Craig Campbell SEO - Glasgow Based SEO

Running the Bases today with Craig Campbell from Craig Campbell SEO - Craig Campbell is considered a star in the SEO community with over twenty years in the digital marketing industry.  

Craig is amongst one of the most reputed and highly trusted digital marketers. While he specializes in SEO, Craig Campbell is a lifelong digital marketing expert, and his in-depth virtual marketing course on YouTube has helped hundreds of people start their successful businesses.

Craig also offers advice and consultation to businesses in a myriad of industries that want to grow online. When asked about what he expects people will learn from the podcast, Craig said, “Honestly, if there is one thing, I want listeners to learn is to open their minds to all possibilities. Whether you want to learn SEO, SEM, running advertising, or outsourcing, opening your mind, and being willing to learn is all you need to succeed.”

Spoiler Alert: We might get a bit into the weeds on digital marketing and SEO.  That’s what can happen when you have a couple of guys throwing the “SEO” ball around.  But, we try to keep it light and interesting.  And, Craig with his Scottish accent and rakish humor - keeps the show hopping!

Take a trip around the bases with us - learn a few digital marketing tricks and enjoy the good times.

Learn more about Craig Campbell SEO and the Glasgow Based SEO Expert  at https://www.craigcampbellseo.com/

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Transcript

Randy: 0:13

Running the bases with small businesses. I'm Randy Rohde, and I have a passion to work with small businesses and I love baseball. So I thought, Hey, let's bring them together. So every episode I sit down with local entrepreneurs, business builders, and small business owners to talk about their wins and whiffs their tools of the trade and to give actionable tips to other business managers will cover the bases with entrepreneurship, operations, sales, digital marketing. Innovation plus a little fun baseball top. Thanks for joining us today. Settle in, grab your Cracker jacks and you know what they say. All right. As I like to say, it is a great day for a ball game. And uh, all right. Way to go, Gary, take it home. And as I like to say, I like that a little flare, right. Craig, that's kind of fun. Uh, and, uh, uh, I love to say so, it was Randy Rohde and you are listening to running the basis with small businesses I'm really excited to have on the show today., our second,, Kind of international guests. So Craig, I'm sorry, you're not the first international, but I have a client who does, uh, alcohol delivery services over in, uh, London., he was one of our guests,, earlier., this guy has 18 years experience in the digital marketing worlds,, regular speaker ad. Digital marketing conferences and events around the world trainer and mentor to agencies and individuals. Plus folks, listen to this and we're going to hopefully get a few details on the secrets of this. Right now he's launched kind of his latest project. He's doing about a hundred thousand dollars monthly revenue in this thing. And I want to hear about that., but right now let's welcome Craig Campbell, all the way from Glasgow, Scotland and Craig. Welcome to the show.

Craig: 2:21

Thank you. Great introduction, pleasure, pleasure to be here and, and obviously speak in front of a different audience for, for one. So hopefully you guys can understand. The accent. Hey, I'll try and speak as slowly as I possibly can, but yeah, please with the BDO. That's great.

Randy: 2:42

All right. So before we get started with, uh, Craig's background and how you built this worldwide reputation for digital marketing,, tell us about this massive project that you've launched and how you're getting the results so far.

Craig: 2:56

So those all get special,, signs to it. I think with digital and, and SEO, which is where, I'm particularly strong. I have launched a project,, with a Flint and. He has software and everything else. So he's got a whole back of a business, certainly up and the, and to eat. He does reasonably well in the country that he operates in. And we said it, the period when COVID started, what do something else? You know, . Partner up and let's do a project together because he's getting software in that business side of it. He doesn't have the marketing skills that I've got. We, we went for it and it's in a very niche market. Him and yeah, we basically, you know, a lot of people will tell you that,, mass page builders and stuff like that, doesn't work. And when it comes to digital marketing and yes, people do have a point when they see that, you know, if I was to launch a mass mass page builder and a Medica and blind kit, or how you will, you are, and you know, 50 other areas. As equal to what that way,, 99.9% duplicate content, probably not. And you know what people say, Oh, you strip it for trying not duplicate content, however, and specific niches, you can get away with that where you are one of the only. Salesforce, Tim, what is the only websites that's even targeting that sales team. So if you find that niche market and you use mass page builders, you can gain a lot of traffic very, very quickly. Now, what would they say? The tier was? Obviously, if you look at the likes of sand rush, shorty drifts or whatever you do, your keyword research, it will tell you that this particular search term. In that area you'll get, no, CFGs now pretty much anything that gets you 20 searches or whatever it's going to be is not would have featured on that data because it's just not big enough for them to pick up on it. And a lot of people meet that, that mistake where they think that, um, there's no search available for those sales teams, but when you blanket any area, regardless of whether you're a plumber and how you and you. You blind to every other area around the boat or higher with a mass page builder, you're going to get a lot of rankings. So basically what we've done in the whole of the UK was blast out 50,000 PGS. Wow. Target in every single area, poor squads and your tone, SETI, butter, whatever, basically blanketed the whole area. And they will be obviously done link-building and stuff like that too, as well. But what is surprising is the enmesh markets. There there's no competition. So even with duplicate content, you can get amazing traction. Eh, so when you Google that, that stuff's hadn't page one, which is content alone. In most cases, And can the smaller areas, if you like, obviously with some of this, the packet areas, we have the, to, you know, send a few links to it, send the traffic to it and, and yeah, so it's not rocket science, you know, it's mass page builder stuff, but what we are doing with they can affect areas is driving traffic to the. The media PTs using paid social paid advertising to get click through rate and engagement. He was building links to it. And that's what can really, where also it's not, uh, No more doing anything that is that special. I think with any kind of mass page builder thing, it really comes down to finding the right niche and it will work for some people, other people will see I've tried it and it's not what, and of course it's dark when you walk in. The digital space or the builder space or anything like that. But yeah, it's, it's a very well, I'm not going to want to see with the niches because if they want to jump in, right. But it's, it's serious volume. And I'll tell you, I'll tell you after the show, I'll actually show you the analytics and just view. But I don't want to say it publicly, but

