Cold Open And Guest Setup

Chris Norton 0:00

Welcome to Embracing Marketing Mistakes . I'm Chris Norton and with me as always is my co-host Will Ockenden . Today's guest is Sam Dunning , founder of Breaking B2B , the AI SEO agency for SaaS brands . Is SEO dead ? Well , Sam doesn't think so . He walks us through his 90 days to revenue playbook , but then comes the mistake and the confession . Sam outsourced his agency very early days to somebody in Nigeria . He never checked the content and watched every single page literally vanish on Google overnight . So throw in a dying MacBook , two barking dogs , and an awful lot of content about socks . I think you're going to find this one interesting . So let's get into it . Enjoy .

Where SEO Sits In 2026

Chris Norton 0:50

Sam Dunning , welcome to the show .

Sam Dunning 0:53

Appreciate you inviting me on . Look forward to the convo .

Chris Norton 0:56

So you're from the world of search engine optimisation . Um , we're seeing a big shift in search engine optimisation , AEO , GEO , all these different things . I've had quite a number of guests on recently about AI search , and I've seen on LinkedIn a lot of people changing their job title in SEO , which is quite interesting to head of organic search . So , what's your view on where SEO is in 2026 ? And should we all be scared of the robots ?

Sam Dunning 1:26

Definitely . Yeah , yeah . It's time to run . SEO's dead . So is cold calling , so is code email , so is ads . Uh everything's gone . But um , no , in all seriousness , it's it's a very crazy time , especially in SEO . Like , I don't I've never been at a time where SEO , AEO , GEO , what the heck oh , I don't know what to call it , but I've never seen it move so fast as it is right now . Um , and yeah , in short , there's a lot of change , but I think a lot of it's for the better . Because a lot of it actually , a lot of it all actually forces marketers , growth folks , revenue folks , founders to really be laser focused now on what actually gets your brand front of mind in front in front of dream clients , gets you recommendated , gets you actually recommended on these AI tools , and actually forces you to think this is how we're gonna build mind share , this is how we're gonna build awareness , actually get in front of the folks in buying mode and actually drive pipeline leads , demos , conversions , sign-ups . So I actually think it's great . Um , it's way , way more difficult to attribute stuff now than it ever has been um compared to classic Google search , where you had the organic 10 blue links back in the day on Google . Way more difficult because uh AI is stealing clicks in traffic and and all that good stuff . But it's an interesting and

Why Backlinks Still Matter

Sam Dunning 2:46

fun time .

Chris Norton 2:46

So I spoke to someone yesterday morning, their head of SEO at um Wix uh website, she's coming on the show. Um Crystal, um, and I believe it was her. I've spoken to that many people, I've talked about the AI search thing.

Sam Dunning 3:02

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Norton 3:02

They were saying links are dead. Link building is dead. Like I know you started with SEO is dead, and I was it was like I was like, that's the first time I've heard of that. Um, but link building per se as a as an industry as a thing is not really as relevant as it was once was. What's your view on that?

Sam Dunning 3:21

Disagree. Right. I think a lot of SEOs, probably myself included, like to have hot takes and and angles and things like that. I think I think it's still important, right? Because a lot of historically, to rank one on Google, it was all about building the right pages on your website, mapping those to money keywords that buying, like basically your target prospects that had buying intent actually search for when they needed your solution, software, service, product, and so forth, building the right type of pages, making sure your website's structurally sound, and then earning backlinks, and that would that would in theory get you towards the top of organic of Google if you did that right.

Chris Norton 4:01

Yeah.

Sam Dunning 4:01

Um and the thing is a lot of these LLMs, when they trigger some, especially like ChatGPT, if you if you look for a buying intense uh prompt or search, like I'm searching for this type of software within this budget, and this is this is this is why I need it, this is the size of my team, and so forth, are a very specific thing. It triggers something called grounding, so it's not pulling from its own data, it's going out there and searching, whether that's from Google or other aspects. So actually ranking organics on Google is to do with showing up on LLMs, it's not all of it, and to do that, you still need backlinks. And to the other point, brand mentions are huge for AI search, right? Getting your brand and its positioning and exactly who you serve ICP and Hugo after, not just on your own website, but controlling that narrative across other mediums, aka articles, listicles, roundups, comparisons, review sites, and so forth. And part of that is getting a brand mention and doing the outreach, which we can dig into. But then if you can get a backlink off the back of it that boosts your organic on Google, like why not do both? Like, I'm not sure what's dead about that.

Chris Norton 5:12

Yeah , it's just that I th I think I'm not sure it was Crystal , actually . I think it might have been some lady that's produced an AEO tool , and um she was and it yeah , I think it was um the fact that back that backlinks aren't she was basically saying that Google itself is fundamentally different to what it was . Like , you know , it what it is it is an LLM itself now already , the AI searched , the AI Overviews , which are two different things , but AI it's pushing you into AI search now . So that the 10 links that were the magic 10 blue links , like you just said there , and and the PPC for that matter , are slightly not as important . The more important stuff is is about as you just said there being more niche . And actually , which was great for us because I we run a PR , me and Will run a PR agency . The podcast is a side thing that we do for a bit of fun to meet interesting people um and share share expertise . And it I just think that it's it's fascinating because Google itself is now an LLM and the game has fundamentally changed . Everybody thought Google had been caught out , but now it's it appears that Google hasn't been caught out because actually I heard the head of Google Search talking the other day , and their amount of Google searches has gone up . So it's like everybody wants to see say , oh , it's the death of this , it's the death of that , um , but it doesn't look like it is . It looks like Google is an LLM . Blue links are not quite as important , but they still are important , but for how long ? That's the that's the question , I suppose , isn't it ?

