October 9, 2024 • 35 mins
In this episode of the Digital Marketing Mentor podcast, host Danny Gavin sits down with Ross Hudgens, the founder and CEO of Siege Media. Ross shares his journey from studying creative writing to scaling one of the leading content marketing agencies through discussion on the role of mentorship, strategies for scaling a business, and evolving SEO practices in the age of AI. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned marketer, this episode offers practical advice and insights on business growth and effective digital marketing.
Episode Highlights:
- Mentorship has played a crucial role in Ross’s career. Influential digital marketing figures and direct competitors such as Grayson LaFrance and Wil Reynolds have provided guidance and support in his successful pursuit of scaling Siege Media.
- Effectively scaling his agency has meant Ross has had to learn to delegate responsibilities, particularly in sales and operations.
- Ross’s approach to SEO has evolved from traditional link building to “product-led digital PR.” This includes creating unique, data-driven content that stands out in a digital landscape.
Episode Links:
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Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
- Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
- ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Danny Gavin (00:05):
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, andtogether with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Get ready to the Inc Magazine's5,000 list.
(00:47):
You can see the trophy behindRoss.
They've been named to Inc'sBest Workplace twice fastest
growing company in San Diego,six times tops on Bud Sumo's
list.
I would say Ross is also aGolden State Warriors fan.
I don't know if that's good orbad, but he's not a bandwagoner
(01:07):
because he's actually from thatplace.
Maybe we'll talk about it a bit, and today we're going to talk
about Siege, seo and contentmarketing and, of course,
mentorship.
Ross Hudgens (01:11):
How are you Good?
Thanks for having me, Danny.
Glad we could do this.
Danny Gavin (01:14):
Yeah, this is awesome.
All right, so let's jump rightin.
Tell me more about where youwent to school and what you
studied.
Ross Hudgens (01:21):
I went to Chapman University.
I originally started as acreative writing major and sold
out and went to businessadministration with a marketing
emphasis.
Danny Gavin (01:32):
But I think that's very foretelling to the power.
Bottom line is what you do.
Today, a lot of it is allwriting, so I would say that
some of the best marketers arewriters, so it doesn't surprise
me actually.
Ross Hudgens (01:42):
Yeah, it's crazy how I appreciate you saying that
Sort of worked out and I wasbuilding some kind of skill set
there, seemingly, anyways.
Danny Gavin (01:49):
Not everyone on the podcast goes to university, but
the fact that you did.
When you look back at thatexperience both inside and
outside the classroom, are thereany memories teachers,
situations that were impactfulin directing your path?
Ross Hudgens (02:02):
I don't know that I have a specific teacher or
experience that stood out, butdefinitely appreciated my time
in Chapman.
It made me take schoolingseriously.
My grandparents used to jokethat I majored in football when
I was in high school I only hadlike a 2.0 GPA and I went to a
junior college trying to godivision one.
But Chapman was amazing schooland kind of showed me what's
(02:25):
possible, got me more excitedabout it, which I don't think my
high school experiencenecessarily did.
So a great teacher, teachers, Ithink.
Generally across the board theywere solid and that created
some motivation for me for sure.
Danny Gavin (02:36):
So I didn't know you were an athlete.
I guess a good question wouldbe do you approach like your
company and life now at all froman athletic perspective?
Ross Hudgens (02:43):
I think about work ethic, like you gotta work hard
to be good.
I mean, I'm relatively tall,I'm 6'2" which you can't tell on
a podcast video necessarily, oryou're listening to this but
I'm not a super great athlete.
So I kind of worked my way upto be successful and I think
that also dealing.
I think there's an aspect oflike being on a team and working
(03:06):
with others and all of that, Ithink undoubtedly was beneficial
.
I sometimes go back and forthof like, oh, I should have
jumped right into business, butI'm sure I would have lost some
of that fortifying element, andmy friends from that time are my
best friends still today.
Danny Gavin (03:23):
That's awesome and I know you're a father as well.
Is that something that you feelis important for your kid kids
to be part of team sports?
Ross Hudgens (03:31):
I'd like that.
I mean, I'm not gonna lie toyou, That'd be fun for sure.
But I definitely hear peoplethat you don't wanna force or
pressure them, so I'm nervousabout doing that myself.
But if they would like to, Iwould definitely support that.
That's the right answer.
(03:51):
So, Ross, how would you definea mentor?
Mentor is someone to me who iswilling to kind of help without
really any other benefit tothemselves.
They're just willing to putthemselves out there and assist
you just out of the good graceof their personality, which is
amazing.
Very often it can fly, at leastin my experience.
It could be in conflict withtheir actual kind of business
(04:14):
model, sometimes like been luckyto get help from people that
technically compete with us,which is wild but still we're
graceful, which I'm sure we'llget into in a bit.
Danny Gavin (04:23):
And we'll get into who those people were.
But do you feel like that'sunique in our industry, where
just people are more willing tohelp, or you feel like you kind
of see that in general justreally depends?
Ross Hudgens (04:33):
Yeah, I think relatively.
I know a lot of people say withfrequency at least other agency
owners that I talk to, likethere's a lot of business to go
around.
So there's that sense that eventhough there is obviously only
there is a finite amount ofbusiness, you're not necessarily
grabbing it from the samelocations.
And I think that kind ofmatters it's all like
(04:55):
relationships and things of thatnature which allow people to
lower their guards down.
Well, in athletics, obviously Iwouldn't go to my competing
team and share the same things,because it's so obvious the
winners and losers in that case,and I think that that helps a
lot.
Danny Gavin (05:10):
I'm part of a peer group here in Houston, texas,
and we have like 10 agencies andit's pretty amazing that we all
can sit at the table and talkand share our problems and
issues and actually help eachother out, even though
technically, like you said,there is enough business but in
some hands there's not.
Ross Hudgens (05:28):
But it's cool, I feel like it is special in the
digital marketing world a littlebit more than maybe other
places.
Yeah, a lot of great peoplegenerally.
So I think that's part of itVery humble, helpful people, and
that's got to be part of it toyour point.
Danny Gavin (05:38):
All right, so let's jump into some of your most
influential mentors.
So let's first talk about WillReynolds, who has been a guest
on the podcast before and, yes,I imagine a significant
competitor.
But let's talk about why do youconsider him your mentor.
Ross Hudgens (05:50):
Yeah, will, especially early on in my time
at Siege I just he was around 10years in front of me and I
aspirationally respected a lotof what he did.
I mean, he has his companyvolunteer all the time.
He's selfishly like he'ssleeping out in Philadelphia to
raise money.
He clearly cares about doingthe right things for his clients
(06:12):
.
So that was always something Ilooked up to and wanted to do
myself.
And so just a few times Ireached out to him with some
like problem things and he supergrace, graciously, rather, was
willing to jump on a call withme quickly and talk about those
things.
That just like was shocking tome at the time.
(06:33):
We offer similar services.
I had to the previous combo.
I don't know how often we likeactually had butted heads in a
pitch, I'm not sure.
But regardless, knowing Will, Idon't think that would have
mattered that much, honestly,because he just I think that's
naturally in his DNA is to goout and help people, help people
(06:55):
grow, and yeah, I was superappreciative of that.
Danny Gavin (06:59):
And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong you both
at a time were both in SanDiego, so were you able, like,
did you bump into each other,like face to face, and therefore
had maybe a better connection?
Ross Hudgens (07:09):
Yeah, I met him for coffee a few times.
He was gracious enough to comeon our podcast, actually our
first content.
We have a podcast calledContent Conversation and him and
Rand Fishkin came into ouroffice and it was like one of my
favorite podcasts to this day.
Danny Gavin (07:23):
Fishkin came into our office and it was like one
of my favorite podcasts to thisday and I guess, with you know,
saying that he's like 10 yearsyour senior, has it changed?
Ross Hudgens (07:34):
the way that you have maybe reached or treated
agency owners when they reachout to you.
Yeah, definitely, I think hekind of set the standard for
what I should do and feel topeople that are the same version
to me.
So I definitely try to be ashelpful as Will was when it
comes up.
I think that's definitely abenefit.
Is the paid forward that heshowed me that you're supposed
to do that to the extent I can,of course, and I try to do that
(07:58):
myself as well.
Danny Gavin (07:58):
All right, let's move into Grayson LaFrance.
Tell me about your relationshipwith him.
