Neil Patel needs no introduction if you have spent any time researching the world of online traffic and conversion. He’s a superstar of SEO and the founder of two very popular software as a service companies – CrazyEgg and KISSmetrics – that help you do all kinds of testing and tracking on your website.
Neil started his online career very young, before finishing high school, attempting to build a clone of the Monster.com recruitment site. His site never quite succeeded as a jobs site, however Neil became very good at driving traffic to it using search engines.
After graduating from High School Neil started college, where he found himself one day doing a talk on search engines. In the audience was a man who owned a battery business, who hired Neil to help with his online lead generation. Suddenly Neil was a traffic consultant earning $3,500 a month.
Eventually, as a result of Neil’s work, almost 50% of the leads to the $50 million dollar battery business were originating online. This lead to Neil taking on more traffic and online lead generation clients, and a few short months later he was making more than $20,000 a month, all while still a teenager!
Eventually, Neil grew tired of the consulting business primarily because of all the sales work involved, and he decided to switch to software. This lead to the creation of CrazyEgg, which did well enough to attract a $6 million buyout offer within six months of the launch, yet Neil and his partner declined it (you can find out why if you listen to the interview).
KISSmetrics was born after the struggle Neil and his partner had in finding venture funding for CrazyEgg. Investors wanted something bigger – a bigger vision with real scale potential. KISSmetrics hit the spot and they were able to secure $4 million in funding.
Today Neil spends most of his time on KISSmetrics and also building his profile online, with his blog QuickSprout at the center of his personal branding campaign.
This interview really shows how much you can achieve at a young age, or any age really if you put enough time into what you are doing. You can tell Neil has a single-mindedness to what he does, and although it took a few years of playing with different business models he didn’t like, he always excelled, and today finds himself in charge of two companies that have him financially set for life.
IMPORTANT: be sure to look out for the 5 minutes or so about one third into the interview where I ask Neil to break down what link building techniques work in SEO today. This is straight from the horse’s mouth from a guy who is on top of the SEO game and has worked for some huge companies.
Enjoy the episode,
Yaro
Relevant Links:
- QuickSprout.com
- CrazyEgg.com
- Mechanical Turk
- www.blogsvertise.com/
- www.prserve.com/
- ShoeMoney.com
- Monster
- Paypal
- authorize.net
- Mechanical Turk
- Tweet Adder
- blogguest.com
- TechCrunch
- Huffington Post
- HelloBar.com
- Cheezburger
- WhitePages.com
Where to Find Neil Online
[ Download MP3 | Transcript | iTunes | Soundcloud | Raw RSS ]
Isn’t it amazing that nothing is impossible? Despite years of trying, I’m yet to make it big, but I still believe in trying, and eventually I’ll definitely success in this journey.
Neil Patel is the role example that inspire us to achieve the possibility out there. 🙂
He was good at driving traffic? That is most sought out objective to complete on the internet.
I am impressed how he was able to produce that income at his age. Very good work to him. Congrats!
Great podcast Yaro! Neil is a great person and shares a lot of great information. Also good look with the development of your startup.
Wow!.. Very inspiring and definitely a great story of success. At a very young age, it’s amazing he was able to earn that much. Thanks for sharing his story. And by the way, great interview.
kem cho Neil bnhaiii….
been following Neil’s stuff for a while now. great journey, great inspiration and role model. the HARD (a big understatement in your case) work is clearly paying off dividends.
love the inspiration gathered from the family, especially Mom’s daycare business.
wow, dats a very good inspiration yaro. Neil is a living proof that nothing is impossible for he that really want to succeed in life.
@ Yaro, Thanks for sharing.
@ Neil, keep it up.
Amazing story, from seo consultant to multi million offers and creating his own companies. thanks for sharing
Thanks for this inspiring success story. Lucky him to find the right way at young age. keep on good work!
some guys just have it all together, he has experienced success from a very early age, has had some luck coupled with hard work. i wish him more success in future and wish i become even a fraction as successful as him.
Indeed he is a successful man, he leads a game we all try to master. Not many of us will be able to be where he is now.
the HARD (a big understatement in your case) work is clearly paying off dividends.
very inspiring. Neil is a role model to many people. Its not the hardwork but the smartwork that is important to get success.
Great podcast.
I am completely new in this business. I have written only 10 post so far, but I have so much motivation and enthusiasm thanks to stories like Neil’s. I am certain that the internet life style is possible. Thank you for proving it Neil.
hi
I’ve just listened to this interview. There is some part on this interview where Neil mentions a program/service/software to build your twtiter account, but I couldn’t understand which one he recommends.
Can anybody help?
Awesome intervewi btw.
Cheers!
Great interview, Yaro. I liked that you got Neil to go into some practical tips.
@Bruno: I think the service Neil mentioned was TweetAdder.
@Matt, thanks a lot mate, will check it out 😉
Knew close to nothing on kissmetrics, now i have to try it!
I’ve only just discovered Neil (I don’t know how I missed him) and discovered we were born on exactly the same day! As such, he is years ahead of me. I have been busy devouring everything I can find on him. 🙂
All of Neil’s work is terrific. His personal blog and kissmetrics is the best as far as SEO news and info.
Neil is apparently a great person and shares a lot of information, it’s ridiculous that I haven’t even heard about KISSmetrics, but I’ll surely check it out, since I need some new tricks for my local business.
One thing we can learn from Neil Patel is that you have to be everywhere on the internet in order to make a success of your online business. I have been finding article written by him everywhere. I have also found articles written about him everywhere. He’s a perfect example of how to make it in this business. Great article Yaro
Wow!.. Very inspiring and definitely a great story of success.
Neil Patel is an inspiration for youth. Making million $ business within the age of 20 by hard work. Knowledge Makes Money.
Man what a great story, so young and he was already so smart and had already gone so far. It’s no wonder he’s the man he is today. I hope i can be so successful as he!!
Neil Patel has inspired me a lot to start my digital marketing company. Learned a lot from his free stuff available on internet. Thank you Yaro for this podcast.