Are you a digital marketer, SEO professional, or agency owner dealing with clients who’ve been burned by bad SEO? You’re not alone—and you’re not crazy. In this raw and honest conversation, SEO expert Craig Campbell joins Emanuel from How About Some Marketing? to unpack the reality of working with skeptical clients in today’s competitive and AI-driven market.
Craig shares real talk on everything from managing expectations to scaling smartly, and why transparency is the only way forward in 2025.
Whether you’re new to SEO or scaling an agency, this is a must-watch for surviving and thriving in SEO today.
Key Takeaways
In this webinar, two SEO experts—host Emanuel Petrescu and guest speaker Craig Campbell—dive into the gritty realities of working with clients who have had bad experiences with SEO in the past.
The session explores critical issues such as client education, proper SEO pricing, and the true cost of delivering results in today’s competitive landscape. Craig shares hard-earned insights on nurturing client trust, setting clear expectations, and avoiding burnout by charging what you’re worth.
They also discuss how SEO has evolved in 2025, including the growing role of AI tools, the need for scalable systems, and the importance of delegation and transparency. This webinar offers grounded, actionable advice for anyone looking to sustain and grow a profitable SEO business without compromising integrity.
The session wraps up with a Q&A where Craig details how to get in touch, the resources available on his site and YouTube channel, and why continuous learning is key to success.
Show Notes
- 00:00 – Intro & Why SEO Still Matters in 2025
- 02:10 – SEO’s Reputation Problem: Burned by Bad Agencies
- 07:20 – The Evolution of SEO: Then vs. Now
- 12:30 – SEO Transparency: Setting Expectations with Clients
- 18:45 – Short-Term Results vs. Long-Term SEO Strategy
- 23:10 – Auditing Clients: The First Step to Recovery
- 29:00 – The Hidden Costs of “Cheap SEO”
- 34:15 – Building Trust: The Real SEO Deliverable
- 39:50 – Handling Burned Clients & Rebuilding Confidence
- 45:00 – Why You Need to Educate Clients on Real Costs
- 50:00 – Involving the Client: Why It’s Still Critical
- 52:30 – It’s Not Just Content & Links Anymore
- 55:00 – The True Cost of Doing SEO in 2025
- 57:00 – How to Reach Craig + Final Thoughts
- 58:30 – Outro & Call to Action: Join the Hub Boss Community
Episode Transcript:
Emanuel: Welcome, everyone. Good evening, good afternoon, or good morning from wherever you are tuning in. It’s my honor and privilege to host this special webinar, which is more of an open conversation with none other than Mr. Craig Campbell. Craig, where are you right now?
Craig: I’m in Arizona just now. There’s a conference starting tomorrow, SEO Spring Training, so I’m out here for that. I’m looking forward to mingling and networking. We’ve got mutual friends here, like Randy, so it’s fun.
Emanuel: Good stuff. Without further ado, I’m going to jump right into today’s conversation. Before anything else, I was encouraging people to go to howaboutsomemarketing.com and subscribe to the newsletter to get all the information about upcoming events, past recordings, and all the good stuff that I’m planning to share.
A couple of words about How About Some Marketing: it’s essentially a platform, a hub, and a go-to resource for small to medium-sized business owners—marketing-savvy business owners, as I call them—but also for professionals. It offers a platform to enhance their marketing skills and knowledge and, more specifically, to gain actionable insights and provide a supportive community. That’s what I’m trying to build, and thank you so much for being part of it.
Thank you so much for accepting today’s invitation. Craig has been one of the most transparent SEOs out there throughout the years. Before I actually met and connected with him, he put information out there that helped me and a lot of other SEOs with our careers, our knowledge, and essentially with making more money. I would like to thank you for that, Craig. When I asked you to be a guest, you said right away, “Come on, man, let’s do it.” I felt that you were more enthusiastic about it than I was, which is something I truly appreciate. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a blast today because we’re going to talk about everything. For those who know, Craig has truly been transparent and has talked about SEO tactics and techniques that others were afraid of talking about or even admitting to. So again, thank you.
That being said, Craig, take 30 seconds to a minute to introduce yourself.
Craig: My name’s Craig, I’m based in Scotland, and I’ve been in the industry for about 23 or 24 years now. I started in 2001, just like most of you out there, trying to figure out how all this stuff works. I was fortunate to get in very early. I went on to build my own digital marketing agency, which I ran until 2015, so I had about 14 years of being either a freelancer or owning my own agency.