Ross Hudgens (08:02):
Yeah, grayson's a more recent version.
I have a lot of respect forboth of them.
Grayson LaFrance, tell me aboutyour relationship with him.
Yeah, grayson's a more recentversion.
I have a lot of respect forboth of them.
Grayson, specifically, is in astage with Power Digital
Marketing.
He was the CEO of Power Digital.
I think he's now just thechairman of the board there.
They acquired several differentagencies.
They eventually resold after aninitial sale to private equity
(08:22):
and he had just done a lot ofthings several times that I had
never done in a very similarfashion, really for no necessary
reason.
He was willing to jump on acall and give me like well, you
could consider probably like athousand dollars an hour, advice
on this stuff, without askingfor anything, which was amazing
(08:43):
and surprising.
And yeah, it just stood out ahuge amount and a similar
version of just paying itforward, and that's something
that I appreciated.
And he was also in San Diego,met him for coffee a few times
and that helped build therelationship for sure.
Danny Gavin (08:59):
Were you introduced by someone or did you just
reach out?
Ross Hudgens (09:01):
Yeah, we had some conversations about working
together from a businesscapacity early on.
That fell through for variousreasons, but maintain a positive
relationship after that.
So that was kind of the formingfunction.
Of course.
Similarly, I'd heard of hisagency in San Diego had a lot of
respect for them and I thinkthat because we were originally
(09:23):
headquartered in San Diego nowwe're fully remote, that, I
think, probably brought someinitial awareness to both sides.
Danny Gavin (09:29):
Listing two people who are both agency founders or
CEOs.
I think that says a lot.
Do you feel like it's importantfor the head of a agency, a
digital marketing agency, tohave a mentor who is an agency
owner from a different agency?
Ross Hudgens (09:46):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean there's also the variantwhich we talked to you briefly
mentioned before this call I'min a similar thing of peer
groups.
You could call them a mentor, Isuppose I'm also in I was
previously in EO, I'm now in YPOwhich are both kind of
entrepreneur peer groups andthat's been super helpful.
I wouldn't necessarily definesome of them as mentors, but
(10:08):
definitely people have doneseveral things more than I have
and so that probably does count.
So I highly recommend those andit's good kind of mental health
therapy for entrepreneurs aswell, or whatever world you're
in.
I'm sure there's other versionsof that.
Danny Gavin (10:24):
Often in life, we always think that we're like on
an island on our own, it onlyhappens to us, and just to have
that transparency, it helps andit's interesting.
I mentioned it to someone acouple of days ago and like, oh
yeah, like misery gets together,and I'm like, no, that's not
the point.
You know, the idea is like youdon't want to just sit at a bar
(10:44):
drinking and saying how horriblelife is, but the idea is find a
group that, yes, your peers,but also how you can support
each other.
That's not just complain.
Ross Hudgens (10:54):
Yeah, agreed, entrepreneurship is lonely.
There's some people that dothis I'm amazed by it that are
super close with their, theircoworkers, as the entrepreneur
or CEO of the company.
That's been always been a hardline for me to walk personally.
Um, so that's just how, like,you can literally only say
(11:15):
certain things to those thosepeople and sometimes they're
yeah, it's venting, but uh,there's, there's positive stuff
in there as well.
Like that you can't celebratethe same way with other people.
Danny Gavin (11:26):
Talk about relationship with coworkers.
Is that something that maybeyou tried at one point and it
backfired, or you've always beenpretty strong about separating
the two?
Ross Hudgens (11:37):
I wouldn't say it backfired, but I was lucky to
have my good friend Kyle Floyd,who probably won't listen to
this, but we went to schooltogether at Chapman actually,
and he was our first full-timegraphic design hire and we were
always good friends after that.
But it just changed the dynamica little bit.
Even though he so greatlyimpacted Siege, I was just like
(11:59):
I would rather have this guy bejust my friend after that and
that's coming from friend intothe company.
But there's just a reality like, for whatever reason, you need
to make tough decisions aroundlayoffs or performance.
It's just very difficult to dothat.
Of course, if someone's areally high performer, that
could hopefully make it a littlebit easier, which is the case,
(12:21):
but there still can be toughdecisions around compensation,
dynamics, around those things.
It's just so, so difficult, atleast in my experience, that I
wanted to keep separation ofchurch and state there.
Danny Gavin (12:32):
Yeah, I once had a coach.
He heard me using the termfamily, you know, like the
Optage family, family and thereason because you do feel close
and we're working together inthe trenches.
But he called me out on it andhe's like you know what it's
difficult in a family.
There's certain things youdon't do.
But in business sometimes youhave to make those hard
decisions.
So to use that term isn't thegreatest, so more like group or
(12:54):
team.
Love your perspective on that.
Ross Hudgens (12:56):
Respectfully.
It sounds like you're alignedwith him.
I would agree with that take.
I tried not to use that term.
In particular, I've heard thosesimilar kind of echoings of
that.
I like the team idea.
We're not a family buthopefully we can still be
close-knit, still be close andI've had difficult conversations
(13:17):
with people still relativelyclose with to this day.
So still treat them great andI'd rather on the same
wavelength, like I want thesepeople to feel like friends,
like I want.
I want to like you're stillspending so much time.
It is your second somewhere.
I think they say the data isyou spend more time with your
coworkers and your family, ormaybe this was pre-remote work,
(13:39):
but close anyways.
So you better like these people.
So I definitely still that'sstill the case, but there's got
to be some delineation.
Danny Gavin (13:46):
It seems like let's talk about you mentoring others
.
I know I think you've got twodirect reports.
You've mentored other agencyowners in the past.
Love to know what's yourmentorship style.
How do you hold peopleaccountable?
Love to talk a little bit moreabout that.
Ross Hudgens (14:00):
Yeah, I wish I could say I'm a great manager.
I think I've learned that overtime, clearly not so incompetent
to be.
That Siege turned out decentlywell as we scaled and realized
that that would be in betterhands with our COO, melissa, who
is a much better manager than Iam.
My general style is trust andverify.
(14:21):
That was Derek Sivers who has agreat blog post on that, and I
think that one sentence is quitehelpful.
So that's generally what I tryto do with the team Hire someone
, great trust and verify withthem and help them grow.
I do think that was almost tomy detriment as well at the
beginning.
My gut is to want to promotepeople and I instinctually
(14:42):
always want to grow.
So I assume everyone else wantsto grow to be a manager or
director, and I think that wasnot necessarily the case in some
instances.
So I like helping people outand it's surprising to me, but
sometimes they don't want togrow in content in our SEO, and
that's understandable as well.
Danny Gavin (15:02):
I always think there's I'm not saying it's like
this in every organization, butyou hope like the idea of
growth is sort of likevertically and horizontally
right, like so you could becomea manager, director, like in one
way, but in the other way youcould just get deeper in what
you know and just be you knowbetter at SEO.
It would be nice I mean, it'snot always like the never
organization, but it would benice to have both those paths
(15:23):
right so that you can still grow.
But it doesn't always mean thatyou have to manage people.
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Ross Hudgens (15:29):
Yeah, agreed, we did work on building those
tracks.
We learned some lessons thereas well, where I built tracks
for people that we didn'tnecessarily need as a company
and when things get leaner, thatgets tougher and turns out to
be a bad decision.
So that's where it's like your,your mind, to want to help
people can sometimes becounterproductive for the wider
(15:51):
company in organization.
But I, I I agree it's andthere's those people.
I definitely try to have thatconversation now that I've
learned some of those things andtry to be harder.
And sometimes the conversationarrives now that I have
transparent conversations withpeople like maybe our company is
just not going to be the growthpath for you.
We can have a transparentconversation about.
(16:14):
That Could help you.
We're going to support you.
Just like be upfront, beprofessional while you're here
that that's totally fine.
I'm I'm cool with that.
Danny Gavin (16:23):
I'd rather have that conversation than force you
into something you don't wantto do yeah, I'm just thinking
how we're like brothers fromanother mother, because I I
think I am definitely 10 yearsbehind you that same concept
where it's like when you'restarting out like you just want
to help everyone, everyindividual, because every
individual is so important, andthen, as you're growing and
scaling and realizing that noteverything fits the business,
sometimes you have to make thosetough decisions and when you're
(16:45):
naturally very kind and giving,it's difficult, it's a
difficult transformation.
Ross Hudgens (16:51):
Yeah, agreed, when times are good, that works very
, very well.