Randy: 7:24

so I'll get the backdoor secret. Then this is good.

Craig: 7:27

Check yourself. You'll be like. Why did I not think of that? One is it's a niche that gets so much volume. But people don't think about it that often. And that is the type of opportunity that any business owner or entrepreneur that is what you're looking for. I always think I have to go and sell, you know, iPhones or whore, gadgets, or whatever. Think outside the box. There's a lot of money on the table out there. Um, and it's just, you'll find it a great opportunity.

Randy: 8:02

Yeah, that's really interesting that you even say something like that about kind of thinking out of the box and being creative, because I have clients,, that sell products that I never would have ever thought of. And,, it amazes me at the volume of some of these very niche products that they're selling. and I'm not going to reveal these things either, so, well, that's good. Good for you. So, Craig, um, Your background., as I alluded to earlier, you've got 18 years experience in the digital marketing,, arena., and maybe even just for our audience, cause we have,, folks who listened to the show who are in all different kinds of industries, right? So some are marketing, some run retail stores, some have restaurants,, operate, manufacturing, businesses, all different kinds of things., Maybe even just in a brief moment, define from your perspective what digital marketing is. And then tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started in digital marketing.

Craig: 9:04

So digital marketing for me will obviously differ from person to person, but because of the length of Tamer identity marketing, I would consider myself to be abroad. Digital markets are rather than just an ASU guy, because when I was starting out in business, I had to do a whole lot of other stuff for myself as well. I couldn't just be the ASU guy I had to then become the social media guy. The sales guy, the tech guy gave it, basically done everything and enter these market that your marketing is a loose tail. And, you know, people say, well, what part of that market are you specialize? And someone that you make CPR, you know, if that's what you do or. ACO or pay-per-click or whatever. And people are really niching down right now and becoming, you know, even the audit guy, those guys just run audits, all the FTD. And I think it's. Because the ASU becomes more of a Petro market, becomes more complex. There's algorithms change as twos evolve, and we're getting more data and we're getting all of that kind of stuff, you know, you can reach them. But back in the day, you know, it was pretty much doing everything for yourself and marketing yourself through it. Amy means you, even, if you, I think when I started, I was on governancy you try to, to pay you, don't get what's in here, local guys, you know, can build you a few words, uh, you know, Belgium, cheap website and you for you. so that's as that. And you know, it can be a different, but I would consider myself to be very broad in all aspects of online marketing.

Randy: 10:42

All right. So, how did you get started in it to begin with.