I then really detested working with clients. I hate clients with a passion. I think I got burnt out by it, and I really loved affiliate marketing. I felt after that apprenticeship, I was now in a position where I actually knew what I was doing. I was able to make choices in terms of how I make money, whether that be through affiliate marketing, lead gen, or building my own e-com stores. I went on to start building my personal brand and now, in 2025, I focus on that.
Over the years, as Emanuel says, I always felt that I wanted to help people. I found it really difficult to learn because YouTube and Facebook groups weren’t really a thing when I was starting. Back in 2001, and pretty much right up until about 2010, a lot of this stuff was forum-based training. The information wasn’t that easily accessible.
I just felt that when things like YouTube were coming out, I wanted to help people avoid the mistakes I made, because I felt like I made a lot of them in my career and I don’t mind telling people about them. We all fall for shiny object syndrome. Emanuel will tell you, I’m like, “Guys, stop it. Please don’t share all these shitty tools. Please only share stuff that you really, really value.” It’s not for anything other than I just don’t want people to fall into the same traps that I have. I’m the same as everyone else: shiny object syndrome, crazy ideas all over the place.
A lot of people like me because I’m honest, transparent, and probably say a lot of things that resonate with people. Believe it or not, there’s not a lot of that in the industry. There’s a lot of bs, a lot of snake oil, and people giving you outdated tactics, and I don’t think that’s very fair. That’s pretty much my journey in a nutshell. I’m now trying to give back and do things like this to help people avoid the same things I went through.
Emanuel: And that’s actually the topic of today’s conversation because we want to touch on some of the things that people should avoid, whether you’re a business owner or someone from an agency who’s just starting out in digital marketing, especially within the AI paradigm. This topic will likely be part of many webinars and podcasts to come because it influences so much, especially digital marketing.
Two things I didn’t ask. First of all, are you speaking at the conference?
Craig: I’m not actually doing a presentation this time. The reason is because I know most of the audience. I’ve been here several times before and pretty much know everyone. So I’m actually doing a Q&A session with James Dooley. I find it difficult to present on a topic because I don’t know what you don’t know, Emanuel. I don’t know what pain points you have. So for me to present on something like AI agents, for example, might not be something that helps your audience. I think the Q&A session is something we want to try to see if we can share some good tips and information, rather than presenting something that might not be relevant.
Emanuel: Excellent. And the last thing I wanted to say is that this is an interactive conversation. We have the chat option that we’ll be monitoring, so feel free to interact, ask questions, and be a participant.
Okay, let’s start with this: what would be one of the biggest red flags you see, or you have seen throughout your career, when a business hires an SEO or a marketing vendor? That “snake oil salesman” really comes to mind when I say that.
Craig: It may be unfair to say it like this, but I’m going to say it: I think 90% of the people you are potentially going to hire are full of it. They’re over-exaggerating their experience and their abilities. When it comes to hiring people, they often need a lot of training and guidance because you can’t control their past experiences. For example, let’s say you had someone, Emanuel, and you trained them to work the way you want them to on a project. When I hire them, who’s to say your processes were even right or up to date?
Sometimes when you get people in, it’s not that they’re deliberately lying; it’s that the person they’ve worked for previously was doing outdated things that don’t actually work. That’s a problem in itself. Trying to re-educate people and get them to forget what they’ve previously been doing can sometimes prove to be difficult. Then they’re arguing with you, and before you know it, there’s a lot of back and forth, and you’re just like, “I just want you to follow my process. That is the job.”
I see a lot of SEOs come into places thinking they know better. And you’re like, “You don’t. You’re covering your own a*. Show me something that proves you’re better.” A lot of people are not willing to take new information on and try different methods. You always have to be open-minded, even for experienced people. I’m always learning new stuff. Things evolve, strategies change, methods change. In my opinion, a lot of people are very close-minded. They’ll say, “Yeah, that worked,” and you’re like, “Yeah, it worked three years ago, mate, but it doesn’t work now.” It is a proven fact. A lot of people don’t do testing, and that’s a big problem. They just hear things in theory and then stick by them, unwilling to change. That’s a big red flag I see a lot.