When times are not as good,which they haven't been in the
last couple years, those, thosedecisions come to roost
generally, unfortunately.
Danny Gavin (17:03):
Yeah when did you realize that you needed like
that coo?
Like what stage was it?
I don't know, because I knowyou've been in business for 12
years.
So number one congratulations,that's a big deal.
But like what stage was it?
Like you know, hey, I'm whereI'm at.
I want to scale, kind of needsomeone senior outside of me.
Ross Hudgens (17:24):
So we had an operations manager.
Basically, our current COO wasjust promoted incrementally.
The trigger point to make her aCOO specifically is I was just
so overwhelmed with peopleproblems, uh like I was getting
burnt out by this issue, thatissue, this other issue, and I
(17:45):
just hit a breaking point whereI was like I need some help on
this stuff.
I can't be in the weeds oneverything and I read, uh,
rocket fuel, which I recommend.
Yeah, it's a good book thatbasically talks about working
with a COO productively.
I did that later but that's onereason I have so few direct
(18:06):
reports now.
This is sort of models throughthe COO to kind of like take the
vision forward with someonewho's far more organized, better
at working with people day todayday and can manage many
direct reports.
Like I've had seven, eightdirect reports, I think, but
eventually pulled back from thatwhen I realized maybe it was
not the best.
(18:27):
Once you have like 90 peopleworth of people problems on you,
it compounds, for sure stuff.
Danny Gavin (18:36):
I don't want to get into revenue numbers, but they
say you get to a certain pointat an agency where you're too
small to be big, too big to besmall, and that's like the
growing pains you know profitsare down.
You kind of have to pushthrough.
You know what helped you scale.
Ross Hudgens (18:50):
Melissa definitely helped with a lot of those
scaling functions.
We just kind of did ititeratively over time.
There is no secret saucenecessarily.
There's different incrementalthings I can think of.
We really invested in learningand development.
We were in-person for a longtime and I think in-person
trainings worked and then wewent fully remote and we were
(19:11):
like we need to do this processdoc thing.
Now we have hundreds of processdocuments, everything's
documented.
There's videos for everything,very formalized training process
where every new hire has wehave a learning development lead
.
Now who kind of gets everyonewith the same messaging in the
door.
That helps with consistency.
(19:33):
I think, yeah, a lot of thosethings I think over time helped
in delegating.
I mean, I just slowly over timegot better at and I'm still not
amazing, don't get me wrong butof letting go of things.
I was in sales for a long longtime doing it myself and now we
have a full-time person.
(19:53):
I still help, don't get mewrong.
But that's an example of justslowly delegating, just
incrementally as budget allowsand you realize there's a better
people for stuff.
Danny Gavin (20:03):
And I got to give you credit for that because I
don't think people realize foran agency owner to hand off the
sales to someone else.
That's a big deal, right?
Because often I feel like, atleast in the beginning sales go
through.
People know Siege, but theyalso know Ross, right?
So it's like to think that I'mhanding it off to someone.
That's pretty crazy.
What's helped me?
I haven't done that yet, you'llhave to teach me Ross, but I
(20:27):
always say that for me, whatwould help me start with
delegation is the realizationthat when I hand it off to
someone else, they'll mostprobably only be able to do what
I could do 80% of the way.
But you know what 80% is goingto be good, good enough.
Do you look at delegation?
Similar?
Do you have a differentstrategy?
Ross Hudgens (20:48):
Maybe it's optimistic, but I would round up
that number.
I sometimes say like you'llprobably get 95% of what I would
have said.
Maybe that's not completelytrue, maybe it is 90, 90, 85, 80
.
And we'll just talk about itafter.
Like you will do things I'm notgoing to do, but we'll just
talk about it and it's not goingto be a big deal.
(21:08):
And I think that's the play, isyou just got to do that and then
be willing to invest heavilyyour time in that person to
iteratively learn, like that'show it's gonna, of course,
process stocks, scale that upover time, um, but that's the
kind of the core component andtry to just keep the high
leverage moments.
Like I'm still, I do attend.
(21:30):
I was on a proposal callearlier today Like if I feel
like it makes sense, I'll stillattend calls and things of that
nature.
So I still think it makes sense.
But the lift of like theproposal build out the intro
call, you just realize that thesteps you can touch it later and
later and still have the sameresult like 98% of the time.
Danny Gavin (21:53):
So what do you find yourself doing now, like what
are the main things that you'redoing in the agency?
Ross Hudgens (21:58):
Kind of shifting more towards relationships.
Like was in New York kind ofmeeting a big referral partner.
I set up a breakfast with 10other kind of like SEOs and
marketers.
Transparently, we're thinkingabout mergers and acquisitions
with other agencies.
I'm kind of working on thatpersonally and just bigger
(22:19):
picture stuff.
Like more time.
It feels weird but, yeah, moretime thinking those, hopefully
one or two.
You make less changes as youget bigger as well.
Like it's kind of hard to pushthrough 100 people.
I'm learning and Melissa helpedme as well.
Danny Gavin (22:35):
And I'm sure you're loving it and that and I think
that's what the CEO needs to dobecause it's about.
You need that space to thinkand be creative and come up with
those game changers.
All right, let's pivot into SEOand link building First of all.
Do you like the term linkbuilding these days?
Ross Hudgens (22:50):
We use it less and less.
Yeah, I mean we're calling it.
I mean it's always been contentmarketing for us, but I feel
like we say link building alittle less.
Digital PR is more of whatwe're communicating as well.
Yeah, there's interestingshifts in it, Like I just saw a
data study on brand authorityover domain authority, so we'll
see if we'll start measuringthat instead.
Danny Gavin (23:10):
Digital PR link building has undoubtedly evolved
since Siege's founding.
Can you tell me what your takeon its role as an SEO and
content strategies now, in 2024,especially in the world of AI?
Ross Hudgens (23:20):
Yeah, we're calling it product-led digital
PR.
It's sort of our most recentsignificant strategy shift and
our thought process there isgetting, if they don't have it
already, first-party data andputting it across the content
ecosystem, not just like oneasset you promote, but we have a
(23:41):
data study on content marketingtrends and then we use that
data across a blog post on whatis link building.
Like 63% of companies are usinglink building.
Just making that up, but thatmakes that piece more unique to
us, differentiated in a world ofAI, claude or ChatGPT can't
pump that out in five seconds.
(24:02):
So doing that kind of datafirst stuff that would be good,
independent of whether or notyou did or SEO existed and
hopefully can truly build abrand and that's a big part.
And yeah, we're doing morespread out digital PR.
We're not doing like 19 linkbuilding assets.
It's like what is one highleverage thing Not always, but
(24:26):
some people are more than thatbut for us it's like one big
trends report a year just makessense, um, and I think that does
make sense for a lot ofcompanies generally.
So like that's high leverage,even if links didn't matter,
that probably is worthwhile justfrom a brand building
standpoint.
So that that's sort of whatwe're leaning into while still
thinking links matter.
We're still kind of like dothings that make that thoughtful
(24:48):
, but it's more about it's gottabe really high leverage, it
seems.
Danny Gavin (24:52):
What are the requests coming in from the
companies that you're speakingwith?
Is it still from, like, an SEOperspective, or is it more from
a brand?
Or do you kind of have toeducate them or re-educate?
Ross Hudgens (25:03):
Good question.
I think our audience is myaudience historically has been
SEO people, which maybe is toour company's detriment.
I'm sure it's helped.
I do think we're transitioningover time to this idea of
organic growth.
We haven't truly givenourselves enough credit for
referral traffic, direct traffic, especially to the content
sections that we own, so we'redoing more of that.
(25:25):
I can't say that we'renecessarily hearing that from
clients necessarily, but theyseem to be resonating with the
kind of digital PR, first-partydata approach that is working
recently.
So in terms of their problems,I mean there's more volatility
these days.
I'm seeing more of that insales.
But yeah, that's some of thecommonalities I guess I'm
hearing from Prospect.
(25:46):
It has been harder for a whilebut yeah, it seems like a lot of
the panic is wafting away, Iguess.
Danny Gavin (25:53):
I saw on LinkedIn recently.
It was a comment where youbasically I think you put like
the four or five top assets onyour own website that have done
really, really well over timeand even shared some of the
results.
Like you know, this blog post,we got 500 links.