Sam Dunning 6:42

Yeah , to a

Start With Buyer Research First

Sam Dunning 6:43

certain extent . Like , like a lot of things , it fundamentally , like SEO to one side , like just good B2B marketing fundamentals , is who specifically do we want to get in front of ? Where where do they spend their time ? What what expensive bleeding neck problems causes them to evaluate or even consider that trigger moment like a solution like ours ? And then when they're in market , what do they actually describe our solution as ? Or do they already have a tool that they're trying to displace , or do they already have a job they're getting done ? Is there is there certain ways they look for our solution service software , etc . , when they're in that buying window ? And are there ways that they describe our offer that we can pull from sales calls and customer success calls and all that kind of good stuff to gain that knowledge and intel ? And then how do we translate that into in this case search ? Um are they using Google ? Maybe not . If they're if they're quite technical and you're selling to developers , for example , they're probably exclusively using LLMs , Claude , um , ChatGPT or Codex or beyond . Um , a lot of the time it's like disregarding like standpoints and actually understanding your buyer and your customer . Um , and a lot of SEOs just completely ignore that and give generic advice . Um , a lot of my advice is more relevant to B2B and SaaS marketers because that's typically who we sell to . Um , but a lot of audience knowledge is disregarded , and a lot of people jump into tactics and strategies and playbooks in SEO and then wonder why it doesn't convert to leads , sign-ups , demos . It's because they've completely ignored their dream clients and they've just jumped into strategies and then kind of wonder why it's all kind of falling to part

The 90 Days To Revenue Playbook

Sam Dunning 8:21

.

Will Ockenden 8:21

So you've got a um a 90 days to revenue model, haven't you? Which is a kind of is it a playbook? Would you describe it as a bit of a playbook for um for B2B and SaaS businesses to kind of leverage the power of GEO and SEO and and all that? Do you want to talk to us about that? I mean, I think some of our listeners will be interested. I mean, practical advice is is super useful um sometimes. So do you want to break down some of those kind of key first things that that businesses need to consider if they want to drive revenue as soon as possible, because most most people do, don't they?

Sam Dunning 8:58

Yeah , yeah , yeah , sure . So yeah , exactly . Like you say is it's a playbook , it's a blueprint . It like candidly , I I pretty much stole it from Alex Hormozi's value equation that most of the time , if you want to hook people in , you need an offer . And in our case , it was the 90 days to pipeline or 90 days to revenue AI SEO playbook , which like one of our big things , right , is we want to dispel the myth that you don't have to wait 12 months to see results , aka leads , demos , revenue from SEO . Um , sometimes you do have to wait a chunk of time , especially if you've got a new website . Like not every client is going to be not every person's gonna be a good fit to see impact in 90 days . But there's a lot of stuff you can do with SEO to kind of debunk the the myth that it takes 12 months . Um , and like to run you guys through it and feel free to stop me . And if you want me to do it for a specific type of service or solution or product , like I'm happy to do that as well . I'm very flexible if you want to give me an example .

Building A Money Keyword Matrix

Chris Norton 9:55

Do you want me to do it for a specific-based PR agency would be quite good? There you go.

Will Ockenden 10:01

Let's do it.

Sam Dunning 10:03

Shall we ? Yeah , let's do it . That would be more fun because then it's more tactical . Yeah um and it's a good example for the audience . So let's pretend you're you guys , um because you are you guys . In this case , like the where we start is like disregarding SEO , like I said earlier . First , we want to build a knowledge base . And why do we want to do that ? Well , it's gonna help our keyword research , our prompt research , our content engine , and all that good stuff . And the beauty of where we're at today is that it's way easier than it was a couple years ago . Um , all you need access to really is if you record sales and customer calls with a tool like Fathom , Gong , Fireflies , whatever , you can literally just plug that MCP into a tool like Claude and query it directly . Um and the reason you want to do this is because it's gonna aid everything . So the the great starting point would be like look at my last a prompt , like look at my last 90 days of sales calls or customer calls . Please tee up the the most common uh pain points raised , um , frustrations raised , competitors raised , um , why they chose to reach out to us , if it was like a presentation or a demo call , um , why they actually decided to move ahead with us , um , any words that they specifically use to describe their problem or the frustrations , any use any words they use to describe their goals , um , and how they specifically described our offer . And that's gonna help you a lot , right ? That's gonna help you with like all this just good B2B customer research , and like the the the actual words that folks use to describe problems , goals , jobs to be done , motivations , etc . Um , if you want to get fancy , you can also hook up a tool like Ahrefs , Semrush , DataForSEO , and that can help you like convert that into keyword research . But what I typically do is like pretending we've got all our kind of customer research and knowledge and competitors they evaluate us against and why they choose us over competitors and differentiators in the market . And the next phase was really I used to recommend something called a money keyword matrix . So back in the day I'd build this with a Google Sheet or similar , whereas now again you can just do this with AI , whatever AI tools at your disposal . And the crux of this was if you're the founder of the company , you're gonna know all this information . If not , like bring in this this knowledge base that you're building , or bring in your sales , sales lead or marketing lead or both . And essentially just the simple version of this is like four main columns . So it's like almost every way that someone can describe our offer or solution is column one . In yours case , I'm guessing it's like PR agency , PR company . There's probably digital PR variations . Is there other ways that folks can refer to your offer or solution ?

Chris Norton 12:50

Social media agency, uh integrated comms is another one. Yeah. Uh video production agency, we get quite a bit of because we do a lot of video content for people like Rolex and stuff. Um what else? Well, what else do we get caught? Well, podcasting agency as well, because we we we do podcasts for clients like this, and we um produce them and market them for clients.

Will Ockenden 13:13

And there's sector there's sector descriptors as well. So it might be luxury PR agency, food and payments PR agency, that kind of thing. Well, you're ahead of me.