Craig: 10:45

So I always tell people that story probably comes down to my age. So 40 right now. And I grew up in Anita where we didn't have mobile phones. They didn't have the internet and anything like that. So we were,, And w when I got separate 17, 18, uh, the intimate to the chemo in the UK. So it was about 97 90 I'd run the boat, the team, I left school and I left school and had some crappy jobs, you know, Colson or sales jobs, and all that stuff that didn't really. Give too much thought about, what I wanted to do, but then the internet chemo by sheer walk or whatever you want to call it. And the amazement I used, you know, by the internet and just, you know, just stupid things like being able to look at your house on Google earth or chatting to, to ghettos, you know, 18 year old boy was wanting to chat to, to get it was, I just thought it was amazing setting on MSN and, you know, potential ghetto flames or whatever you want to call it. And they very quickly, I, as the world has now realized you become obsessed with the enemy and you're just mind blown by your, obviously you'll be able to relate to them. When we grew up, you were playing tag with your friends or you're running the boat chalk and people's doors and running away, um, to, to have the intimate was just mind blowing and. I still bummed around and some crappy jobs because I didn't know what to do with the internet, but very quickly I decided that I didn't leave school with any qualifications. And I wasn't sure that that direction. I think I was quite immature when I left school as probably most boys are. And you've obviously got people who say, Oh, well, what do you want to do? You can't ask a 16 year old boy, what you want to do. If that ACL leave, it's not fear., so I bumped around in a few jobs, but I very quickly realized that when the internet came out, that you, I quite late working on laying on a laptop, this is quite cool. And start started. Mason trying to become a web designer. I was really bad at it, but I learned a bit of HTML just at home, bombing her own written books. And it came to evolve from the early two thousands. You know, I, I was looking for a weird, these crappy bomb jobs that had, you know, seals. I was in burger King, the load of crap and B. Staff and being a really bad way to say no. So that's where it all started.

Randy: 13:17

That's funny. Well, at least you're honest about it. You are really pad web designer. So what is that journey? What's that been like? So kind of from first year digital marketer to where you are today and how, how do you define yourself today? Do you say? Yeah, I'm Craig Campbell, the digital marketer or something else.

Craig: 13:37

I I'm trying to become more of a marketer. It gets off then than just an ACU. It used to always just be an ASU guy, Zola used to talk about. And, but I think, you know, in recent years have become more of a. Broad markets are as such. And I think that just comes with taking and you just want to play with other stuff as well. But,, but how the job we started, you asked, I think I was in a job and the, I was bombing around doing this each team and stuff and, and, and they be. Fortunately, the people that allowed me to play own, go on the website, doing bits of HTML and add in things then, and to the website. And I thought I was amazing being able to add the picture and have scroll in texts going along the top of a page. I thought, Oh man, this is real good stuff, but. Quickly as things progressed, it wasn't, you know, the business was trying to win business on lane, but ASU wasn't really a thing. So it was just like doing crappy gum to yards and time to, to do things, you know, there wasn't even Facebook to drive traffic from at that point. And so I was messing around with that stuff. And then after my course, a Fordham that spoke about AC was such in directories and all that stuff. And. I think very quickly within a year or so. I was ill and enough on the seeds with people asking me to do the directory stuff and all that, that I was young and more on my side hustle than I was in my day job. So very quickly. but I was probably about 22, 23 year olds., so wet behind the ears. No clue what I was doing, went to walk in the house for the next three or four years,, as a. Freelancer. And really that was my plan is, you know, learn and develop in ordinary customers thing. And the. And then, you know, I'm not going to see sadly, cause it was, it's all been a great journey. So three or four years, then I start to struggle to motivate and say working from home,, you know, just phoned myself, couldn't be bothered. So I decided to get an office, just a one man office,, just down the road from me. And I thought I'd get out of the house and focus. This is going to help me. And very quickly I ended up hiring a sales guy., and then before I knew it, I then wanted to the, they said, you know, I've wanting to the content, right?, after the four years of being,, being a freelance or whatever, I then started to find myself having staffing developed me and then having to look for accountants and didn't really know what tax or VAT Wars and all that stuff. I just bumming along.

Randy: 16:14

You needed a bigger office then, too. Yeah, that was that's bigger than a one man office.

Craig: 16:20

So in the office space, I was lucky enough to be in a,, one of those business centers. So as you can do, you could expect like an office and the building. So that, that happened. We were all set and then the one-man office, although, although there was a period of time, but I think three office., at one point was set into one man office and you could literally smell the other guy there. That's how it started was, was not part of the, uh, professionally set up at all. And they, again, it was funny games. We then expanded. And before I knew it, I had an agency that I purposely set out to have an agency. And that's something I'm barely very vocal about. I was just phoned myself to be. To the ASU. And before I knew it, it was like, when we spoke a little bit, watching your kids grow up, it was just like blinking. And I, before I knew it, I had these staffers in these responsibilities and I'm like, Whoa. Um, but each agency will, and I ran the agency for probably the best part of 10 years and rightly or wrongly. That that, that run the agency properly, no looking back, you know, there was a lot of mistakes. The daily get enough. I didn't have the right processes in place that didn't have, then have lots of things in that eight police, but I got 10 years of it. We had reasonable success with, you know, doing well for clients and stuff, but the person's structure wasn't right. Saw it gave me a lot of stress and anxiety to the point where I said, You know what I absolutely hate working with clients and the, and I hate managing people. And that is why in the last five years, I pivoted towards being self brand affiliate markets, you and stuff like that, because not that an agency can't be successful, but because I was basically thrust upon any agency or fed myself and not possession. A hell of a lot of this stuff was all set up wrong and effected go back and do it all again, of course, knowing what I know now, I would change a hell of a lot of stuff.