I only got a chance to see acouple of them, but were all of
them first party type blog likepost based on that.
Ross Hudgens (26:15):
Yes, that is the product-led digital PR idea.
So I'm just kind of saying itwithout saying it.
We have it in our top currently.
I think we'll keep it there fora couple of months.
There's a post in our topnavigation that says product led
digital PR, or you could Googleit, and it kind of speaks to it
in more detail.
Danny Gavin (26:30):
But yes, Do you feel like these days can a site
still rank well without anintentional PR link building
effort?
Ross Hudgens (26:38):
I think you accelerate what you're doing
using like, at least thinkingabout it, like how we think
about it is oh, we can identifythat this topic, if you rank for
it, attracts a lot of links.
That's sort of how we'rethinking about it.
For the most part, we're doingvery, very little outreach.
Still We'll do high leverageoutreach on the actual report,
(27:04):
but that's like 5% of the time.
Otherwise it's more spread out.
But I think I mean links are abyproduct of that good content
marketing, marketing activity.
So I think it was one metric.
You look at that.
If I rank for this, I will geta lot of links.
I think that's so worthwhile todo.
Do you need, like guest postingoutside of your website?
I would say no, I don't thinkthat sort of makes sense.
Danny Gavin (27:20):
What do you say to the smaller companies, because I
know you deal with primarilylarger organizations, but what
could they do from a linkbuilding, digital PR perspective
?
Ross Hudgens (27:28):
Multi-tiered One.
We don't work with local, so Ican't.
Besides, multinational, localor multi-location, national, so
I can't really well comment onthat.
I would guess maybe a littlemore of that would make sense
for them.
Still, what I am seeing I thinkwe're kind of lucky in this way
as a company that you'veprobably seen is that it's
(27:50):
harder and harder to be small.
It's like I think the bigcompanies are winning and it's
kind of tough to say, like, packit up and go home.
But that is the case for somesearch for, search for, like,
especially affiliates.
It's just like very hard to bea non-brand affiliate these days
.
But generally I mean, I thinkit's a good activity.
(28:11):
It's where you got to start.
If you feel like you have agreat product that fits in the
marketplace, if it's, if you'regood for the niche and you're
biggest in the niche, you canstill be a small business in
that vertical and be successful.
It's like if you're up againstibm, you might, might be tough,
um, so I don't know, that's theanswer you're looking for, but
some of those things come tomind.
Danny Gavin (28:31):
No, I think it's very fair.
I think it's a little sad insome ways, because I remember
pitching SEO the concept 10years ago and it was like Google
is the David and Goliath right.
You could be the David and comeand be whatever you need to be
on the SERPs right and fightthose large companies, and I
think it is harder these days todo that.
Ross Hudgens (28:48):
Yeah, I think it's getting harder and harder.
I just emailed our businessdevelopment guy, drew, who's
great and was mentioning itfeels like we need to be more
discerning around product marketfit than we ever have.
We would almost kind of walkinto engagements and be like
they're 50 DR, domain authorityor domain rating and sometimes
(29:14):
just being good enough therewould feel good enough, but now
I'm not as confident that evenlike decent authority matters if
you're not a real brand.
Danny Gavin (29:19):
It's hard, right, I would say for an agency.
I mean, it's kind of likebringing it out, and maybe this
is oversimplifying it, but yeah,it's tough.
We get, you know, leads our wayand you kind of want to make it
work.
But it's difficult because ifyou know that that it's not
going to be successful, or youknow it's not going to work for
your company, sometimes you knowon one hand you need to pull in
the revenue, but the other handyou know it's actually going to
(29:40):
cost more.
It's are a little better.
Ross Hudgens (29:42):
Things are starting to get better.
We're lucky to be a marketgenerally.
I think that helps being morediscerning.
It feels critical.
There's probably a balancethere the bottom 20%.
(30:02):
It's probably worthwhilepushing like if you can feel
that even in six months timethere's not going to be a month
much results to show here.
Like that's not going to be,even it's not.
It doesn't feel like even agreat short-term justification
in my opinion.
Danny Gavin (30:20):
yeah, what are some of the most common seo
misconceptions that you'reencountering these days with
your clients?
Or do you think people areeducated already?
They kind of know?
Ross Hudgens (30:30):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard out there generally.
I do think people we still haveconversations around AI Like
there's a segment of people liketrying to pump it out with a
button and we're probably notthe best fit for that person.
So I think that is an ongoingconversation with a lot of
people.
It's getting better because thefervor and excitement over it
(30:52):
has kind of died down a littlebit.
It's still there, it's stilluseful.
But I think that is probablythe most common conversation
around the value of high qualitycontent.
If that person has kind of acommodity AI mindset, they might
be in the wrong place.
Danny Gavin (31:09):
Are you adopting AI internally?
Is it like a push Guys, we haveto figure out all the ways we
can use it, or is it more justnatural coming in?
Ross Hudgens (31:18):
We are.
We do have someone who owns it.
We're thinking about itactively.
We use it for editing.
We use it for qualitativechecks like a secondary SME
subject matter expert editor.
Yeah, we're continuing it.
We have like an AI departmentwith one lead in each thing, but
we're not forcing the issueLike it's got to feel good for
the thing, but I think it'simportant to like actively be
(31:40):
practicing using it or could getleft behind.
Danny Gavin (31:44):
Yeah, All right, we are going gonna move to our
lightning round.
I would love for you to tell metop three of something that you
really like.
Ross Hudgens (31:53):
I mean, family is awesome.
I have a four-year-old and aone-and-a-half-year-old, so
that's a lot of fun.
It's hard at the same time.
Of course, my lovely wife, Melas well, is number one on that
list.
We do love traveling is numberone on that list.
We do love traveling.
We're wild enough to bring allof them with us.
We're doing an SEO conferencein Thailand in November, so
(32:13):
please wish us a lot of luck forthat one, that's so cool.
Yeah, it should be fun.
We'll see how it goes.
Love, yeah, sports we talkedabout.
Yeah, I have a 49ers jerseybehind me.
I'm from the san francisco bayarea in a basketball like
playing basketball.
I played basketball thismorning.
(32:34):
Um, wake up early just to playat 6 am, which is a lot, a lot
of fun.
Uh, enjoy running, just likehealth.
I think of a lot about.
Uh, currently, that takes up alot of energy, but kids take up
most of it, for sure do you misscalifornia or you like texas?
I like texas, we are.
We are lucky enough.
(32:54):
We spent a good amount of timein bend, oregon, where, um, we
have a vacation rental just toescape the summer here.
So, but otherwise, lovelyculture, people are nice, food
scenes, great, lots of things todo.
Uh, I think winters and springare amazing.
Uh, it's nice to have sun andcold, which makes a big
(33:17):
difference coming from seattlewhere that doesn't exist, but
yeah, so, ross, what is yournext big project?
next big project?
I mean raising kids is one, uh,on the business side, that's
current big project.
I would mean raising kids isone on the business side, that's
current big project.
I would say in terms of energy.
But, yeah, we're working ongrowing and we might add some
services over time.
(33:37):
I think that's going to be adifficult endeavor.
But yeah, thinking aboutexpansion, potential
acquisitions of other companies,I think that is a big north
star we're thinking about.
So that's going to take a lotof energy but also really
exciting yeah fun, fun, fun.
Growth things I haven't donebefore, and I think that's
what's what still to this day,gives me energy super.
Danny Gavin (34:00):
So where can listeners learn more about you
and your business?
Ross Hudgens (34:03):
yeah, go to siege mediacom, like siege in the
castle hard to spell it, but wehave the misspelling domain in
case you mess it up.
But Roz Hutchins on X slashTwitter or LinkedIn as well.
I post a lot there.
I've been posting a little bitmore on threads as well.
If anyone's out there wouldlove to connect.
(34:23):
Do you find it valuable Threads?
Yeah, I'm honestly justreposting for the most part.
It does seem like a differentcommunity than x a little bit,
but it seemed to be building alittle headway so I felt like it
was kind of misguided not to atleast cross post.
But I still transparently likex a little bit more, but it's
(34:43):
slightly.
I think they have gone thedirection of like addiction
social media, which is notnecessarily a positive attribute
.
No, definitely not.
Danny Gavin (34:54):
Well, ross, thank you so much for joining me today
.
As I told you before, Idefinitely have been following
you and looking up to you, soit's awesome that we actually
get a chance to speak.