Sam Dunning 13:21

We're getting we're getting we're getting to that. We're getting to sectors, are we? All right, you're you're gonna. So now you've told me that now what's we call it money niches or money niches if we're in the US. Um, what what are those sectors, industries, niches that you serve best, have the problem you solve, are motivated to solve it, have cash to easily invest in your offer, and have historically you've sold well into them?

Chris Norton 13:43

I'll let Will answer that .

Will Ockenden 13:44

Uh food and beverage, higher education, um retail, leisure, and retail, um, and uh let's say luxury and premium brands.

Sam Dunning 13:56

Nice . Okay , cool . So that's that . And then this this column three is actually less relevant for you folks . It's more we deal with a lot of SaaS companies , so a big thing in software is competitor comparisons , alternative searches , and things like that . Um that I don't know , everyone knows Calendly , right ? The skeleton the meeting scheduling software . Yeah , yeah . So like alternatives to them are like Chili Piper , RevenueHero , HubSpot Meetings , Cal . com . The list goes on , right ? So if you were them , then you'd put like a if if someone listening was in a software company , they'd just list all those all those competitors not so relevant on service-based agency , like you and I . Um very much relevant for software because people do like show me a comparison between X company and Y company , show me alternatives to this tool , or show me a pricing guide for this tool . But not so relevance of service , slightly good to know anyway . Um , and also good for what's going to come later . That's that . The next one is what are your uh what's the most bleeding neck problems that someone will come to to solve , or how are they getting the job done today ? It's like the column column four .

Will Ockenden 15:07

So for us, that would come down to growth. Most, you know, we the the the the value we bring our clients is is growth in some capacity. So growth of sales, growth of reputation, share of voice. And typically they'll have an incumbent that's either not doing it or isn't sophisticated enough, or they'll be doing it in-house, or they'll be reaching that stage in their growth when they need to appoint somebody.

Sam Dunning 15:30

Okay. So it's pain points around growth. Yeah. Um would there be any how-to XYZ? And these are more top funnel searches, but still can be relevant. Like how would could we link that up to the it's like going a step ahead, but could we link that up to some of your offerings? Like, I don't know, for example, how do how do I grow my luxury brand podcast or something like that? Would that be I don't know if that's a relevant pain uh pain point? That's just me thinking out loud based on what you've told me, or um how to scale my digital PR or something like that. I don't know.

Chris Norton 16:02

Pain points is a great one. I don't think I don't think Will and I have ever really discussed pain points on our clients. Yeah, interesting.

Will Ockenden 16:09

Personal pain points in the agency, maybe, but how long you got? There's a few there's a few of those.

Sam Dunning 16:15

Yeah , I can relate , I can relate to that . Like as a life example , like we we're a SaaS SEO agency , right ? Lars might be how do I get my SaaS recommended in ChatGPT or why are my competitors recommended ? Why are my SaaS competitors recommended in Claude instead of me ?

Will Ockenden 16:30

Um Yeah, I mean to be fair, we'd we'd probably have similar ones around um, you know, uh we've had a number of conversations with clients who are seeing their competitors appear appearing in the LLMs, they're not appearing, and they want to they want to address that and they see PR as one route they can potentially do that.

Sam Dunning 16:49

And the good thing is if you have the sales calls and the custom call recordings, you can just query them directly, and that saves you having to guess.

Will Ockenden 16:57

So that sales call analysis phase that's really about just getting loads and loads of data and and very, very quickly analysing it for kind of commonality.

Chris Norton 17:04

It's the right data though, isn't it? That's the key bit here.

Will Ockenden 17:07

It's actually coming from prospects.

Chris Norton 17:09

Yeah , Sam's right . It's the actual data from the basically uh I heard that the best marketing is reducing the difference that best marketing is reducing the space between um the marketing team and the customer , and that's exactly what you're doing . You're asking the customer , you're you're you're minimising it , so you're getting down to exactly what customers' pain points and issues , and so you're getting right into it , which which makes absolute sense .

Sam Dunning 17:34

Yeah , and the thing is knowing a lot of marketers neglect this , right ? And this is just me going on tangent , but a really good book for this is a a book called Gap Selling by someone called Keenan . And it all it talks about is the gap between where your prospect is today and where they're trying to get to . And no gap , no sale . And it has , I can't remember exactly what it's called , but part of it is knowing the top three problems that your prospects face , and then the impact , like what happens if they don't fix it . And if you can know that , not only is it good for your SEO , your research , your content , and beyond , but it's just good for everything , it's good for sales calls , because then when people ask you what you do , instead of like me or you guys or anyone like giving us a spiel and sending everyone to sleep , like we've been we've been in business 20 years , we've won these awards , XYZ , no one cares . Instead , I'll be like , well , typically in my case , SaaS marketing leaders come to us because they're tired of like not being recommended AI search and their CEOs like saying what the heck's going on or they're spending loads on ads and like that that organic engines dead . Um I know that not by being clever , just by listening to people's problems on sales calls and then feeding them back to them and they resonate . So a lot of the time people overcomplicate stuff . Anyway , I digress . Back to the back to the SEO stuff . So we've built this column in your case . We've we've got kind of your main offer , money niches , competitors not as relevant , but we'll come back to it , and then the problems . And now what you what you might think is we'll tab one , for example , in your case , like PR agency . I don't know , do you guys serve like just UK or is it US or Furrowfield or all over ?

Chris Norton 19:11

Great question . Um , mainly the UK , but we're part of a group called Worldcom , which is the biggest intern uh global independent PR agency network in the world , so and you have to be invited to be on it . So we're one of three in the UK , and that's it . We're full . So but the US might have 20 agencies . So we we've got the scope to work with loads of partners , and we we meet up with them twice a year and we liaise with them on loads of training and things like that . So we're sort of like a part of a global network as well , but predominantly UK .