Randy: 18:29

Oh, that's good. It's good. In the sense that you kind of had enough awareness to go, Hey, I know what I like to do, and I know what I'm good at doing. And some of this other stuff was not fun and kind of walked herself out of it. So I think that's, good for you too, to have that awareness. And I wanted to ask you about this because I know this is kind of a rumor a little bit, is that you don't like to work with clients. And so you even kind of mentioned that, right? So

Craig: 18:55

the, the, the problem, right? So you, you not going to see, you definitely get less, but most agency owners will get us. You're going to have clients who drag so much time and energy out of you, and I'm not paying any near need enough for that level of service. And you must have under placed the project before when you're late, I'm spending more time talking to this day than, than I'm actually being paid for. You know, if you were to break that down and terribly consultancy, right? You can't run a business like that. There's got to be, you know, you've got to be paid for that for you ever, that you enter project, whether that's. Handhold than the client or whatever., and you know, you just got those clients. That's just the way of the world. Clients who pay. Don't let you go on with it. Don't give you enough budget. Constantly waving, constantly want reported, constantly want educated. And as far as I'm concerned, dealing with people that you've given them three for the place of one, you know, you're training them. You're, you're giving them the whole top agency label service. At freelancer places. And, you know, that's the kind of thing that people come to expect. And that is, we are my agency field, you know, I wasn't charging enough. I had to get up because, uh, came from,, you know, the freelancer mentality. We are. You would just grab, you know, two and 300 bucks a month from a client. You know, I couldn't do that as an agency and make it work that way because I just, I wasn't charging enough and we weren't set up to, to, you know, have account managers to, to hand hold that guy. So I was taking all of that stress on and yeah, got to me. I'm not going to lie and you'll try to do everything. And, and wasn't quite waning, really got money of, so yeah.

Randy: 20:41

I will have to say, I have been in the scenario where I have, priced to project and like, uh, it ended up being very, very low margins,, for us., but I've been very, very fortunate in our client base. We just had some great. People that we've done projects for. And, uh, so it's been a lot of fun. I love working with clients and for me, that's where I get energized. a real shining spot for me. I love the, the engagement with the client. So, You mentioned something else that I wanted to touch on just a little bit where you can explain it. And then I'm curious as well, why you went down this route, which is affiliate marketing., you know, so you moved out of the agency. And so now you've started and as you said, you've,, are building kind of a, your solo brand or your brand name as Craig Campbell, SEO., but you're also doing this affiliate marketing. What is that exactly. And why go down that route?

Craig: 21:37

So I'll tell you why. So I'm going to add a little bit more to their story. So I, I forgot to add that in with the agency. And so the sales guy that I hired,, one of the sales guys wanted to leave my agency. Now, when I ran the agency, I wanted to be the bad guy in the end, who wasn't Norton whatsoever. I just wanted to go on with ACU. He left. And I was folding my own clients in, I click, you know, this guy's left and I'm going to be talking to you. I'm on the month basis there in the Lake who you will see other guy, I liked him and I thought he owned the business. So the clients that I was in with never had a clue who I was. And for me that left there nothing happened. The guy that did steal any clients or whatever, but in my head, no one knew who I was and couldn't care less who I was. I could have had my business sweep from right under my feet, which is why I chose to do the same brand. So F future, I was going to do any client work. People would more, there were coming to me and my face would be Norden. And that's why I've got that. But to, to answer your question about why affiliate so. I've done really well for a dental client and the last resort I gave, it was similar age to me. And he, he opened up one practice. Doesn't really wear, opened up another and eventually had five or six different practices. And he gave me a phone call one day. So I was doing SEO for all of these practices at the phoned me. And they said he came in and see me. And I'm like, yeah, sure. When N and there he was telling me, like, he would just say, Sealing up all his stuff, he was going to the Italia. So he hit had an office. Four, four has clique of practice to see Sydney wanted to see a lot. People scored a real, a K and. Pretty much wanted to spend instead one years old at the time and wanted to spend years watching his kids grown up or kids growing up, that was what he wanted to do. And I'm like fear plea. And that guy said to me, you're the stupidest guy I've ever met. Why is that? You have essentially helped me grow my business, helped me retire and been paid the patents for it. He says, you need to find something that meet you money, do not make money for other guys. You say it's because you've got a unique skill set here. You can do. You can practice what you preach. Why the hell would you make me a millionaire? And not do it for yourself. And I said some like Apple, an app. I don't have dentistry skills. I don't have a great product to sell. I don't have anything. Now I have tried. So when he said that to me, I actually tried a couple of different ventures., and the first one ever tied was sailing women's clothes. Now why women's clothes? So we look at this outfall human goal. Whoa, your women's dresses, all of that stuff, you know, hundreds of thousands of searches per month, so mean the wave, you know, look, some stuff that we think people would buy got a shit ton of it delivered to the weird house and which is where my office is. And the meet up a website. Now at that point, uh, we were sailing lots of it while we're getting decent volume. But with that. You were getting a lot of returns because women don't buy just one item. They'll buy two, two shots that are the same canes or two dresses to see which one fits them better. And they'll send the other one back when you're focusing on a business that's low margin, high volume, which the clothing industry is. And you're getting 50% returns. It's eaten my profit away. So a dived stupidly two feet fast, enter a niche that doesn't understand. You didn't do any research. And that frustrated me greatly because people were returning stuff. So when you do affiliate. All you're doing is leading people to the seal, all the tons and all the other crap that you get from a potential customer. If it's broken or whatever is dealt with by the main supplier. And you're just an affiliate. So after several mistakes of doing drop shipping, And, you know, the women's clothing thing, I felt that affiliate was the easiest, most days free option for me just to crack on with the SU you know, I didn't want to be posting women's clothes. That's that's not what you don't know what I want to do. So, yeah, so that's, that's the story behind that.