So thanks for being a guest onthe Digital Marketing Mentor and
thank you, listeners, fortuning into the Digital
Marketing Mentor.
We'll speak with you next time.
Thanks for having me, danny.
Thank you for listening to theDigital Marketing Mentor podcast
.
Be sure to check us out onlineat thedmmentorcom and at
(35:19):
thedmmentor on Instagram, anddon't forget to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, spotify orwherever you listen to your
podcasts for more marketingmentor magic.
See you next time.
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, andtogether with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Get ready to the Inc Magazine's5,000 list.
(00:47):
You can see the trophy behindRoss.
They've been named to Inc'sBest Workplace twice fastest
growing company in San Diego,six times tops on Bud Sumo's
list.
I would say Ross is also aGolden State Warriors fan.
I don't know if that's good orbad, but he's not a bandwagoner
(01:07):
because he's actually from thatplace.
Maybe we'll talk about it a bit, and today we're going to talk
about Siege, seo and contentmarketing and, of course,
mentorship.
Ross Hudgens (01:11):
How are you Good?
Thanks for having me, Danny.
Glad we could do this.
Danny Gavin (01:14):
Yeah, this is awesome.
All right, so let's jump rightin.
Tell me more about where youwent to school and what you
studied.
Ross Hudgens (01:21):
I went to Chapman University.
I originally started as acreative writing major and sold
out and went to businessadministration with a marketing
emphasis.
Danny Gavin (01:32):
But I think that's very foretelling to the power.
Bottom line is what you do.
Today, a lot of it is allwriting, so I would say that
some of the best marketers arewriters, so it doesn't surprise
me actually.
Ross Hudgens (01:42):
Yeah, it's crazy how I appreciate you saying that
Sort of worked out and I wasbuilding some kind of skill set
there, seemingly, anyways.
Danny Gavin (01:49):
Not everyone on the podcast goes to university, but
the fact that you did.
When you look back at thatexperience both inside and
outside the classroom, are thereany memories teachers,
situations that were impactfulin directing your path?
Ross Hudgens (02:02):
I don't know that I have a specific teacher or
experience that stood out, butdefinitely appreciated my time
in Chapman.
It made me take schoolingseriously.
My grandparents used to jokethat I majored in football when
I was in high school I only hadlike a 2.0 GPA and I went to a
junior college trying to godivision one.
But Chapman was amazing schooland kind of showed me what's
(02:25):
possible, got me more excitedabout it, which I don't think my
high school experiencenecessarily did.
So a great teacher, teachers, Ithink.
Generally across the board theywere solid and that created
some motivation for me for sure.
Danny Gavin (02:36):
So I didn't know you were an athlete.
I guess a good question wouldbe do you approach like your
company and life now at all froman athletic perspective?
Ross Hudgens (02:43):
I think about work ethic, like you gotta work hard
to be good.
I mean, I'm relatively tall,I'm 6'2" which you can't tell on
a podcast video necessarily, oryou're listening to this but
I'm not a super great athlete.
So I kind of worked my way upto be successful and I think
that also dealing.
I think there's an aspect oflike being on a team and working
(03:06):
with others and all of that, Ithink undoubtedly was beneficial
.
I sometimes go back and forthof like, oh, I should have
jumped right into business, butI'm sure I would have lost some
of that fortifying element, andmy friends from that time are my
best friends still today.
Danny Gavin (03:23):
That's awesome and I know you're a father as well.
Is that something that you feelis important for your kid kids
to be part of team sports?
Ross Hudgens (03:31):
I'd like that.
I mean, I'm not gonna lie toyou, That'd be fun for sure.
But I definitely hear peoplethat you don't wanna force or
pressure them, so I'm nervousabout doing that myself.
But if they would like to, Iwould definitely support that.
That's the right answer.
(03:51):
So, Ross, how would you definea mentor?
Mentor is someone to me who iswilling to kind of help without
really any other benefit tothemselves.
They're just willing to putthemselves out there and assist
you just out of the good graceof their personality, which is
amazing.
Very often it can fly, at leastin my experience.
It could be in conflict withtheir actual kind of business
(04:14):
model, sometimes like been luckyto get help from people that
technically compete with us,which is wild but still we're
graceful, which I'm sure we'llget into in a bit.
Danny Gavin (04:23):
And we'll get into who those people were.
But do you feel like that'sunique in our industry, where
just people are more willing tohelp, or you feel like you kind
of see that in general justreally depends?
Ross Hudgens (04:33):
Yeah, I think relatively.
I know a lot of people say withfrequency at least other agency
owners that I talk to, likethere's a lot of business to go
around.
So there's that sense that eventhough there is obviously only
there is a finite amount ofbusiness, you're not necessarily
grabbing it from the samelocations.
And I think that kind ofmatters it's all like
(04:55):
relationships and things of thatnature which allow people to
lower their guards down.
Well, in athletics, obviously Iwouldn't go to my competing
team and share the same things,because it's so obvious the
winners and losers in that case,and I think that that helps a
lot.
Danny Gavin (05:10):
I'm part of a peer group here in Houston, texas,
and we have like 10 agencies andit's pretty amazing that we all
can sit at the table and talkand share our problems and
issues and actually help eachother out, even though
technically, like you said,there is enough business but in
some hands there's not.
Ross Hudgens (05:28):
But it's cool, I feel like it is special in the
digital marketing world a littlebit more than maybe other
places.
Yeah, a lot of great peoplegenerally.
So I think that's part of itVery humble, helpful people, and
that's got to be part of it toyour point.
Danny Gavin (05:38):
All right, so let's jump into some of your most
influential mentors.
So let's first talk about WillReynolds, who has been a guest
on the podcast before and, yes,I imagine a significant
competitor.
But let's talk about why do youconsider him your mentor.
Ross Hudgens (05:50):
Yeah, will, especially early on in my time
at Siege I just he was around 10years in front of me and I
aspirationally respected a lotof what he did.
I mean, he has his companyvolunteer all the time.
He's selfishly like he'ssleeping out in Philadelphia to
raise money.
He clearly cares about doingthe right things for his clients
(06:12):
.
So that was always something Ilooked up to and wanted to do
myself.
And so just a few times Ireached out to him with some
like problem things and he supergrace, graciously, rather, was
willing to jump on a call withme quickly and talk about those
things.
That just like was shocking tome at the time.
(06:33):
We offer similar services.
I had to the previous combo.
I don't know how often we likeactually had butted heads in a
pitch, I'm not sure.
But regardless, knowing Will, Idon't think that would have
mattered that much, honestly,because he just I think that's
naturally in his DNA is to goout and help people, help people
(06:55):
grow, and yeah, I was superappreciative of that.
Danny Gavin (06:59):
And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong you both
at a time were both in SanDiego, so were you able, like,
did you bump into each other,like face to face, and therefore
had maybe a better connection?
Ross Hudgens (07:09):
Yeah, I met him for coffee a few times.
He was gracious enough to comeon our podcast, actually our
first content.
We have a podcast calledContent Conversation and him and
Rand Fishkin came into ouroffice and it was like one of my
favorite podcasts to this day.
Danny Gavin (07:23):
Fishkin came into our office and it was like one
of my favorite podcasts to thisday and I guess, with you know,
saying that he's like 10 yearsyour senior, has it changed?
Ross Hudgens (07:34):
the way that you have maybe reached or treated
agency owners when they reachout to you.
Yeah, definitely, I think hekind of set the standard for
what I should do and feel topeople that are the same version
to me.
So I definitely try to be ashelpful as Will was when it
comes up.
I think that's definitely abenefit.
Is the paid forward that heshowed me that you're supposed
to do that to the extent I can,of course, and I try to do that
(07:58):
myself as well.
Danny Gavin (07:58):
All right, let's move into Grayson LaFrance.
Tell me about your relationshipwith him.
Ross Hudgens (08:02):
Yeah, grayson's a more recent version.
I have a lot of respect forboth of them.
Grayson LaFrance, tell me aboutyour relationship with him.
Yeah, grayson's a more recentversion.
I have a lot of respect forboth of them.
Grayson, specifically, is in astage with Power Digital
Marketing.
He was the CEO of Power Digital.
I think he's now just thechairman of the board there.
They acquired several differentagencies.
They eventually resold after aninitial sale to private equity
(08:22):
and he had just done a lot ofthings several times that I had
never done in a very similarfashion, really for no necessary
reason.