They’re not willing to admit they’re wrong. I get that it’s a human thing to not want to admit you’re wrong and that someone else is doing it better. But I’m always willing to say, “Emanuel, if you’ve got something to share with me and you’re doing something better, faster, or more efficient than me, I want that. Please give it to me.” I’m willing to take that on and implement it if I believe it works. I see a lot of people who don’t have that kind of mindset.
Emanuel: I think you’re talking about the Shoshin mentality. It’s the “beginner’s mindset.” Approach everything with a beginner’s mindset because after 10 or 20 years of doing SEO, you’re not exactly hyped about something new or never seen before. It’s easy to get complacent. But if you approach a new project with a beginner’s mindset—”Okay, let’s do an audit, let’s see how we can improve, let’s research the audience, the competitors, the market”—as if it were your first project, I think that’s the key.
To your point, I’ve found myself guilty of many of the things you said, especially holding on to old tactics and not admitting that things don’t work after investing so much time and money.
Craig: It’s easier to keep saying something works even if it doesn’t. I get it.
Emanuel: It’s not easy. SEO is many things, but free is not one of them. It can get to be the most expensive channel of all, and the most valuable resource is time. The time that it takes to create a solid campaign and strategy is significant. AI helps, but I’m not sure about you, but since AI, I’ve been working more, not less, than I used to. I’ve been able to scale and do more things, but I’m not sitting by the pool while some AI agent does the work. I still need to do the work, interact with customers, and get their feedback.
To your point, transparency and having this open, beginner’s mindset will probably help you in the long run as an individual, not just as a professional.
What are the most common lies or exaggerations you have seen in SEO agency proposals? I’m curious about the most recent and ridiculous ones you’re willing to share.
Craig: In all proposals, things are inflated in terms of cost, depth of work, and all of that. In reality, SEO isn’t simple and easy, but when you look at these proposals, you’re like, “Come on, man. Why are you charging for this and documenting it that way?”
What I see in a lot of proposals is justification for the exorbitant fee they’re charging. Now, as you say, a lot of people think SEO is cheap or free. But I can be transparent and say you’ve got tools, masterminds, hosting, proxies—all sorts of different costs to keep up to speed. It all stacks up. What you can’t do in a proposal is be that granular. So, people make up some bullshit to justify why it’s five grand a month. They’ll say they’re doing things they’re not even doing to justify their fee.
Some of those things can be wild. Outreach is one that people still put on there. “We’re doing 50 hours of outreach,” and you’re like, “No, you’re not.” That’s just justification for the fee. They do that rather than just being transparent and saying, “I need to go buy links, and there’s a cost for it. So that’s the fee.”
I do a lot of consultations, and many are around proposals and selling to clients. I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but I see some horrific things, like charging digital PR prices and delivering a GSA blast. Some of the stuff is just wild, but the client doesn’t know any better. You could tell them anything. The only person you are really fooling is yourself by putting all of this fluff in there to justify your fee.
I would typically be saying, “You’re paying this, and that gets you two or three hours of my time a month. You need two grand a month for links because links cost money. If you need a budget for content, that’s that.” I think always being transparent and honest works a lot better.
Small business owners aren’t daft anymore. They know there’s a cost for links. If you’re saying you’re doing outreach, they know that it’s not cost-effective. People are becoming more aware of what works and what doesn’t. I think people are shooting themselves in the foot by saying these things in quotes. I’ve also worked on the flip side where companies have paid me to look at quotes for SEO services, and they’re like, “Craig, tell me which one of these is actually telling the truth.” And I’m like, “Man, they’re all full of i. Don’t go with any of them.”
I’ve seen things as ridiculous as charging $400 a month for security on a WordPress website. You’re like, “Wordfence costs $200 a year. Why are you charging that?” It’s not my job to shoot someone in the foot, but they’re trying to hide the cost of links behind things like security and hosting at $500 a month when their hosting costs $200 a year for the traffic they get.
Emanuel: And that’s for a 10-page website, usually. Back in my agency days, I can tell you that the most successful campaigns were the ones where the business owner—the stakeholder who invested the money—was highly involved. I truly believe in transparency and justifying your time and investment. It’s hard to sell something as abstract as backlinks and explain their importance. Why is a link from my LinkedIn profile not the same as one from a major publication?