Randy: 26:26

so you do all different kinds of affiliate stuff. Do you still do the women's clothes?

Craig: 26:31

No, I've actually still got a whole bop, you know, boxes, filler stuff. Um, some of this stuff sold really well. Some of it, they didn't,, but the women's clothes idea was. Cut Ray off. Absolutely heading this.

Randy: 26:48

You probably still have a box of like, uh, stuff that didn't sell and you're just like sitting on it. Memento stuff. Maybe it was in your wife size. I don't know.

Craig: 26:56

No, she wouldn't even wait. It it's just that bad stuff.

Randy: 27:03

All right. So now kind of going into today's world, I mean, you. You speak around the world in SEO conferences and events and on SEO search engine optimization and digital marketing. How did you get started into that? that is amazing.. I tried to find out actually, how many, maybe different events or conferences,, expos that you've spoken at. And I, it's probably over a hundred.

Craig: 27:31

Oh, there's literally hundreds of done., how did it start? You know, I, it's hard to see how it started to what, what happens is when I started to do the sale branding thing, I spoke on a friend of mines that you reserved digital-based webinar type thing, a digital conference. So wasn't an Pearson and a. Very quite clear, then same rush asked me to, they said, Oh, we really liked the way you spoke there. You seem very knowledgeable. Do you want to come on a SEMrush webinar? And. So I started doing some stuff with same rush and the, and from there, you know, actual events were asking me if I'd be interested in speaking and same rush also,, I was fortunate enough because sagebrush sponsored a lot of these events and the, the, the team only had one. Main speaker for Sandra shoots. I was the one with the guy called Fernando and Fernando is like in Norway or something. And they were like, Kate, can you talk and leads?, at sales leads and I'm like Chu and the late we'll pay your travel and all that stuff. I'm like, sure. And they were the only stipulation is. You have to talk about Sam rush., and you, this is what we want you to talk about. And that was fine, but I think, you know, Sam rush have a lot to answer for, in terms of giving me exposure on webinars, which then led to, to the actual confidence speaking. And,, yeah. And, and it's just evolved from there. You know, you do good. All you need to do is deliver one good conference talk and. Others will say, Oh, you need to come here. You need to come here. So it goes,

Randy: 29:14

so it really, it comes down to a big, thank you to Fernando from Norway

Craig: 29:20

and he's actually from Chelsie, but, and he was in Norway at the time, but yeah, no less than certain rush., have helped me massively,, in terms of branding and definitely the platform to demonstrate my knowledge, both on webinars and at live events, but also go and get myself a Pat on the back because it is. Absolutely not easy to, to speak in front of an audience. It's very different setting. You're talking in a podcast or a webinar or whatever you want to call it,, to, to speak in front of thousands of people. It is really, even to this day,

Randy: 29:57

Yeah, no, I know I've done a couple of presentations and I know, and yeah, you put a lot of work into doing that. I'm glad that it's kind of evolved,, like that,, for you., all right. So,, Craig,, do you know what time it is? It's the time of the show for us and it's time for the seventh inning stretch. So Craig, this is the part of the show where, you know, it's running the basis. So we kind of have this baseball theme going on here. Right. I don't know. Do you like baseball?

Craig: 30:24

Do you ever more a basketball fan, but yet be spose already, but we don't see much of it in the UK.

Randy: 30:32

Yeah. I know. Not a lot of baseball going on in the UK., so I tasked the research team, uh, to come up with a little bit of,, Uh, subject, at least around that I thought you could tap into anyway. And so we came up with this question, like, so baseball has been around for 150 years, roughly., how many out of all of them, and specifically, I think the MLB started to like in turn of the ninth, 20th century. So like in 1901 I think is when MLB was formed. How many M L B players were born in Scotland? 150 years of baseball.