He was willing to jump on acall and give me like well, you
could consider probably like athousand dollars an hour, advice
on this stuff, without askingfor anything, which was amazing
(08:43):
and surprising.
And yeah, it just stood out ahuge amount and a similar
version of just paying itforward, and that's something
that I appreciated.
And he was also in San Diego,met him for coffee a few times
and that helped build therelationship for sure.
Danny Gavin (08:59):
Were you introduced by someone or did you just
reach out?
Ross Hudgens (09:01):
Yeah, we had some conversations about working
together from a businesscapacity early on.
That fell through for variousreasons, but maintain a positive
relationship after that.
So that was kind of the formingfunction.
Of course.
Similarly, I'd heard of hisagency in San Diego had a lot of
respect for them and I thinkthat because we were originally
(09:23):
headquartered in San Diego nowwe're fully remote, that, I
think, probably brought someinitial awareness to both sides.
Danny Gavin (09:29):
Listing two people who are both agency founders or
CEOs.
I think that says a lot.
Do you feel like it's importantfor the head of a agency, a
digital marketing agency, tohave a mentor who is an agency
owner from a different agency?
Ross Hudgens (09:46):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean there's also the variantwhich we talked to you briefly
mentioned before this call I'min a similar thing of peer
groups.
You could call them a mentor, Isuppose I'm also in I was
previously in EO, I'm now in YPOwhich are both kind of
entrepreneur peer groups andthat's been super helpful.
I wouldn't necessarily definesome of them as mentors, but
(10:08):
definitely people have doneseveral things more than I have
and so that probably does count.
So I highly recommend those andit's good kind of mental health
therapy for entrepreneurs aswell, or whatever world you're
in.
I'm sure there's other versionsof that.
Danny Gavin (10:24):
Often in life, we always think that we're like on
an island on our own, it onlyhappens to us, and just to have
that transparency, it helps andit's interesting.
I mentioned it to someone acouple of days ago and like, oh
yeah, like misery gets together,and I'm like, no, that's not
the point.
You know, the idea is like youdon't want to just sit at a bar
(10:44):
drinking and saying how horriblelife is, but the idea is find a
group that, yes, your peers,but also how you can support
each other.
That's not just complain.
Ross Hudgens (10:54):
Yeah, agreed, entrepreneurship is lonely.
There's some people that dothis I'm amazed by it that are
super close with their, theircoworkers, as the entrepreneur
or CEO of the company.
That's been always been a hardline for me to walk personally.
Um, so that's just how, like,you can literally only say
(11:15):
certain things to those thosepeople and sometimes they're
yeah, it's venting, but uh,there's, there's positive stuff
in there as well.
Like that you can't celebratethe same way with other people.
Danny Gavin (11:26):
Talk about relationship with coworkers.
Is that something that maybeyou tried at one point and it
backfired, or you've always beenpretty strong about separating
the two?
Ross Hudgens (11:37):
I wouldn't say it backfired, but I was lucky to
have my good friend Kyle Floyd,who probably won't listen to
this, but we went to schooltogether at Chapman actually,
and he was our first full-timegraphic design hire and we were
always good friends after that.
But it just changed the dynamica little bit.
Even though he so greatlyimpacted Siege, I was just like
(11:59):
I would rather have this guy bejust my friend after that and
that's coming from friend intothe company.
But there's just a reality like, for whatever reason, you need
to make tough decisions aroundlayoffs or performance.
It's just very difficult to dothat.
Of course, if someone's areally high performer, that
could hopefully make it a littlebit easier, which is the case,
(12:21):
but there still can be toughdecisions around compensation,
dynamics, around those things.
It's just so, so difficult, atleast in my experience, that I
wanted to keep separation ofchurch and state there.
Danny Gavin (12:32):
Yeah, I once had a coach.
He heard me using the termfamily, you know, like the
Optage family, family and thereason because you do feel close
and we're working together inthe trenches.
But he called me out on it andhe's like you know what it's
difficult in a family.
There's certain things youdon't do.
But in business sometimes youhave to make those hard
decisions.
So to use that term isn't thegreatest, so more like group or
(12:54):
team.
Love your perspective on that.
Ross Hudgens (12:56):
Respectfully.
It sounds like you're alignedwith him.
I would agree with that take.
I tried not to use that term.
In particular, I've heard thosesimilar kind of echoings of
that.
I like the team idea.
We're not a family buthopefully we can still be
close-knit, still be close andI've had difficult conversations
(13:17):
with people still relativelyclose with to this day.
So still treat them great andI'd rather on the same
wavelength, like I want thesepeople to feel like friends,
like I want.
I want to like you're stillspending so much time.
It is your second somewhere.
I think they say the data isyou spend more time with your
coworkers and your family, ormaybe this was pre-remote work,
(13:39):
but close anyways.
So you better like these people.
So I definitely still that'sstill the case, but there's got
to be some delineation.
Danny Gavin (13:46):
It seems like let's talk about you mentoring others
.
I know I think you've got twodirect reports.
You've mentored other agencyowners in the past.
Love to know what's yourmentorship style.
How do you hold peopleaccountable?
Love to talk a little bit moreabout that.
Ross Hudgens (14:00):
Yeah, I wish I could say I'm a great manager.
I think I've learned that overtime, clearly not so incompetent
to be.
That Siege turned out decentlywell as we scaled and realized
that that would be in betterhands with our COO, melissa, who
is a much better manager than Iam.
My general style is trust andverify.
(14:21):
That was Derek Sivers who has agreat blog post on that, and I
think that one sentence is quitehelpful.
So that's generally what I tryto do with the team Hire someone
, great trust and verify withthem and help them grow.
I do think that was almost tomy detriment as well at the
beginning.
My gut is to want to promotepeople and I instinctually
(14:42):
always want to grow.
So I assume everyone else wantsto grow to be a manager or
director, and I think that wasnot necessarily the case in some
instances.
So I like helping people outand it's surprising to me, but
sometimes they don't want togrow in content in our SEO, and
that's understandable as well.
Danny Gavin (15:02):
I always think there's I'm not saying it's like
this in every organization, butyou hope like the idea of
growth is sort of likevertically and horizontally
right, like so you could becomea manager, director, like in one
way, but in the other way youcould just get deeper in what
you know and just be you knowbetter at SEO.
It would be nice I mean, it'snot always like the never
organization, but it would benice to have both those paths
(15:23):
right so that you can still grow.
But it doesn't always mean thatyou have to manage people.
Do you have any thoughts onthat?
Ross Hudgens (15:29):
Yeah, agreed, we did work on building those
tracks.
We learned some lessons thereas well, where I built tracks
for people that we didn'tnecessarily need as a company
and when things get leaner, thatgets tougher and turns out to
be a bad decision.
So that's where it's like your,your mind, to want to help
people can sometimes becounterproductive for the wider
(15:51):
company in organization.
But I, I I agree it's andthere's those people.
I definitely try to have thatconversation now that I've
learned some of those things andtry to be harder.
And sometimes the conversationarrives now that I have
transparent conversations withpeople like maybe our company is
just not going to be the growthpath for you.
We can have a transparentconversation about.
(16:14):
That Could help you.
We're going to support you.
Just like be upfront, beprofessional while you're here
that that's totally fine.
I'm I'm cool with that.
Danny Gavin (16:23):
I'd rather have that conversation than force you
into something you don't wantto do yeah, I'm just thinking
how we're like brothers fromanother mother, because I I
think I am definitely 10 yearsbehind you that same concept
where it's like when you'restarting out like you just want
to help everyone, everyindividual, because every
individual is so important, andthen, as you're growing and
scaling and realizing that noteverything fits the business,
sometimes you have to make thosetough decisions and when you're
(16:45):
naturally very kind and giving,it's difficult, it's a
difficult transformation.
Ross Hudgens (16:51):
Yeah, agreed, when times are good, that works very
, very well.
When times are not as good,which they haven't been in the
last couple years, those, thosedecisions come to roost
generally, unfortunately.
Danny Gavin (17:03):
Yeah when did you realize that you needed like
that coo?
Like what stage was it?
I don't know, because I knowyou've been in business for 12
years.
So number one congratulations,that's a big deal.
But like what stage was it?
Like you know, hey, I'm whereI'm at.
I want to scale, kind of needsomeone senior outside of me.