Sam Dunning 19:40

Mainly , mainly UK . Okay , fine . So , for example , I'm guessing like PR agency in general , there's there's quite a few , like in my case , SEO agency , there's thousands . PR agency , I'm imagining there's a lot . So to rank for that one would be extremely difficult . And two , the other thing is might not bring the right kind of leads . Like you might get people that are in industries you never want to serve , they have hardly any cash , and they're trying to haggle you on every every dime . Whereas that's why we link up column one and column two . So instead of going after PR agency , we'll go after some of like best PR agency for or best digital PR agency for luxury brands , or um for I think you said um nonprofits or education , um , and some of the other industries , and we're basically linking these tech these columns together to make long tail searches . And the reason we're doing this is because one , they actually attract our ICP . Two , if you look at these tools in a SEO tool like Ahrefs , Semrush , whatever , they'll have less search volume , but the keyword difficulty will be way lower , so it'll be way easier to build the content for and actually rank or show up in AI tools , and three , like I said , they they they can they can typically rank way faster and show up way faster and drive the right type of leads , aka people looking for our stuff . Um and then the pain point stuff , like how to do XYZ , that's more top funnel . The previous stuff was more bottom funnel , more likely to drive leads . This is more to build up your authority , to attract maybe people that are more in that problem-centric statement um and to link to other content . Um the competitor and comparison stuff is amazing , but that's more SaaS focused . So in your example , we won't mention that , but it can be good for our roundups and lists . So we've done that . And the other good thing is if you are AI efficient , again , you can actually just one link your sales call recorder like Fathom to Claude , then you can link an SEO tool like Ahrefs , and you could literally just prompt like take my last 90 days sales calls and CS calls , make a list of the top problems , goals , competitors , reasons people choose us , um , make a list of money keywords and prompts that have high commercial intent , have low keyword difficulty , um , prioritise those by the easiest to rank , aka lowest keyword difficulty , and highest commercial buying intent . Then do me a draft of some of these pages that I need to build net new for the site , and actually tell me what type of page I need to build . So the next step , and you can carry on the prompt , is actually building the right type of content . Some of you get SEO wrong because they build the wrong type of page that doesn't serve the user intent . For example , if you guys want to show up for like um best PR agency for luxury brands , it's probably like a tiny search volume . But if you know that you actually get those inquiries , then it is worthwhile building , even if it's super low search volume . And you don't really want to build a landing page for that . If you search for that on Google or ChatGPT , it's probably going to be a listicle-based article . Like we review the top 10 , top 15 , like uh PR agencies for luxury 2026 . So , like a lot of the time doing this stuff is just reverse engineering what already works . So if that type of page ranks well on Google organic , and if we do a similar search on ChatGPT and we see in the cited sources that the brands being recommended , are pulled from site sources like these type of articles , it's like , why reinvent the wheel ? Just look at what's already working and do it better . Um , we call this barging into the LLMs or barging into Google . So it's like now you're working out that's basically called just working out the page intent and what type of page you need to build . And you can work this into your prompt , get it to give you a first draft . You can even get it to work out what competitors types of pages are already top three , and then look for the gaps in those , and it gives you a nice first draft that you then need to work a human little loop . Um , and most of the times for these best XYZ searches that have good buying intent behind them is these kind of list school-based articles . Um , if it was a more general search , like just , I don't know , luxury PR agency , that might bring up a landing page , um , which is worthwhile . So I can talk about how exactly how to build those pages as well . Um , because there is a set structure to doing so . But one thing that might be useful for the audience as well is a lot of folks when they think of SEO or AI SEO , they think everything has to be new . Like new content , new backlinks , new brand mentions , get uh get on review sites , do a load of podcasts . Yeah , fine , that's all good . But ultimately , we want the quickest route to driving inbound leads , spot calls , demos as possible . And a lot of websites that are somewhat mature established already probably have some commercial content on the website . So they might have landing pages , blog articles , comparisons , listicles , roundups . They're already on sitting on the site , but they were done a while

Page Intent And Fast Content Wins

Sam Dunning 24:15

ago . So the organic rankings in Google have dropped , maybe it's page two now . It's not being cited in AI search . So , quickest way you can get those like back working hard is again you can prompt your way into this , or you can just go on a tool at Ahrefs , look at low-hanging fruit keywords , look at the ones that are like prioritised it by commercial intent and low keyword difficulty , look at the ones that have dropped off , and then then you just do a comparison . Like you look what's ranking top for those searches , or what's pulled into AI search , and just look to blow those out of the water . So , quite often that's just a page refresh and update . And these types of pages are amazing candidates because they have that buying intent . You've already got on your website , like just give it an update . Like , what look what's ranking top . Google and AI tools love fresh content , unique point of view , unique statistics , genuine reviews if you're doing these roundups that we talked about , like best XYZ services or softwares . Um , like adding a point of view , adding plenty of proof points . So a lot of the time you can do those updates , and like within 90 days of making those updates , then you can like get the rankings , get the citations , and actually start driving inbound from doing so . Um , so not everything has to be net new , but that's kind of a good place to start with your research and your content engine before you worry about like link building , brand mentions , technical SEO , and stuff like that .

Chris Norton 26:20

Yeah, because I was gonna ask about like this is one of the things that I've been fascinated. It used to be like the cadence and the relevancy on your blog. You'd do like loads of content, you'd write regularly, then you'd link back. You had the Hub and Spoke approach from your the Hub and Spoke approach for the listeners who don't know, is you've got your hub will be like your search intent pages, your content pages that you you want to sell your services on, and your spoke posts might be articles that talk about something else but link back to said art. So ours might be podcast marketing, for instance, and we might write loads of different um articles about podcast marketing and podcast production and blah blah blah, linking back to the podcasting page, right? But with this new era that we're in, is that irrelevant now? Does that not work anymore?

