Since this year, it’s been raining acquisitions in the Martech space.
Here are some exciting ones we have seen so far:
- Similarweb + Rank Ranger
- LinkedIn Acquired Oribi
- SEMRush Acquired Backlinko
- Conductor Acquires ContentKing
And let’s not forget Hubspot acquired The Hustle sometime last year.
However, none of these acquisitions shook the SEO community as much as the one that happened just before May retired for the 365-long night. That’s the news of NP Digital (aka Neil Patel) buying AnswerThePublic.
NP Digital acquired the search listening tool for an undisclosed amount.
Lisa Ohman, COO of Ubersuggest, says the acquisition will further expand the technology capabilities of Ubersuggest providing deeper insights to marketers. But SEO Twitter disagree. The acquisition has generated tons of mixed reactions on Twitter, especially from the SEO community.
Here are some of the most hilarious ones 😂💀😂:
This thread got me rolling on the floor:
Okay, enough with the jokes. Let’s stay on topic.
Personally, I admire Neil Patel. He was one of the first marketers whose content I consumed when I first got started in marketing. That’s because of his visibility on search engines like Google. He recently record a great podcast with the team at My First Million: definitely worth a listen.
Neil Patel dominates the SERPs for a combination of high value short- and long-tail keywords. Here are some top keywords he ranks for:
Some webpages that rank for these keywords attract ashight as 7K visitors every month, with a monthly search value of $20,000 for a keyword like blogging. It means anyone looking to outrank Neil for the same keyword should have that much money to invest in this effort. But that will be waste of resources since long-tail keywords can bring more qualified prospects your way.
Overall, Neil Patel has done a pretty decent job in terms of search, and the numbers speak for itself:
From an organic search perspective, Neil Patel is a force. We can’t deny his influence, regardless of how we see it, and his work is still shaping culture every day. But when we move to the tools section, specifically Ubersuggest, it’s a different story altogether. That’s probably why AnswerThePublic is a win for the team.
Let’s talk about Ubersuggest.
Ubersuggest is an SEO software that shows marketers keyword monthly search volume, CPC, and competitor data. According to this blog post, Neil Patel has over 50,000 users, including small businesses and enterprise brands.
When you look at the numbers, it’s obvious the tool hasn’t done as well as the Neil Patel website since its 120K acquisition in 2017.
For example, people who land on Ubersuggest spend less than ten (10) seconds on the website, visiting an average of one page. That’s super low compared to its competitors. Ahrefs has visitors spending up to 9 mins on a single page, checking out 7 pages before they leave. Semrush also records almost 6 pages per visit, with visitors spending around 7 minutes before bouncing. See how they compare in terms of bounce rates:
A good bounce rate falls somewhere between 26% to 40%.
Having a bounce rate as high as 90% could mean several things. It could mean that most visitors don’t find the tool so valuable, as most visitors spend about nine seconds, which is too little time to do much with the tool.
On the other hand, Ahrefs’ and SEMrush’s bounce rates fall within the optimal range. By the numbers, you can tell users find these tools and other pages on these websites more valuable than Ubersuggest. But with Ubersuggest’s updates and the AnswerThePublic acquisition, perhaps things will start to look up.
Many marketers rely on AnswerThePublic to generate relevant topic ideas, long-tail keywords, and questions Google search users are asking around a keyword. It’s no wonder the tool attracted an average of 1.3 million people in the last three months.
Here’s AnswerThePublic’s scorecard:
From the look of things, it’s obvious Neil Patel bought the tool for its value, not its search rankings. There is no comparing AnswerThePublic’s search numbers with NP Digital’s SEO moat. But the tool is obviously the asset Neil saw when he decided to buy.
AnswerThePublic has a decent bounce rate of 40%, which is within the optimal range. Perhaps, the tool’s success will rub off on Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest also gains approximately one million users, doubling its original user count.
AnswerThePublic will still exist apart from Ubersuggest. However, since it’s now owned by NP Digital, the NP Digital’s cross-functional team plans to improve AnswerThePublic’s existing offerings. Let’s hope they don’t break anything. Lol 😂. Just kidding 😄.
To wrap up, we think this is a brilliant move by NP Digital in terms of positioning.
If they successfully pull off their plans for the tool, it will strengthen NP Digital’s authority in the market, and perhaps, earn the brand some more respect in the SEO and marketing community.
Now, over to you. What are your thoughts on the acquisition?
Do you think it’s a win or nah? Please share your thoughts. We want to hear from you.