Ross Hudgens (17:24):
So we had an operations manager.
Basically, our current COO wasjust promoted incrementally.
The trigger point to make her aCOO specifically is I was just
so overwhelmed with peopleproblems, uh like I was getting
burnt out by this issue, thatissue, this other issue, and I
(17:45):
just hit a breaking point whereI was like I need some help on
this stuff.
I can't be in the weeds oneverything and I read, uh,
rocket fuel, which I recommend.
Yeah, it's a good book thatbasically talks about working
with a COO productively.
I did that later but that's onereason I have so few direct
(18:06):
reports now.
This is sort of models throughthe COO to kind of like take the
vision forward with someonewho's far more organized, better
at working with people day todayday and can manage many
direct reports.
Like I've had seven, eightdirect reports, I think, but
eventually pulled back from thatwhen I realized maybe it was
not the best.
(18:27):
Once you have like 90 peopleworth of people problems on you,
it compounds, for sure stuff.
Danny Gavin (18:36):
I don't want to get into revenue numbers, but they
say you get to a certain pointat an agency where you're too
small to be big, too big to besmall, and that's like the
growing pains you know profitsare down.
You kind of have to pushthrough.
You know what helped you scale.
Ross Hudgens (18:50):
Melissa definitely helped with a lot of those
scaling functions.
We just kind of did ititeratively over time.
There is no secret saucenecessarily.
There's different incrementalthings I can think of.
We really invested in learningand development.
We were in-person for a longtime and I think in-person
trainings worked and then wewent fully remote and we were
(19:11):
like we need to do this processdoc thing.
Now we have hundreds of processdocuments, everything's
documented.
There's videos for everything,very formalized training process
where every new hire has wehave a learning development lead
.
Now who kind of gets everyonewith the same messaging in the
door.
That helps with consistency.
(19:33):
I think, yeah, a lot of thosethings I think over time helped
in delegating.
I mean, I just slowly over timegot better at and I'm still not
amazing, don't get me wrong butof letting go of things.
I was in sales for a long longtime doing it myself and now we
have a full-time person.
(19:53):
I still help, don't get mewrong.
But that's an example of justslowly delegating, just
incrementally as budget allowsand you realize there's a better
people for stuff.
Danny Gavin (20:03):
And I got to give you credit for that because I
don't think people realize foran agency owner to hand off the
sales to someone else.
That's a big deal, right?
Because often I feel like, atleast in the beginning sales go
through.
People know Siege, but theyalso know Ross, right?
So it's like to think that I'mhanding it off to someone.
That's pretty crazy.
What's helped me?
I haven't done that yet, you'llhave to teach me Ross, but I
(20:27):
always say that for me, whatwould help me start with
delegation is the realizationthat when I hand it off to
someone else, they'll mostprobably only be able to do what
I could do 80% of the way.
But you know what 80% is goingto be good, good enough.
Do you look at delegation?
Similar?
Do you have a differentstrategy?
Ross Hudgens (20:48):
Maybe it's optimistic, but I would round up
that number.
I sometimes say like you'llprobably get 95% of what I would
have said.
Maybe that's not completelytrue, maybe it is 90, 90, 85, 80
.
And we'll just talk about itafter.
Like you will do things I'm notgoing to do, but we'll just
talk about it and it's not goingto be a big deal.
(21:08):
And I think that's the play, isyou just got to do that and then
be willing to invest heavilyyour time in that person to
iteratively learn, like that'show it's gonna, of course,
process stocks, scale that upover time, um, but that's the
kind of the core component andtry to just keep the high
leverage moments.
Like I'm still, I do attend.
(21:30):
I was on a proposal callearlier today Like if I feel
like it makes sense, I'll stillattend calls and things of that
nature.
So I still think it makes sense.
But the lift of like theproposal build out the intro
call, you just realize that thesteps you can touch it later and
later and still have the sameresult like 98% of the time.
Danny Gavin (21:53):
So what do you find yourself doing now, like what
are the main things that you'redoing in the agency?
Ross Hudgens (21:58):
Kind of shifting more towards relationships.
Like was in New York kind ofmeeting a big referral partner.
I set up a breakfast with 10other kind of like SEOs and
marketers.
Transparently, we're thinkingabout mergers and acquisitions
with other agencies.
I'm kind of working on thatpersonally and just bigger
(22:19):
picture stuff.
Like more time.
It feels weird but, yeah, moretime thinking those, hopefully
one or two.
You make less changes as youget bigger as well.
Like it's kind of hard to pushthrough 100 people.
I'm learning and Melissa helpedme as well.
Danny Gavin (22:35):
And I'm sure you're loving it and that and I think
that's what the CEO needs to dobecause it's about.
You need that space to thinkand be creative and come up with
those game changers.
All right, let's pivot into SEOand link building First of all.
Do you like the term linkbuilding these days?
Ross Hudgens (22:50):
We use it less and less.
Yeah, I mean we're calling it.
I mean it's always been contentmarketing for us, but I feel
like we say link building alittle less.
Digital PR is more of whatwe're communicating as well.
Yeah, there's interestingshifts in it, Like I just saw a
data study on brand authorityover domain authority, so we'll
see if we'll start measuringthat instead.
Danny Gavin (23:10):
Digital PR link building has undoubtedly evolved
since Siege's founding.
Can you tell me what your takeon its role as an SEO and
content strategies now, in 2024,especially in the world of AI?
Ross Hudgens (23:20):
Yeah, we're calling it product-led digital
PR.
It's sort of our most recentsignificant strategy shift and
our thought process there isgetting, if they don't have it
already, first-party data andputting it across the content
ecosystem, not just like oneasset you promote, but we have a
(23:41):
data study on content marketingtrends and then we use that
data across a blog post on whatis link building.
Like 63% of companies are usinglink building.
Just making that up, but thatmakes that piece more unique to
us, differentiated in a world ofAI, claude or ChatGPT can't
pump that out in five seconds.
(24:02):
So doing that kind of datafirst stuff that would be good,
independent of whether or notyou did or SEO existed and
hopefully can truly build abrand and that's a big part.
And yeah, we're doing morespread out digital PR.
We're not doing like 19 linkbuilding assets.
It's like what is one highleverage thing Not always, but
(24:26):
some people are more than thatbut for us it's like one big
trends report a year just makessense, um, and I think that does
make sense for a lot ofcompanies generally.
So like that's high leverage,even if links didn't matter,
that probably is worthwhile justfrom a brand building
standpoint.
So that that's sort of whatwe're leaning into while still
thinking links matter.
We're still kind of like dothings that make that thoughtful
(24:48):
, but it's more about it's gottabe really high leverage, it
seems.
Danny Gavin (24:52):
What are the requests coming in from the
companies that you're speakingwith?
Is it still from, like, an SEOperspective, or is it more from
a brand?
Or do you kind of have toeducate them or re-educate?
Ross Hudgens (25:03):
Good question.
I think our audience is myaudience historically has been
SEO people, which maybe is toour company's detriment.
I'm sure it's helped.
I do think we're transitioningover time to this idea of
organic growth.
We haven't truly givenourselves enough credit for
referral traffic, direct traffic, especially to the content
sections that we own, so we'redoing more of that.
(25:25):
I can't say that we'renecessarily hearing that from
clients necessarily, but theyseem to be resonating with the
kind of digital PR, first-partydata approach that is working
recently.
So in terms of their problems,I mean there's more volatility
these days.
I'm seeing more of that insales.
But yeah, that's some of thecommonalities I guess I'm
hearing from Prospect.
(25:46):
It has been harder for a whilebut yeah, it seems like a lot of
the panic is wafting away, Iguess.
Danny Gavin (25:53):
I saw on LinkedIn recently.
It was a comment where youbasically I think you put like
the four or five top assets onyour own website that have done
really, really well over timeand even shared some of the
results.
Like you know, this blog post,we got 500 links.
I only got a chance to see acouple of them, but were all of
them first party type blog likepost based on that.
Ross Hudgens (26:15):
Yes, that is the product-led digital PR idea.
So I'm just kind of saying itwithout saying it.
We have it in our top currently.
I think we'll keep it there fora couple of months.
There's a post in our topnavigation that says product led
digital PR, or you could Googleit, and it kind of speaks to it
in more detail.
Danny Gavin (26:30):
But yes, Do you feel like these days can a site
still rank well without anintentional PR link building
effort?
