How a Failed Job Board Led to a Marketing Career

Neil's origin story is relatable. At 16, he was trying to find a high paying job. While browsing job boards, he noticed these companies were making serious money based on their public financials.

He thought, "If I make 1% of what they make, I'll be rich. I'll be a millionaire." So he created his own job board, paid people to develop it, and launched. Then crickets.

"I realized oh you got to do something called marketing," Neil told me. He paid a firm, got little results, and ran out of money. He was working at a theme park at the time. So he learned marketing himself, started getting results, and that's how his career began.

Building NP Digital from Demand, Not a Business Plan

Neil started NP Digital about seven years ago. The reason? "We used to just get hit up a lot for marketing so that's why we started the agency," he said.

No grand vision or inspirational story. Just demand from creating content and being recognized in marketing. Today, NP Digital is global with 19 plus countries and over 1,000 people, helping everyone from small businesses to large enterprises.

I asked if managing all different clients and services is challenging. "It requires a lot of headcount and people who are good at what they do," Neil said. Then he added: "If I had to start over again and I didn't have a brand in the demand I would start an agency for one specific vertical and then expand from there whether it's pest control or lawyers or dentists or doctors you get the point and then expand from there."

That validated my niche approach completely.

Local SEO Has Changed More Than You Think

I asked Neil about his local SEO course on YouTube from four years ago. Is it still relevant?

"Needs a lot of updating. I would not follow my local SEO course from four years ago. I don't even know what's in it, it's been that long," he said honestly.

Some fundamentals remain: Google Business Profile, link building, reviews and ratings, technical SEO. But the nuances have changed significantly. "It's not just Google," Neil explained. "There's a lot of these directories which you guys already know because that existed four years ago but for example things like AI has changed the whole search landscape, local and global SEO or national or whatever you want to end up calling it."

AI Is Everywhere, But ChatGPT Is Losing Market Share

ChatGPT is the most popular AI platform, gaining in popularity. But they're losing market share. "Those are two different things," Neil explained. "There's more people using these AI platforms but there's now people using many platforms so ChatGPT isn't controlling 50 plus percent of the market share or anything like that."

AI is everywhere now. Instagram, Siri, Google. The results are becoming personalized. "Google's been experimenting with things like recipes or places to eat based on your personal preferences," Neil said. "You'll start seeing all the local results whenever it's possible will help you more personalized, more based on what they think you'll like."

Google's AI Overviews Are Actually Helping Traffic

Google's AI overviews used to appear for majority of queries, now it's less than 15%. The percentage varies by country, but here's the interesting part: Neil looked at client traffic before and after AI overviews rolled out. "We actually saw them getting an increase in traffic, not by much, a little bit more than a percent, but better than nothing," he said.

It's a great place to be cited, and Neil thinks AI overviews could potentially take over featured snippets.

How to Show Up in SearchGPT and AI Platforms

Traditional SEO tactics still matter for AI platforms, but there are specifics. Neil said they're seeing AI look at relevancy and brand mentions. "How often is your brand mentioned around the internet?" he explained. Ratings and reviews also matter.

"Optimizing for Bing is also important because ChatGPT pulls from Bing for a lot of times when they don't have responses, so that can help you with traffic as well," Neil added.

Optimizing for Bing is similar to Google. They just don't show identical results. "Why would people want to use the same search engine over and over again?" Neil asked. "So they try to differentiate here and there but they're very similar from an SEO standpoint at least."

YouTube Is the Platform with the Most Untapped Potential

I asked Neil what social platform he's most bullish on in 2025. YouTube.

"I think there's just so much potential in YouTube and people do miss basic stuff like AB testing their thumbnails, focusing on creating evergreen content, to really boosting the quality of their channel by consistently producing amazing content," Neil said.

You don't need hour long videos. "We found that like 10 to 20 minute, 10 to 30 minute videos is just fine," he explained. "You just need to do it in enough quantity."

With 1.3 million YouTube subscribers, I asked how that happened. "Organically just happened over time," he said. "I've been doing it for so long that doesn't really make or break me, doesn't really drive a ton of revenue, but I think it has tons of potential as a channel."

I was surprised YouTube doesn't drive much revenue. Other platforms? "No," he said. "LinkedIn's probably the biggest one but keep in mind we're B2B and we're really trying to focus on larger accounts like Global 10,000. We do SMB work too but our long-term goal is to get more like Global 10,000 accounts."

The One Thing Local Businesses Are Missing Most

I asked what local businesses are missing most in marketing. His answer was specific.

"They don't focus enough on ratings and reviews," Neil said. "And when I mean this, a lot of them are like hey can you just give us a rating and a review and they get whatever. They'll try to get more five stars but when I mean ratings and reviews I'm talking about getting it on multiple platforms and very detailed and thorough ratings and reviews."

Ratings are just a click, but reviews are different. "The more detailed your reviews are the more likely they are to show up because if you get 100 people to leave a review doesn't mean the platform is going to showcase all of them," Neil explained. "They may showcase 60 of them, 80 of them, but the more thorough they are what we find is more of them go through and you start doing much better in the organic results."