Sam Dunning 27:08

Yeah , there's a lot of ways you can talk about that . Like you're right , like having spoke model or building topical authority , where you kind of have have articles that then link to landing pages . And I think that's still worthwhile . But I think there's a few things to think about . I think one is like a lot of the companies we deal with have they have small marketing teams , so it's one prioritising what we'd call the money pages or the money content first , so making sure that you follow that matrix we just described and you make sure those core pages like you you basically exhaust the bottom of the funnel , like the high buying intent pages , like all these pages we know could attract in-market prospects . Let's build these whatever they look like . Are they landing pages ? Are they listicles ? Are they roundups ? Um , are they comparison articles ? Are they product pages ? Whatever makes sense . Build those out first and then move your way up the funnel so that it makes sense to then do the how-to articles because then we can internally link those and that'll build up our authority on the matter definitely . Um , but what interestingly enough , we did we work with a YouTube agency that's like focused on SaaS . One of the first pages we built for them was like the best SaaS , because it's so niche . The best um you the best YouTube agencies for SaaS of 2026 . That one page served them like seven booked calls for 50k ACV deals within one month of publishing . Got them that many inbounds . Wow , and the page only gets 20 searches a month on Ahrefs , but from that page alone , they got recommended in ChatGPT and Claude , their company . Um , same for Google AI Overviews , and it only gets 20 . So a lot of people would look that up on a Semrush or Ahrefs . 20 searches , nah . It's like , well , look at the buying intent . No one's searching for that for fun . It literally hits your exact ICP in the main offer you want to sell . Um , so a lot of the time that's neglected because people get stuck in something called the top funnel trap . So they're doing like how-to searches and things like that , like thousands of searches , like I don't know , how to build out my YouTube strategy and things like that , which is which is a good guide to build , but it's unlikely to bring in a high-intent buyer . It's probably someone that's trying to learn the niche or learning industry , and as you guys know , like AI Overviews , ChatGPT just to give you an instant answer to that kind of stuff . They don't recommend brands . So we want to we want to go after the stuff that isn't being wiped out , um that is more bottom of funnel , and that actually is going to give you a brand recommendation , be that on an AI tool or Google .

Will Ockenden 29:32

I'm curious, Sam. Yeah, in this kind of world of um AI, and you know, you've

DIY AI SEO Versus Hiring Experts

Will Ockenden 29:38

got a really this 90 days to revenue model and everything you've got, and I'm not sure if I if I should ask this, what's what's stopping clients from just going off and doing this stuff themselves? There'll be lots of people listening thinking, great, I'm gonna get Claude, I'm gonna go and do it myself. And this is a this is something we often have conversations about, and you know, we have a view why you need a PR agency, you need um, you know, you need somebody who's who can offer that value and that insight. I mean, what's your experience? Do you find clients want to go off and do it themselves, or you know, and what value do you do you kind of bring to the to the party?

Sam Dunning 30:13

Oh yeah, I hope, I hope folks listen to this and it helps or watch this and it helps and they do it. Um I'm like many service provider or software provider, most things are the same, right? It's like most a lot of people will try and do it themselves. Some will successfully do it, some will try and struggle and hit a roadblock, others will think I don't have the time and maybe this person knows what they're talking about and I might get in touch. Yeah. Um and that that's the case, right? Like we've probably much like yourselves, we put out a lot of content on LinkedIn, on our podcast, on YouTube, and it literally shares our full playbook, not just for SEO, but how we've grown our agency and everything else. And I'm sure loads of people copy it, absolutely fine, and then occasionally people reach out because they like we deal with a lot of small B2B marketing teams, so a lot of the time they're man man managing like five, six, seven channels themselves, they're stretched thin, they probably don't have the resource. And the other thing, a lot of the time, is people tried to do this themselves and it didn't work out, i.e., they took a shortcut, so they then they did what I said, but then they used AI to run the full workflow, pumped out a thousand pages in like 20 seconds, published them to the website, and got hit by a Google traffic went up tenfold. A month later, they Google flagged it because Google have literally just put in their guidelines now that AI content needs to be human manually checked. Yeah. Um, yet there's still AI bros on LinkedIn saying, like, pump out this workflow and it's insane. Like type in Claude in the comments, and you're gonna get it, and you're gonna crush Google and AI search.

Will Ockenden 31:46

TikTok.

Sam Dunning 31:46

Unfortunately, yeah, it's uh it's it's a bit messy out there in terms of the information.

Will Ockenden 31:52

So how does that work with Google then ? You know , the you said that , so obviously it best

Avoiding AI Spam And Penalties

Will Ockenden 31:58

practice is to manually check AI content . How does Google police that , or or does it kind of intrinsically recognise something that's straight AI content from you know , that's what I was gonna say .

Chris Norton 32:11

Yes , and I don't think they can . I don't think they can . They've put something in . Um , so Claude Anthropic have put um , and I've I saw the explanation . Actually , there's a guest off this show , he used to be the presenter on BBC Click , uh , Spencer Kelly , and he was explaining the uh the watermark that Claude and Anthropic put in their content , which is fascinating because you'd think it's a watermark that you can you can then copy all your copy and stick it into a note notebook . What do you what do you use called Notepad that would strip all the formatting out and it'd be gone , but apparently not . It's because Claude and Anthropic have done this magical way that certain words in certain order um is the watermark , so the average person can't see it , which is quite clever how they've done it . Um , and people haven't figured that out yet . But I'm not sure Google can tell . They probably can , they've got loads of money . What do you think , Sam ? Like , because I I think there's conflicting information here , and the the announcement that you've just said there about the fact that they're looking at , they're now saying AI content needs to be checked . Because they originally they said we don't care about AI content , as long as it's well researched and well executed , that's fine . So all SEOs have gone , great , and all copywriters have gone , oh my god . So there's no copywriters left , and there's loads of SEO technical guys out there ploughing through tons and tons of AI content . But now they've said , hang on a minute , we've changed our mind again .

