Why do I always hear about Neil Patel?
Well let’s just clarify: if you don’t know the name Neil Patel, you are not in marketing - digital or otherwise - business or the tech space or you may just be an ostrich.
Neil Patel is to digital marketers, as Stephen King is to horror story fans, Harleys are to bikers, or TikTok is to influencers.
Google ANYTHING to do with Digital Marketing, and he’ll be front and centre, above the fold, maybe multiple times, on the search engine results page (SERP).
So who is he? Well for the uninitiated, Neil Patel, aka, The SEO Guy, is the classic overachiever. Which kind of answers the title of this blog.
Here’s his list of accolades and accomplishments:
New York Times bestselling author.
The Wall Street Journal refers to him as one of the internet's top influencers.
President Obama recognised him as a top 100 entrepreneur under 30-years.
United Nations called him a top 100 entrepreneur under 35-years.
Forbes named him as one of the top 10 marketers (2016-17).
Entrepreneur Magazine says he’s created one of the top 100 companies.
His blog about marketing generates 3 million hits per month.
His Marketing School podcast has over 1 million listeners per month.
His YouTube channel about marketing has over 10 million views.
He has almost 1 million Facebook fans, nearly 500k LinkedIn and almost 500k Twitter followers.
Ubersuggest - his free keyword tool - is one of the most popular SEO tools generating keywords on the web.
He has helped multiple Fortune 500 companies grow through marketing, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Viacom, General Motors, SalesForce, Airbnb, Zappos, NBC, and Thomson Reuters - just to name a few.
He’s spoken at over 300 conferences including major growth marketing conferences and business conferences for major companies including Facebook (as says his LinkedIn About section).
He’s the founder of CrazyEgg, KISSmetrics, and HelloBar - all platforms geared towards data and growth for your website.
He is the leader of The Angels & Investors Network.
He charges between USD$30-50k to speak for your audience.
He’s a self-made millionaire whose current net worth is about USD$30 million.
It's an impressive list, but there's more to the story.
How did it all start?
Neil was born in India, but his parents migrated to the US when he was 2. He was raised in Orange County, California and from an early age was fascinated by business and making money. Throughout school he had a number of limited money making ventures, but the lack of success served to motivate him more.
He met his sister’s boss, an Oracle consultant, and started investigating how Monster.com worked, which led him to launch a website called Advice Monkey. He was not even 18. One thing led to another - it’s complex - but in short he had to learn about marketing to promote his website as he didn’t want to pay someone else to do it.
So he studied, worked helping others build websites, developed his understanding of search engines, and started CrazyEgg. They say luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and the rest is history.
He’s not going anywhere.
Neil Patel fundamentally teaches people about marketing on the internet. He does it rather freely - mostly - and because he has marketed his own brand and expertise so well, and his teachings work, people listen.
He is currently working on expanding his global digital marketing agency, Neil Patel Marketing and Ubersuggest. He currently has agencies in the US, Brazil and India, and the UK and Australian agencies are taking off - he freely admits that global expansion is his next move.
Digital marketing, SEO, search engine algorithms, the changing landscape of business, technology innovations, and the impending arrival of the metaverse, means there will be a consistent and ongoing need for his expertise.
In 2016, Patel told Forbes magazine about his love of television, and that he watches a lot of it. His main interests are international news to find out how the world works, finance news to learn how people think and, of course, the market performance, and reality TV (including Kardashians, Shark Tank and American Idol) to learn about pop culture and trends.
He admits he’s a little obsessed with life and business, and he analyses EVERYTHING so he can make sure that the way he is spending his time is offering a solid return on investment.
Funny that!