AI Will Automate the Mundane, But Humans Will Still Handle Strategy

I asked what's coming in the next few years for SEO, AI, and marketing.

"You're going to see tools come out to help automate a lot of this stuff," he said. "I still think text is going to be really created by humans. I think research can be done by AI. I think you're also going to end up having it where creative work can be done by a combination of humans and AI but a lot of the mundane boring tasks are going to be automated and a lot of the strategy and the stuff that really requires creativity is going to still be done by humans."

Marketing won't just be online either. Neil's example: "Think about like your refrigerator telling you what milk you should order by just saying yes and it just replaces it with an alternative that tastes similar and you just got a discount of 50% for trying it out and that milk manufacturer had to deal with your fridge or Google who powers the ads or Facebook who powers the ads."

Should employees worry about losing jobs to AI? "They should be worried about their job if you are not embracing this technology," he said. "You're going to be replaced if you are embracing it, there's going to be a lot of room for growth and promotion."

AI will replace boring jobs but create new ones. "This is not something you're going to learn in college," Neil said. "This is something you're going to learn just by doing and keeping up to date on the fly and experimenting. So the people who embrace will do well."

Will ChatGPT Stay on Top or Will Google and Facebook Take Over?

Will ChatGPT stay on top or will Google and Facebook take over?

"I think Google and Facebook will give him a run for its money," Neil said. "I think it'll just take time."

ChatGPT is already losing market share. People use multiple platforms, and some are better in different scenarios. "I look at it as like social media," Neil explained. "It's not a Facebook or Instagram or TikTok type of game. It's a question of people use all the platforms, which ones are you going to leverage, and you're going to have to leverage most of them to do well."

Spend As Much on Ads As You Can, As Long As It's Profitable

I asked how much local businesses should invest in Google Ads and Facebook Ads.

"You should spend as much as you can as long as it's profitable," Neil said simply.

Other platforms like LinkedIn or TikTok? "I like them all," Neil said. "Again it all comes down to profitability. Look if you can spend a dollar and you make $2 in profit you spend as much as you can as long as it's not breaking the economics and it doesn't matter what platforms they are, assuming they're ethical of course."

His approach: "You may think a channel is ugly or boring but if it makes money who cares."

Influencer Marketing Is the Most Untapped Opportunity for Local Businesses

"If I had to pick one specific channel that I love the most for advertising that I think is untapped, it's not really a channel, it's a kind of ad. It's influencer marketing where you're paying an influencer to push and promote a product," Neil said.

For pest control businesses specifically, Neil gave a perfect example. "Let's say there's this mom and there's tons of moms with huge followings on social media and they talk about household stuff and whatever it may be," he said. "I would pay them to be like tired of these pesky rodents or ants or whatever, I got a solution for you, you can do X Y and Z and there's also this company that comes by and check them out and you know you get the branding out there as well."

I loved this idea because almost no one in the pest control space is doing this. I asked Neil to dive in a little more, and he gave an even better example.

"Tired of all the rodents in this area?" Neil said, getting into character. "I don't know what area, let's pick an area that has a mice problem or a cockroach problem. Or even better, I used to live in Vegas, scorpions. No mom wants scorpions or dad wants scorpions in their house, especially when you have young kids."

He kept going: "Worried about scorpions in your house? I was too. And the problem with these pest solutions is it's just so toxic. But check out this solution I tried out, this company. I used to have all these scorpions, they destroyed the scorpions. Now look I got no scorpions. And but all the products like it's organic, smells a little bit like, I'm making this up, smells a little bit like bay but you know what at least it's not poisonous for my kids. And you got to check out this company, it smells not that bad, you get used to it, a little minty at the end, you know and I highly recommend it."

That was such a good example that I told Neil we might use that clip for one of my clients. The key is finding local influencers in your area and paying them a one time fee for a video. They'll drive a ton of traffic and eventually a ton of leads.

You can be flexible with it too. Find influencers whose audience matches your ideal customer, and let them promote your service in an authentic way.

How Neil Built 4 Million Followers Across Social Media

Neil has 600,000 followers on LinkedIn, a million on Facebook, and 500,000 on Twitter. I asked about his social media strategy.

"Just post content consistently every single day and try to post new stuff that people haven't seen before," Neil said. "I think the new stuff that people haven't seen before is really the key. Everyone posts but they post regurgitated information. Non regurgitated information tends to do better. Regurgitated information tends not to do as well. It really is that simple."

Should everyone post on social media? "I think everyone should be posting on social media," Neil said. Exception: if you only sell to government contracts, social probably won't help much. For most businesses, it helps.

Should You Build a Personal Brand or a Company Brand?

I asked if social media for personal brands versus company brands is different.

"It is very similar in how you market it," he said. "It's just the personal brand only takes you so far so I would stick with a corporate brand."