Sam Dunning 33:38

But also remember in Twitter , like countless times or X , Google have also said backlinks don't do anything and they're not worthwhile , so they've gone against their own word many times over the years . Um but yeah , I think I how they're doing it , I'm sure , and I'm sure plenty goes past it . Like the the algorithms and the systems they've got to detect this , I'm guessing , work off patterns . Um but I'm sure the amount of content they've got to aggregate and go through , like I'm sure plenty of stuff misses it . Um a thing is like to get hammered . I think the main thing is to be sensible with it . It's like we're we're in a world where you can do stuff now so quick , like this research and this whole process I've explained , like if you do it properly and you leverage those unique insights from sales calls , customer calls , and all that good stuff , and you you link that up with an SEO AI search tool and you do this like systematically and you prioritise buying intent , but then you have a human in the loop to then check it . One , because you want to make sure it hasn't hallucinated , it's actually factually correct , two to add extra insights . So if one of your prospects lands on this page , it's actually gonna resonate with them , their problems , their goals , their jobs to be done , have plenty of proof that you can do what you can say you can do , and and so forth . Um , so it's just gonna save you a lot of time and pain and also be more likely to drive conversions later down the funnel , um , as opposed to yeah , pumping up thousands of pages then getting hit by a penalty that's just gonna cause you a whole world of pain to try and get out of .

Chris Norton 35:08

Um, can I ask our show is all about mistakes? We haven't asked you about any mistakes you've made. I mean I'm sure there's a few in the old SEO

Outsourcing Mistake That Killed Traffic

Chris Norton 35:15

land, um, because mistake mistakes is what SEO is all about, isn't it? It's learning, it's test test measure, test measure, test measure, and what works, as we've just explained there, what works six months ago doesn't necessarily work today. Is that correct? So, what issues have you had or marketing mistakes that you're willing to share on the show, Sam?

Sam Dunning 35:37

Oh, I'm I'm pretty much an open book, I've made so many over the years. Like, so one thing I did which was like so ironic because we we sell SEO was when I started this agency like two and a half years ago, roughly, um, because we're fully bootstrapped, but I didn't have hardly any cash when we started. All I was doing really, whilst we were building up our own website from scratch and our own SEO from scratch, I was just trying to book meetings back then. So I was just doing loads of outbound, like cold calling marketing leaders and revenue leaders trying to get meetings. And meanwhile, there's there was someone I knew, I think it was in Nigeria, but I can't remember now. And I just outsourced all the content to this guy, like paid him a few grand, and just said, look, we're trying to so simple, we want to rank for these keywords.

Chris Norton 36:25

It's not related to the prince of Nigeria, is it? Because he was he emailed Will last week about Will winning two billion pounds if he just sent um him five grand.

Will Ockenden 36:35

I'm meeting him tomorrow, actually, Chris. Okay. Yeah, nice. So, what was the concept like? Was it appalling?

Sam Dunning 36:41

Well , it gets worse . So I let him do this whilst I was head down , just like pumping out LinkedIn content , hitting up my network for referrals , like cold calling , just trying to basically drive the business forward , get meetings and get clients . So I left left this guy to it , gave him like a rough idea of what I needed in the pages to build . And the funny thing was , like , my goal then was to rank number one in three months for B2B SEO agency . This is before we like refined to SaaS . And we actually did , um , because we he built that content , and I I also guested on a ton of podcasts . I think I was doing like two two or so podcasts a week in my niche , and like I got all those podcasts that I guessed on to give us a backlink , and the the anchor text was B2B SEO agency , so it was it was quite spammy , and like they all link back to this landing page , and I also got all the people that I knew , like marketers at like decent SaaS companies , to do the same . So I was doing all this stuff , and we hit we hit page one , interesting enough , like quite quick within 90 days for this on a brand new website , which is quite a cool achievement . Anyway , a couple months later , my website traffic just drops . I'm not even looking , I'm just like diehard outbound trying to drive the business forward and get sales . I look on Ahrefs , I'm like , what the heck ? Like all our rankings are gone , all our traffic gone , everything's gone . Um , after I post this pay case study , and then I get one of the technical one of my technical SEO friends , because at this time I I had no staff . Um I was like , what's happened ? And he's like , Did you write this content yourself ? I was like , no , I I sourced it to this person I knew is like , yeah , they've used a ton of AI , they've literally just like ran it through ChatGPT , no human checking , and it's just like that . I didn't even check the content , I just we just chucked it on the website and we just got hit , like all our traffic went . Um , so we have to completely overhaul the site . It took us a while to recover .

Will Ockenden 38:35

I do a lot of stuff from fresh, um, and it's just so ironic that I've learned that the hard way, hence why now like is that not a case study you can then quote to cut to clients, this is what you shouldn't do. And we we decided to try it out. Yeah, exactly.

Sam Dunning 38:50

Yeah, I've I've mentioned it like on podcasts and on LinkedIn and stuff like that. Um, because it's it's quite funny looking back.

Chris Norton 38:56

Like quite a clever backlink strategy. We we've never asked any of our guests to link back to us, or all we ever say is if you come on the show, we send them a clip and you know talk about it on your so share it on your socials. You know, it's like a very I've never actually thought if everyone gave us a backlink was on this show. We've had the BBC, we've had everybody on it. If they all gave us a backlink, we'd be might be maybe we'd be top for um I don't know, Nigerian copywriters. I don't know. No idea. So what how long did it take to recover then? And did you ever get back to the promised land, or did you have to, you know, you've niche down further, haven't you, with the the SaaS side of things?

