The future of SEO is not what you expect, according to Neil Patel, who delivered an exceptional keynote address as part of his 2020 “The Future of SEO” summit. Fortunately, if you missed the summit, you can learn from these top 10 tips culled from his presentation.
First off, why listen to Neil Patel? He shares his stats — people listen when he speaks, with over 9 million marketers reading his blog at each posting. His manner is calm and personable, and his vision and insight place him at the top of his field.
1. Voice Search on Rise
Voice search has been on the rise for several years and is likely to approach 50% of all searches in 2021.
Alexa, Google Home, Siri and other voice devices are experiencing exponential growth. In the “Future of SEO Summit” Patel predicts 50 percent of searches will be voice searches in the near future. Voice search is more conversational and long-tailed than desktop or mobile searches.
2. Slow and Steady Wins the SEO Race
Several of the speakers on the Future of SEO Summit expressed this key point — as well as Neil Patel. The path to extreme victory happens in the little steps you take each day to refine and improve, refine and improve. There’s a good book by James Clear “Atomic Habits” that explains how improving 1% at a time each day will lead you on the road to riches.
3. Google Adwords is still king but FB Ads are on the rise (blogs help)
More than once, Neil Patel shared this golden nugget. Blog for search engine optimization, to attract traffic. Then, he said, use ads to take the people reading your blog to a landing or sales page. Retarget. So, google ads are still receiving most of the adspend but Facebook ads are moving up. And SEO is needed with your content pages or blog posts to attract the people you should be placing ads in front of — according to Patel.
4. Google adwords converts best
Throughout the presentation, Neil Patel shared his conversion tips and strategic approaches. He serves as a conversion expert for his clients. The conversion results by channel rank in this order, he says: Google adwords first, FB ads second, and SEO content marketing third. Social Media for conversion ranks a distant fourth.
5. Publish on your blog first, then release the content to other outlets.
Neil Patel recommends you publish first to your blog, then post to other outlets including Medium, Tumblr, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. Give your blog the best juice first. Then publish your content on other outlets to reach greater audiences.
6. Translations and updating content have grown Neil Patel’s blog traffic the most powerfully.
Neil Patel’s blog is currently being read in Brazil more than any other country – interesting, right? He recommends you translate your blog into different languages for global traffic gains. The second most powerful tool is updating your blog posts. His team combs his back blog posts and update them all the time. Next up of course is blogging more. Oh! The constant tug of needing to blog more. Blog more, but don’t forget to update and improve your old posts.
Here is one of his blog posts that goes more in depth on how to update old posts — it is so juicy!
7. ROI increases go from 100 percent to 124 percent when you retarget ads from your content marketing.
He shares this point with a lot of passion. Target your content readers with ads that take them to your sales pages to increase your ROI on SEO. So, optimize your posts to attract higher ranking and more organic traffic. But then, take advantage of the organic traffic with highly focused ad strategies.
8. User experience is the key to solid SEO results.
Who cares if you get organic traffic by sharing your keywords 750 times in a 1000-word blog if that turns off your readers? Here Neil Patel shares how to pay attention to the user experience. Is your reader getting what they need when they need it, the way they need it? He gave a funny example of how to tie a tie — nobody wants to read 2000 words about that. Make it as short as possible but give the reader what they are seeking. Cater to the consumer.
9. Click-through rate hacks from Clickflow include posing questions, keeping your titles the right length, and integrating powerful words.
Neil Patel recommends Clickflow.com for the study of what causes people to click through to your calls-to-action. Later in the presentation he talked about studying the right-side widgets on his blog to look at what he does to encourage people to click through (and ultimately hire his company!). So, if you aren’t getting enough clicks, study these hacks! Use powerful words, pose questions, invoke curiousity, and tease. Even with the title of this very SEO summit “The future of seo (not what you expect)” walks this talk.
10. Changes in SEO take time to reap rewards, have patience.
Everybody wants the magic pill. Everybody wants to do one or two things and experience huge waves of new traffic and great results.
When I teach SEO, I say it is like turning a ship. It takes time. You start the turn, but the ship doesn’t change course immediately.
In sum, Neil Patel’s “Future of SEO Summit” was well worth the time to attend the entire event. Crowdcast couldn’t handle the 9,000 to 9,500 audience that well and streaming glitches were extreme. The information was so valuable, it made it worth listening through the glitches. Neil Patel also shared case studies from a few different companies including Western Union (how they are shifting to digital). Please head over to his NeilPatel.com for more enrichment and teachings.
If you would like a personalized SEO report with recommendations for improvement, SEO for Lead Gen is here to help.
I was going to attend Neil Patel’s SEO summit but got called off into work. Thank you for this overview, I’m looking forward to learning more.