Ross Hudgens (26:38):
I think you accelerate what you're doing
using like, at least thinkingabout it, like how we think
about it is oh, we can identifythat this topic, if you rank for
it, attracts a lot of links.
That's sort of how we'rethinking about it.
For the most part, we're doingvery, very little outreach.
Still We'll do high leverageoutreach on the actual report,
(27:04):
but that's like 5% of the time.
Otherwise it's more spread out.
But I think I mean links are abyproduct of that good content
marketing, marketing activity.
So I think it was one metric.
You look at that.
If I rank for this, I will geta lot of links.
I think that's so worthwhile todo.
Do you need, like guest postingoutside of your website?
I would say no, I don't thinkthat sort of makes sense.
Danny Gavin (27:20):
What do you say to the smaller companies, because I
know you deal with primarilylarger organizations, but what
could they do from a linkbuilding, digital PR perspective
?
Ross Hudgens (27:28):
Multi-tiered One.
We don't work with local, so Ican't.
Besides, multinational, localor multi-location, national, so
I can't really well comment onthat.
I would guess maybe a littlemore of that would make sense
for them.
Still, what I am seeing I thinkwe're kind of lucky in this way
as a company that you'veprobably seen is that it's
(27:50):
harder and harder to be small.
It's like I think the bigcompanies are winning and it's
kind of tough to say, like, packit up and go home.
But that is the case for somesearch for, search for, like,
especially affiliates.
It's just like very hard to bea non-brand affiliate these days
.
But generally I mean, I thinkit's a good activity.
(28:11):
It's where you got to start.
If you feel like you have agreat product that fits in the
marketplace, if it's, if you'regood for the niche and you're
biggest in the niche, you canstill be a small business in
that vertical and be successful.
It's like if you're up againstibm, you might, might be tough,
um, so I don't know, that's theanswer you're looking for, but
some of those things come tomind.
Danny Gavin (28:31):
No, I think it's very fair.
I think it's a little sad insome ways, because I remember
pitching SEO the concept 10years ago and it was like Google
is the David and Goliath right.
You could be the David and comeand be whatever you need to be
on the SERPs right and fightthose large companies, and I
think it is harder these days todo that.
Ross Hudgens (28:48):
Yeah, I think it's getting harder and harder.
I just emailed our businessdevelopment guy, drew, who's
great and was mentioning itfeels like we need to be more
discerning around product marketfit than we ever have.
We would almost kind of walkinto engagements and be like
they're 50 DR, domain authorityor domain rating and sometimes
(29:14):
just being good enough therewould feel good enough, but now
I'm not as confident that evenlike decent authority matters if
you're not a real brand.
Danny Gavin (29:19):
It's hard, right, I would say for an agency.
I mean, it's kind of likebringing it out, and maybe this
is oversimplifying it, but yeah,it's tough.
We get, you know, leads our wayand you kind of want to make it
work.
But it's difficult because ifyou know that that it's not
going to be successful, or youknow it's not going to work for
your company, sometimes you knowon one hand you need to pull in
the revenue, but the other handyou know it's actually going to
(29:40):
cost more.
It's are a little better.
Ross Hudgens (29:42):
Things are starting to get better.
We're lucky to be a marketgenerally.
I think that helps being morediscerning.
It feels critical.
There's probably a balancethere the bottom 20%.
(30:02):
It's probably worthwhilepushing like if you can feel
that even in six months timethere's not going to be a month
much results to show here.
Like that's not going to be,even it's not.
It doesn't feel like even agreat short-term justification
in my opinion.
Danny Gavin (30:20):
yeah, what are some of the most common seo
misconceptions that you'reencountering these days with
your clients?
Or do you think people areeducated already?
They kind of know?
Ross Hudgens (30:30):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard out there generally.
I do think people we still haveconversations around AI Like
there's a segment of people liketrying to pump it out with a
button and we're probably notthe best fit for that person.
So I think that is an ongoingconversation with a lot of
people.
It's getting better because thefervor and excitement over it
(30:52):
has kind of died down a littlebit.
It's still there, it's stilluseful.
But I think that is probablythe most common conversation
around the value of high qualitycontent.
If that person has kind of acommodity AI mindset, they might
be in the wrong place.
Danny Gavin (31:09):
Are you adopting AI internally?
Is it like a push Guys, we haveto figure out all the ways we
can use it, or is it more justnatural coming in?
Ross Hudgens (31:18):
We are.
We do have someone who owns it.
We're thinking about itactively.
We use it for editing.
We use it for qualitativechecks like a secondary SME
subject matter expert editor.
Yeah, we're continuing it.
We have like an AI departmentwith one lead in each thing, but
we're not forcing the issueLike it's got to feel good for
the thing, but I think it'simportant to like actively be
(31:40):
practicing using it or could getleft behind.
Danny Gavin (31:44):
Yeah, All right, we are going gonna move to our
lightning round.
I would love for you to tell metop three of something that you
really like.
Ross Hudgens (31:53):
I mean, family is awesome.
I have a four-year-old and aone-and-a-half-year-old, so
that's a lot of fun.
It's hard at the same time.
Of course, my lovely wife, Melas well, is number one on that
list.
We do love traveling is numberone on that list.
We do love traveling.
We're wild enough to bring allof them with us.
We're doing an SEO conferencein Thailand in November, so
(32:13):
please wish us a lot of luck forthat one, that's so cool.
Yeah, it should be fun.
We'll see how it goes.
Love, yeah, sports we talkedabout.
Yeah, I have a 49ers jerseybehind me.
I'm from the san francisco bayarea in a basketball like
playing basketball.
I played basketball thismorning.
(32:34):
Um, wake up early just to playat 6 am, which is a lot, a lot
of fun.
Uh, enjoy running, just likehealth.
I think of a lot about.
Uh, currently, that takes up alot of energy, but kids take up
most of it, for sure do you misscalifornia or you like texas?
I like texas, we are.
We are lucky enough.
(32:54):
We spent a good amount of timein bend, oregon, where, um, we
have a vacation rental just toescape the summer here.
So, but otherwise, lovelyculture, people are nice, food
scenes, great, lots of things todo.
Uh, I think winters and springare amazing.
Uh, it's nice to have sun andcold, which makes a big
(33:17):
difference coming from seattlewhere that doesn't exist, but
yeah, so, ross, what is yournext big project?
next big project?
I mean raising kids is one, uh,on the business side, that's
current big project.
I would mean raising kids isone on the business side, that's
current big project.
I would say in terms of energy.
But, yeah, we're working ongrowing and we might add some
services over time.
(33:37):
I think that's going to be adifficult endeavor.
But yeah, thinking aboutexpansion, potential
acquisitions of other companies,I think that is a big north
star we're thinking about.
So that's going to take a lotof energy but also really
exciting yeah fun, fun, fun.
Growth things I haven't donebefore, and I think that's
what's what still to this day,gives me energy super.
Danny Gavin (34:00):
So where can listeners learn more about you
and your business?
Ross Hudgens (34:03):
yeah, go to siege mediacom, like siege in the
castle hard to spell it, but wehave the misspelling domain in
case you mess it up.
But Roz Hutchins on X slashTwitter or LinkedIn as well.
I post a lot there.
I've been posting a little bitmore on threads as well.
If anyone's out there wouldlove to connect.
(34:23):
Do you find it valuable Threads?
Yeah, I'm honestly justreposting for the most part.
It does seem like a differentcommunity than x a little bit,
but it seemed to be building alittle headway so I felt like it
was kind of misguided not to atleast cross post.
But I still transparently likex a little bit more, but it's
(34:43):
slightly.
I think they have gone thedirection of like addiction
social media, which is notnecessarily a positive attribute
.
No, definitely not.
Danny Gavin (34:54):
Well, ross, thank you so much for joining me today
.
As I told you before, Idefinitely have been following
you and looking up to you, soit's awesome that we actually
get a chance to speak.
So thanks for being a guest onthe Digital Marketing Mentor and
thank you, listeners, fortuning into the Digital
Marketing Mentor.
We'll speak with you next time.
Thanks for having me, danny.
Thank you for listening to theDigital Marketing Mentor podcast
.
Be sure to check us out onlineat thedmmentorcom and at
(35:19):
thedmmentor on Instagram, anddon't forget to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, spotify orwherever you listen to your
podcasts for more marketingmentor magic.
See you next time.
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