Sam Dunning 39:31

Yeah, it's

Recovery Plan And Cleaner SEO

Sam Dunning 39:32

exactly like over over that year or so we'd we niche down to the SaaS side of things. We did. It took us a few months, like we had to basically rebuild the site from scratch and like redo all the content and kind of totally clean up the house, and we did. Um good, but interesting enough, like we when we I don't know how long ago it was, but when we kind of really wanted to own our own like money keywords and prompts and just like be recommended for best SaaS SEO agency and best SaaS I AI SEO agency and stuff like that. I didn't do anything clever. Like we just looked what content was being served. In this case, it was like a listicle for we evaluated the top 15 SaaS SEO agencies 2026, built a best in class page, positioned us number one backed by where we're a good fit, wherever a poor fit, did the same for the other companies, reached out to a bunch of folks that podcasts I've guested on, other agency owners I know knew, asked them to feature us with mentioning our company and our positioning and where we're a strong fit, where we're not, and a link as well. And then three months later we ranked really well and we get recommended quite a lot. Um, a lot of the advice I guess share is pretty simple because a lot of the time the simple stuff is not easy, but it works.

Chris Norton 40:47

Brilliant. I'm trying to think of I've got so many questions um technically wise, because we we obviously we don't do technical SEO, we do um we sort of do integrated, we call it integrated PR rather than digital PR because we do the brand stuff. Um we're all about you know, everybody that works for us is is into uh reputation. We're PR people by trade, but we also do the digital PR stuff uh for clients as well, where we can execute, you know, and get loads of links, but proper we don't think link first, we think quality, which is hopefully I think where where they're going. And actually, I've heard from a lot of experts in SEO going now. Actually, the PR side of things has been fascinating because it's not about the as much about the links, it's about trade PR coverage to help the the stuff that you've been talking about, like the contextual uh fanning out where they're doing the fanning out and the searching, that the trade stuff, which a lot of clients will go, Oh, I don't want to be in the trade press, I don't care about that. I want to be I want to get consistent, and actually it turns out that that that's the stuff that can actually really help you now.

Sam Dunning 41:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good point. And then sometimes companies will come to us and be like, What's the best way to like

Digital PR And Brand Mentions For AI

Sam Dunning 41:58

get our brand consistently mentioned in the LLMs? I'd be like, it's easy, just go back in time 10 years and build a brand. And a lot of that go actually can't a lot of that goes back to what you said there. It's like the new layer, like a lot of people say AEO or AI search is a brand new thing. Like, I completely disagree. A lot of it is good bottom of funnel SEO, like focused on buying intent that I just described, plus B2B marketing and digital PR, which are for your guys' domain, plus general sensible B2B marketing, like keep your review sites in shape. If you can do podcasts and stuff appearances and get your brand mentioned, amazing. Um, if you can work out what other websites are talking about your niche and ranking and cited well and get placements in those, amazing.

Chris Norton 42:45

Um I think what you've told me there, Sam, is that three and a half years ago when I went, I know what we should do, we should start a podcast. Turns out that was the best thing we could ever do because it's for brand for brand brand is back in a big way by the sounds of it.

Will Ockenden 43:01

It's it's quite reassuring, isn't it? You know, you you've for all the change, actually, it's the fundamentals which are most important, which is building a great brand, building a great reputation, having really solid B2B marketing foundations, and it's almost like we've gone back to the real basics of marketing and PR.

Chris Norton 43:18

But better quality.

Will Ockenden 43:19

Yeah.

Chris Norton 43:19

Better quality , not the not the Do you remember Will , when we met that client years ago , and I can name them now because they're not a client , I don't even know if they exist anymore . The Sock Shop , you'll like this , Sam . We were in a room with the the guys from the Sock Shop , and it was wet one of the years I think that I'd first ever met Will , and we were and we had the SEO guys from the Sock Shop there , and I was like , they were like , Yeah , so what we do is we prepare , we write really great content all about socks . And I was like , sorry , is that what you do all day ?

Will Ockenden 43:49

It was like 10, it was 10 10 articles a day about different aspects of socks, wasn't it? It was absolutely insane their output.

Chris Norton 43:56

I mean, they got paid a lot of money and they ranked well, but I was like, I don't really want the money, that's not appealing. I don't want to write 10 articles a day just about socks. Do you? You know what I mean?

Sam Dunning 44:09

That is mad. Imagine every topic they must have covered as well. Like, what's the best way to put your socks up in the morning?

Will Ockenden 44:16

I mean, literally one afternoon, I'd have exhausted the ideas in an afternoon, I think.

Chris Norton 44:20

Even if you yeah, but even if you were the most passionate person about socks, right? By the end of 28 days of the first month, you'd be like, I'm spent.

Sam Dunning 44:30

Straight away, yeah. I mean, I I'd be like, do the SEO basics by all mean, and then I think like video. I think like how can we stand out and like wear stupid stuck socks and interview people on the street and like I'm straight away thinking out of the box.

Chris Norton 44:41

Yeah , and so I suppose what's your watch your sort of um so you yeah we Sort of got your strategy . I was gonna say , like , um , what do you think is gonna be the next uh what do you think is gonna happen then ? Um because Google's just literally today . I think it I think it ends tomorrow , the eighth . Um we're recording on the 7th of October . I don't normally do that , but might as well . Uh and on the 8th of October , apparently I'm reliably told that Google's spam AI spam update will be finished . That's what uh I my AI of choice told me that this morning . And so I I wonder it how are they going to sort this out ? So there's not the internet's just not full of 280 socks articles every month and they're really full of lists , and you know , is that like I think I'm I think I'm getting to the point of like is it quality and stick to the quality , build your brand , and make sure you're updated regularly . Is that is that is that your sort of your key messages , would you say ?