Craig: 31:16

I would probably see. To,

Randy: 31:20

you say it actually a little bit more than that, but not a whole lot., 150 years of baseball, seven. Players seven have come from Scotland. Yeah. three players that were like in the late 18 hundreds, like 1878 to about 1884., that came from. And I wonder if they guys all knew each other, Oh, we're from Glasgow., and they all came and played baseball and they all played in Cleveland as a matter of fact, that for a team at that time was called the Cleveland blues,, where they all came. Like they must have known each other because, you know, I can't imagine that, Hey, the guy from Scotland is playing in Cleveland. and then, There was a player., now I'm a big Cubs fan. So there was a player,, who played for the Cubs,, for two years back in the, um, uh, kind of the mid 1940s. And then the most recent player though, guy from Dundee, Scotland is that close to you?

Craig: 32:19

And probably about 50 may use. Yes.

Randy: 32:22

So this guy played in the late 1980s and again, played for the Cleveland Indians. Uh, he was a pitcher,, for the Indians here for about three years. Did quite well actually had a, uh, 3.06 era. So, which is good in baseball. Well, thanks for playing,, the seventh inning stretch with us here, so let's,, let's get back to it here. Now in today's world, you still have a team. So you're still kind of managed some folks, right. So you've got about a team of folks that work with you., what's your biggest challenge right now? And you gave a little insight, what's your biggest challenge right now about managing your team and,, are they local or are they remote?

Craig: 33:02

So I've got a team of sex who are local and in the office and Glasgow. Um, and that team basically consists off,, an account manager. Like I can, uh, cause I've got a small agencies. We also, it's not entirely true when I see a dog do. Quite what I personally will not deal with a client, but I do have a small agency and we've got a business partner and he does quite well with my team at it. Nothing to do with the actual management of it though, the ADB. So I've got him, I've got a web say, you know, I've got a full team videographer. I've got content radar. And eh, I also have,, another, like many me,, you know, a guy young Kao,, who. He's been with me since he left school, it's been near sex years and basically I can see to him do this,, and he would just do it. He knows what to do in a piece that we trained them up to, to, to be able to understand the language at talk and you know, all those kilowatt wheels. So I, and it's for those quick changes in the office, but the, we, I see it most of the. The people in the office are like middle managers, if you like. So if we need a whole bunch of content for a project or a whole bunch of link bodes in our whole bunch of anything for that matter, then a lot of this stuff is outsourced.. The basically manage the process and you know, the refining of it. So if we outsource any content that it's their job, to be able to manage that, then get it back and add it to the website, agile internal links, and, the whole process that goes on with adding content, you know, running it through software ACU or whatever,, for, for that kind of thing. So the all metal management and the office in the role, people who've been there for., a number of years and opinions fortunate enough that,, the happy in the job and there's no real drama with, they miss such, those big on with the jobs, they know what to do, and, you know, we've just got a good process and the, the Lake, they can have flexible. You don't always have to be in the office. You can work from home if you're not well, or, you know, various bits and bobs. So. The sexier, but you know, we do outsource, I do have other people, the co you know, a couple of content writers across different parts of the world. Even, I've got a few other bits and bobs that get done regularly by guys, you know, just across, across the world. So, and any connect, what is outsourced?

. Randy: 35:35

Good. So it sounds like you've taken some. Learning lessons from your earlier agency days to applying it to,, managing your team. Now, given a little more freedom, train them, set some processes. So that's good. All right., where do you get your insights now and strategies to grow your business, to take it to the next level? Where do you look to grab some of those kinds of strategies? Where do you get your resources?

Craig: 36:02

I mean, I think a lot of it is the people that I surround myself with and you don't want to do a lot of private master means and stuff as well. I know a lot of business owners and, you know, get close friends who we all meet up a couple of times a year and just bounce ideas off each other or help each other. And you know, someone's got a problem. You'll speak up about it. And we'll all saying. You know, I on that problem for you. And I think it's surrounding yourself by what other successful people,, as we are the, the, after you is the most important thing, you'll not jealous. People are people who want to see you feel because you know, that's 90% of the world. I think it's who you surround yourself by positive people who are not jealous. And, you know, I think even going to conferences and talking, at the bar, after I speak at conference, people would come up to the bar and they'll talk to you and, or, and then you just have a conversation with them. And then before you know, it, you know, he ended up even maybe doing business for that guy, or you're like, dude, I need to know more about that. Can you consult me? And you know, even though if I see something that,, if you are doing something. Out of the, the box that the ad helped over. It didn't understand that are before to not seen how much a consultancy called. Can you teach me that stuff I want to learn? And I think you have to be proactive in your learning, regardless of whether it's digital or not., you know, any business owner has to continue learning to be all in. And though it's certainly not an ERT industry, I'm always picking up new things as I'm sure you are from all different types of people. But what I do feel as people that get up off the back seat and attend conferences or attend masterminds are guys that are enthusiastic and passionate about. Better than themselves and their businesses. Whereas the so many guys that just sit in YouTube, they just want everything to the Lea on the lot people wouldn't. They expect everything to be given over a podcast that I do.