Why? "It's easier to sell," Neil explained. "You think about a pest control business, you create one, does well, you franchise it off, get all the other local cities around you, get enough, like eventually sell the business. People don't want to buy personal brands, they rather buy corporate brands. I'm talking about the buyers of the corporations. No one really cares about a personal brand in pest control anymore, so just want to pay a company and get their solution."

For a sellable asset, the company brand matters more. Personal brands work for people building multiple businesses, but for a pest control owner looking for an exit, focus on the company.

The Biggest Mistake People Make with AI Content

I asked what everyone is getting wrong with digital marketing.

"I think the big thing that people tell me is like ah you don't need humans you can just use AI," Neil said. "I'm like okay sounds good, go use AI to create a thousand articles, let's see what happens."

Companies have fired his agency to use AI instead. "Then they come back like 5 months, 6 months later, our traffic's down a lot, like can you make our AI content better?" Neil said. "I'm like that's your problem, your AI content dragged down the rest of your site. It's not as simple as just you know blindly trusting AI and then you know cranking out a thousand or 10,000 articles and expecting to do well."

The second mistake: thinking you can just create information and put it out there. "You need to spend more time on promotion than actually the creation part and people forget that," Neil said.

Why Neil's Blog Gets a Million Visitors a Month

Neil's blog gets over a million visitors monthly. What makes it successful?

"Been doing it long enough," Neil said. "Build links and try to talk about new stuff, include a lot of stats and data that people aren't talking about and it gives you a slight edge. Every little bit adds up."

The biggest thing: "We spend more time updating content than writing new content," Neil said. "To give you an idea, would you rather read a three year old article or a three week old article? You're going to pick the three week old article. This is why Wikipedia ranks for everything. Their content is continually up to date."

How to Actually Build Backlinks That Matter

How often should you update articles? "Whenever they need to, to make sure it's relevant and still high in quality," he said. "There's some type of articles you don't really need to update often like the nutrition facts of bananas, not really going to change too often. Don't update something just for Google, update it when it's relevant for the user and best for them."

For link building, Neil focuses on best content and outreach. "We see who links to our competition but doesn't link to us. We have a backlink opportunity report in Ubersuggest that shows that. Reach out to those sites and try to convince them to link to ours."

Who to reach out to? "Webmasters, people writing the articles, building relationships and hopefully they add in links to your sites," he said. Target super authoritative sites, but more importantly, ones related to your industry.

The Missing Ingredient in Most SEO Strategies

What are people missing in SEO? "Writing new content that no one's been talking about before," Neil said. "Everyone just assumes you can crank out regurgitated information, you're going to do well. Doesn't work well these days."

How to come up with ideas: "Brainstorming, talk to people, surveying, talking to customers, looking at social media, seeing the comments on what people's problems are," Neil said. "We all give you ideas."

Neil has been doing case studies and surveying thousands of people to create content based on real data and problems.

Podcasting Is Wide Open, Unlike Blogging

Neil started his podcast six or seven years ago. How does he get so many listeners?

"Podcasting is not that competitive," Neil said. "There's like one podcast for every roughly 1,800 people while there's roughly one blog for every like eight people."

Way more blogs than podcasts. "There's not that many competitors to deal with when it comes to podcasts," Neil explained. "So if you just crank something out you'll just naturally get views and listens, believe it or not. It's literally like a wide open playing field really."

Should you start niche or broad? "I would go more broad than niche," Neil said. "Like if you want to talk about pest control specifically marketing there's just not as many people. I would go more broad. I'm not saying it's wrong to do a podcast on pest control only but you're not going to generate the listens that you may want."

Something like SEO for local businesses or marketing for local businesses. "I'm not saying go too broad but you can go a little bit more broad and it opens up more people," he said.

How to Actually Grow a Podcast

Tips for growing a podcast? "Reach out to a lot of people, that's how you get the right guest," Neil said. "And by the way, encourage people to bookmark, save, subscribe to your podcast. Usually subscribe or to the podcast, that's the best way to grow your rankings in the Apple podcast store whatever it's called."

Should you monetize with sponsors or use it to grow a business? "You should use it to grow your business," Neil said. "You'll make way more money. If you want to go the ad route you can but you'll make more money the other way."

Should everyone start a podcast? "Yes," Neil said. "But not too general, just related enough to your business."

My Main Takeaway

Neil's success comes from consistency and doing things others aren't doing. He posts on social media daily, but shares new information and data, not regurgitated content. He's been blogging for years, but spends more time updating existing content than creating new posts. He started podcasting when it was wide open and went broader than niche.

The influencer marketing insight for local businesses is something I'm implementing immediately. Finding local influencers to promote your service is an obvious opportunity almost no one is using.

Neil's approach to AI is balanced. He's not afraid of it but doesn't blindly trust it. AI handles research and mundane tasks, but humans still handle strategy and creativity. That's the balance we need to find.

Check out NP Digital or follow Neil on social media. He posts valuable content every day.