Sam Dunning 45:44

Kind of . I mean , I would say I'd say that the the customer research part is important , and actually , if you want your SEO to contribute to depending on your company , like in your guys' case , I guess , put calls , same for me . If you're a SaaS and it's demos or sign-ups , um , other companies might want direct calls or similar . It's like how can we link that back to that ? And what are what are people going to search for when they need that solution or other comparing options or are frustrated with their incumbent provider ? How could we then build the right type of content and get those lines on the water in the water on our own website , control that narrative ourselves ? And then what do we have to do externally outside of our website like we're just talking about then to then control the narrative on other channels , that's press , other article roundups talking about solutions like ours , podcasting and so forth . Um so yeah , that that's it at a high level . But a lot of it is , yeah , like you say , not just relying on AI to churn out that content , but then making sure it is generally has has it has the unique angle that anything else on the web doesn't have , and probably if you want it to convert , then it needs to actually position your offer as a painkiller backed by proof points , social proof examples , case studies , and all that good stuff .

Chris Norton 46:57

So yeah, Will and I need to identify our pain points. That's your job for tomorrow, Will.

Sam Dunning 47:04

I recommend Gap Selling . Um , a lot of sales books are way better than marketing books , in my opinion , for that kind of stuff .

Will Ockenden 47:10

Gap Selling . Very good . Yeah , I like it . People will no doubt be listening to this , Sam , and thinking , I want to speak to him . And you know , this is this is goal . So why don't you tell people how they can get hold of you ? And also this 90 days to revenue paper or video , how can people access that ?

Sam Dunning 47:27

Oh, yeah, I appreciate it, guys. Enjoyed

Where To Find Sam And The Playbook

Sam Dunning 47:30

the chat. So, yeah, for the for the 90 days to revenue playbook and and video, that's just breakingb2b.com slash playbook. Um like you folks, I run a I run a podcast where mainly read me rambling about what what's working today in AI SEO and SaaS marketing and B2B marketing, that's the Breaking B2B podcasts on YouTube and audio channels. Um it's Sam Dunning on LinkedIn, or yeah, if you want to learn more about AI SEO and see if it's a fit for you for your own business, it's breakingb2b.com.

Will Ockenden 47:59

Do you find on the podcast um things have changed before you've got a chance to publish the episode? Because the the pace of change is playing at the moment, isn't it?

Sam Dunning 48:10

Yeah , yeah . It's off stuff changes super fast . Um sometimes , yeah , like we on my own show , we used to do mainly tons of interviews , and we still we still do the odd one , but now I focus it more on the solo episode stuff , so I just tackle certain topics in like B2B SEO and SaaS SEO . And I quite like doing breakdowns . So if clients of ours are open to us sharing their full strategy , we do that . Or if there's a client I might want to work with , I'll just break down their strategy . Um just to give it a bit , keep it fresh , I guess , a bit more enjoyable .

Chris Norton 48:43

And can I ask you why you why you came up with the name , what's Breaking B2B then ? Why why where did that come from ? Were you watching Breaking Bad and you

Breaking B2B Name Origin

Chris Norton 48:50

just thought , oh , that's a good thing , and I'll just change the two letters .

Sam Dunning 48:53

Weirdly , I've never watched like the whole thing . So I was thinking about this the other day because I've never I've only watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad , but I think it's because like one of my favourite bands is like a rock band . I have a heavy metal band called Breaking Benjamin . And have you ever seen BeardMeatsFood ?

Chris Norton 49:13

Uh no, I think is that the guy that eats everywhere he goes.

Sam Dunning 49:18

Eats a lot of food, has a big black beard, like does food eating competitions.

Chris Norton 49:23

Yeah, yeah, I have seen him. I think I've caught him on Instagram now, but yeah, carry on.

Sam Dunning 49:28

Probably, but yeah, he has a podcast called Breaking Beard, and I think subliminally that was just coming in my head. And before I started the company, I was registering loads of domains like broken B2B and like all these variants, and I came up with Breaking B2B, wasn't sure, asked a load of like marketing people, did a poll on LinkedIn that got by hard the far the best reach, was surprised it was available.com and then just registered it and it worked out.

Chris Norton 49:49

Wow, yeah, interesting. Um, Sam, you've been on the show now. Um, if you were us, right, who was the next person that you would interview for our

Who To Interview Next

Chris Norton 49:58

show to find out about their mistake that they should share on here. About a mistake. Well, it's it's the marketing mistakes. So if the if you can think of anybody that would be really interesting to the audience that would come on and have got their own take, basically, usually often they don't they haven't shared their mistake before they come on our show and they're like then they will, so that's the idea, I suppose.

Sam Dunning 50:18

If you want I'll tell you what , if you want people that are really fun to interview , then I'd probably like flip the angle . So there's someone that would be really fun to interview on this show called the UK's most hated sales trainer , a guy called Benjamin Dennehy . Okay . A lot of the stuff I've learned about from sales originally came from him , like some of the methodologies , and our sales guy's actually going through his training at the moment . But he's painfully up front on like he don't he knows basic marketing stuff , but it's also useful for for marketers to understand how salespeople think and the problem problem-centric thinking , not thinking like solutions , but thinking like nothing happens until someone has a problem until it becomes too annoying and frustrating that they have to look at a new better way . So he could teach you about that and how that links to sales and marketing , and he does a lot of like live code calling and stuff like that , and he starts with the problem statements , the top three problems his prospects have , and he link brings those up front in cold calls . So it's very interesting . Uh I'd recommend him , and he'd be good fun . He's he's a Kiwi , and he's yeah , he's good fun .

Chris Norton 51:20

Well, thanks for that. Thanks for coming on the show, Sam.