Randy: 38:05

So you've got your hands in a lot of different types of marketing. I mean, I'd look on the internet and I'm, you know, doing research,, you're on YouTube. You've got podcast, you're doing live streaming over all different kinds of platforms., you're writing articles. Can you share, what are a few of your favorite channels that you like to kind of take a part of? How do you like to exploit those platforms for maximum effect?

Craig: 38:31

And I mean, at the moment, YouTube works really well for me. in the past, you know, things like LinkedIn, What really, where, you know, I think LinkedIn was really effective. You'll five plus years ago when we had all the automation tools and all of that kind of stuff, nothing like 10 for me is kinda dying now. And people just weighing in and mourning and their automation has been clumped they're on and they'll just not as much from it. And it's becoming saturated. One thing, I think the, the moment what really well is as YouTube and, you know, I think just by. The default, you know, people prefer watching, never deal than they do. Maybe read in a blog., now I'm not going to see everyone does, but you know, a lot more people relate to video content YouTube's algorithm is fairly, I'm not going to say it's easy to gain, but you know, you can write videos and five minutes on YouTube at the moment and you'll Google. Becoming an algorithm up the, every other day and things are rocking about all over the place. And,, I think it's actually dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket. And I think as a marketing guy, uh, late to do a bet and Facebook do a podcast, do a bit of paid, paid search and do about a YouTube stuff as well as the organic stuff is. Well, um, I think that's always, always been my thing, but. YouTube is easier than, you know, ASU for fascial. They, the algorithm is nowhere near as aggressive move will need is clever. and what we have to do as business owners is grasp any opportunity like at that five years ago with LinkedIn and absolutely nail it for. All occurred until the clamp down on it. And obviously that I will collect those and we'll change. You may not get as much business from it or anything like that, but you've got to exploit what's working now what I think, even some paint, things like you'll know, using technology like the Facebook pixel to re target people, doing some low cost P dads on Facebook works really well as well., so I think, you know, between YouTube, the paid social stuff, the podcasts are, do drive a lot of traffic to my website., you know, if I was to go to analytics on my own personal blog, Where does most of this traffic come from social media is not organic search and say, and I think that's, I'm happy with that. You know, that that's pleasant team having a balance of it coming from different places for me is good. Then obviously,, social media is something that anyone can do as well. You know, AC was a bit more. Technical and, you know, you have to do certain things and stuff like that, but anyone can do social media. Anyone can do YouTube and take advantage of that as a business owner.

Randy: 41:29

Yeah. That's great advice. where do you see the industry and the business in the next two to three years? Where do you see you in the next few years?

Craig: 41:40

I get asked that all the time. And I think, you know, I don't see it changing that much to be fear as much as, you know, people are always talking about voice search or Kevin and typically, and all of this kinda stuff. Um, that's calming, it's good to evolve for sure. And it always has evolved and we're going to have our targets in Our is going to be doing a bit more of our workforce. It is optimizing things a little bit better or whatever you want to call it. But I still think with marketing in general, you still need that human element and people buy into people. They don't buy into robots or bots or anything like that. You know, why do people consider using me for saving or are, you know, whatever they may use me for, or for consultancy because the, the Lake, the way that I talk, or maybe think I'm transporting or giving them actionable tips or whatever, and people are buying into me and not abort. And I don't think you'll ever be able to replace that, you know, That that's the thing, you know what I think Google and everyone else would love to see you. Don't five years team,, everyone will be robots and that set you well, that's not going to be the case. Uh, adult think it's as close as that may be in 20 years. That may be the case. But I think over the next few years, I think, ER, you still got a lot to go before it is ever going to be perfect. and I think it's just going to be. Pretty much the same, probably you just, but at what I would see to people as do not focus all your eggs in one basket chain spreads the, the market in, in I cause multiple channels, because I think that's what it's called and you have to do it.

Randy: 43:23

Great advice., here we are, we're coming down, I always love to ask this question to all of our guests. you've got a number of years as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, doing all different kinds of things. What advice do you have for the rookies in the game? So for these folks who are just maybe starting out in their own business and, or want to start their own business, what kind of advice do you have for those folks?

