Certifications are much like college degrees. They may get you in the right direction, but they will not give you the real experience that you need. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:24 – Are marketing certifications worth it? No! 00:45 – Most certifications take very little effort. 01:00 – It teaches you nothing. 01:15 – You need practical experience. 01:30 – One example of someone on Neil’s team 01:50 – It comes down to experience. 01:58 – Eric tried to get everyone on his team certified, but that didn’t really help anything. 02:35 – You’re better off learning on your own. 03:00 – Prove that you have real world skills. 03:10 – Certification is a starting point. It does not qualify you. 03:30 – Certifications are like college degrees. 03:45 – Neil’s friend who hires kids from Stanford. 04:05 – They are generating zero sales. 04:35 – It’s a resume builder, but it won’t help your

In Episode #34 Eric and Neil discuss how to perform a competitive analysis. This process is not just a way to steal from your competitors—it’s also a great way to motivate your team to see where you’re lacking and start making changes. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:22 – How you can do a competitive analysis. 00:45 – If you use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs, you can find top performing pages. 01:10 – See what you can steal from those pages. 01:45 – An example: Companies using a hub-and-spoke model 02:40 – The BuiltWith Tool 03:04 – WhatRunsWhere captures your competition’s ads 03:20 –SEMrush tells you the keywords your customers are bidding on. 04:19 – Using ahrefs to look at a monthly graph and see how many links your competitor is adding 05:20 – Moz to compare competitors side by side 05:50 – You can show your team where you are lacking and ultimately drive action. 06:30 – Go to NeilPatel.com for his social media analysis tool. 07:35 – Use SimilarWeb to see even more details of your competit

In Episode #33 Eric and Neil discuss affiliate marketing. This marketing tactic, when pursued correctly, can be a very lucrative method for driving traffic. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:22 – What is affiliate marketing? 00:30 – Performance marketing. Someone else pushes your product. 01:00 – The seller collects the margin. 01:35 – There is a risk, but it can be very lucrative. 01:57 – Great opportunity if you don’t want to pay for marketing. 02:20 – Google search for affiliate networks and reach out to them. 02:40 – Release offers. 03:30 – Don’t jump the gun! 03:50 – Avoid legal battles and have good quality control. 04:10 – Use CallRail, LeadDyno, HasOffers 04:30 – Monitor the ads that affiliates are running. 05:00 – Bad traffic will give you bad reviews. 05:30 – The bigger the affiliate, the better. 05:45 – You need a strong website to give them a strong return. 06:10 – Read Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day 06:30 – If you’re starting out, affiliate marketing is a gr