Craig: 43:49

And I would always say start with this in your head. So one of the biggest fears I had when I was running my agency was everything came through me., I felt myself enter the business rather than what can own the business. So I made. My self and essential part of my agency, we are, was our CA was I a control freak? Yes, I was, uh, you know, I wanted all content and everything else to come through me. I wanted those sales to come through me. I wanted to invoice everyone. I wanted to do everything and it could kill you. So I think what our advice to anyone is, if you're going into business, make sure that you don't possession yourself. And the business, what on the business and look to get those processes systems and everything else in place, because it will allow you to skill. I had this, I struggled to steal and I was also skipped to delegate. I didn't trust anyone. You just have to. Get the right people rowing the boat use wheel and trust them because I was like, there's no way that person's answering the phone and was that from me. And you know, that wasn't, that these people were bad damaged. You know, a young guy had his business and I just, I was scared of, uh, breaking. And if you late, so I was Betty defensive of it. Like, you know, this is my business and you guys just don't do your stuff there. And, and I think that was the wrong., the wrong mentality, if you like, and I think 40, 81, get out dark one with that mentality and make sure that you delegate properly. And those processes, I can't speak highly enough of if I'm able to staff. And this is the weekly thing Corvette. If you get a member of staff and you have a process for that Devin tasks, whether it be, you know, writing a blog cook. Post or whatever that task is going to be. You're going to, they're going to have a process and a Gordon, what to do, what to research and everything else though. F you need to get rid of them the very next day. You can process. There was someone else come and slip and follow that process. And it's the only way you're going to get still with, as you don't before, because I was so stressed and was in didn't have the right processes and everything else, but also the detrimental effect on the staff, because I was that stressed. The attorney even have time to spend with the staff to even get them 80 King, the gate. So those processes from the get-go have to be in place because if you're going to be a busy business owner, that, that happens. That happens too though. But you know, some, these people need to be not sure and they have to learn and, um, and if they come back to you and see how they do this with your processes or not. Right. And if they're having to ask you questions, Or they're not following it rate and you just get read over them. So that that's the two different things with processes. DKI pass. Can you equations your processes clap? if they just can't follow your process, they're probably just not the right person for the job. So I can't speak highly enough for boot processes as a C and B that day with me, the control freak. And it just does not what you cannot steal our business. Been been with that.

Randy: 47:09

I know you've got, you have just a ton of material that's out there and available for folks. I know you've got a free training available for folks to learn how to do, um, some of the digital marketing tasks and SEO., and do you want to talk a minute about that? Um, where can they go access some of this stuff?, we'll have links as well for folks, in the show notes. It can go directly to the show notes and find some of this stuff as well.

Craig: 47:38

And so I that's at the start of what they launch, uh, well, not launch gave away all of my courses free of charge and it was on a platform called thank ethic. However, I don't want to promote that because all of that coursework has been uploaded to YouTube. So if you go to YouTube and go to Kate Campbell ACO, And go to the playlist. If you go to free ASU, of course, it's all there. If you go to, you know, I've even got a lot of local SEO gate as to what to do. So there's playlists for everything that I've got available in the oil are like over the shoulder. Or me telling you, you know, you've got to do this, I've got to do that, but I think most people will learn visually with the over the shoulder tape videos. And it's still something that imagined to every other B. And then top of that, obviously you get the weekly waves that are, do question and answers, trying to get, you know, People's questions asked then, you know, there's a lot of material on my YouTube wheel. I think for any rookie coming into learn, you will see what other, you know, if you're too skilled. To, to ask questions or, you know, you want to sit in the back and watch one of my waves because other people are asking the questions. You don't even have to put your name forward and you can watch what they're asking in lymphoma. And hopefully you'll just step up Kevin stuff back to the communities where,, because, uh, one thing that pains me is the amount of misinformation that's so yeah.

. Randy: 49:10

It's good for you that you're, uh, helping the folks out,, trying to do some of that stuff on their own. That's great., Well, listen, Craig, it's been great to have you on the show. Thank you so much. That's a ballgame, as we like to say at the end of the games,, you've been great. And,, and again, people can catch you@crankcampbelldotco.uk, or, or com S U. Don't call them.com. Okay. And then they can also find a lot of your materials out there on YouTube, just search under Greg Campbell, SEO on YouTube, and you'll find you out there. Listen again. Thanks for having,, being a guest here on the show. It's been great having you here.

Craig: 49:50

No problem at all, places, all me.

Randy: 49:52

All right. And for those of you listening, Hey, thanks for joining us today. if you'd like to show, please tell your friends subscribe. And of course we would love your review. And as we like to say, we'll see you around the ballpark. Running the bases with small businesses is brought to you by 38 digital marketer, a digital marketing agency, committed to client growth with lead generation higher conversions and increased sales connect with us today. At 38 digital marketer.com.