You mentioned GSA blasts for Reuters prices. That’s a reality, and unfortunately, people have a bad experience, lose a lot of money, and then they don’t come back. They say, “I tried that SEO thing, paid a lot of money to an agency for two or three years, and nothing happened.” This doesn’t build any kind of trust or help anyone in the long term.
I wanted to ask this later, but now is a good time. Part of our audience is marketing-savvy business owners who know a thing or two about SEO. There are also people in agencies just starting out. It can be a bit overwhelming right now.
Let’s say somebody has a budget of $2,000 a month. What should they prioritize at the moment—SEO or paid ads? That’s a common question. With paid ads, I understand you give money to Google, leads come in, and when you stop the faucet, the leads stop. What does SEO mean in 2025?
Craig: If I only had $2,000, I would absolutely go to paid ads straight away. Why? Because I can get leads today. If I set the campaign up, I get cash flow coming in now. It also proves the business model actually works—that what you have actually sells, you’re charging the right price, you have the right calls to action, and all that. So for a number of reasons, I would absolutely put that money into pay-per-click.
When you start to get that cash flow coming in, the long-term strategy would always be to implement some SEO into the mix. But if I’ve only got $2k a month, I don’t want to start from scratch investing in something where I’m not going to see any cash flow for the next four, five, or six months. I don’t want to wait that long. For that reason alone, it absolutely has to be pay-per-click first.
SEO is a much longer-term strategy. I would also advise anyone, Emanuel, not to just rely on paid ads or SEO. You want to diversify your traffic. If you can get traffic coming from YouTube, social media, and a whole bunch of other sources, that’s the way to go long-term. You want to build a brand and have multiple traffic sources because your AdWords budget may dry up, or Google might do an update and kill all of us off. But if you’ve still got traffic and money coming in, you can diversify into AI or whatever the next source of traffic may be.
Pay-per-click is the quickest way to cash flow, and we all need cash flow to continue to grow and invest in staff or tools. So absolutely, pay-per-click would be the answer. I know that seems strange coming from an SEO guy, but you’ve got to use common sense. If you’re asking for honest advice, that’s it. A lot of other people would say, “No, no, SEO, give me my two grand a month and things might happen.”
Emanuel: It’s a business. SEO is just one channel. Another channel is pay-per-click. I would make an argument for Meta advertising, which is something I’m more invested in myself than PPC. It works for certain types of audiences and demographics, but that’s a topic for another conversation.
It’s not an easy conversation to have with someone coming from SEO, which is often the foot in the door. But I’ve always seen myself as a digital marketer within the T-shaped formula, which you need to be right now. It’s very difficult to present yourself as an SEO but not know about technical stuff, schema, servers, how to check logs, and also how AI works. That’s required.
In the meantime, if there are any questions, please put them in the chat. We’re live on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter (or X).
Coming back to AI, I know you well, and we’ve had many conversations about AI and how it has changed the game. How do you see AI tools like ChatGPT and others in this new paradigm? And if you are a junior SEO or someone who wants to get into marketing in the AI era, how would you do it?
Craig: It’s obviously a really weird time with all of this stuff coming out. There is a big shift happening. AI is here, and it’s not going anywhere. I was in a driverless taxi the other day here. It’s scary how quick these things are moving. Sitting in the back of a car and this thing is just driving so perfectly, you’re just like, “Jesus, this is scary.”
The world in general, with AI and technology, has really evolved. For us as marketers, you have to embrace it. Don’t get scared of it. I hear a lot of people saying, “Oh, AI’s going to kill SEO.” It’s not. As you mentioned, there are different LLMs. Can we do things to optimize for them and feed them? Of course, we can. Can we use amazing tools to make our jobs faster, quicker, and more efficient? Yes.
Even just basic things, like, let’s say I follow 10 guys religiously on YouTube. I can use an automation to get their RSS feeds, go through their transcripts, summarize the trending topics, the best-performing videos, what they spoke about, what tools they mentioned, and email it to me at nine o’clock every morning. I can then create content or learn based on that. I could spend three or four hours a day researching that, or I can use AI to summarize it. Things can happen much faster and more efficiently.
You can train AI on the tone of your voice or your business’s voice. For me in particular, I swear a lot. I’m direct and transparent. I can teach AI to be like that. And it can be a lot more accurate than me because sometimes I feel tired, anxious, or pissed off. AI doesn’t do that, so it can actually perform better than me.
I get really excited by it, and I know guys like you do too, Emanuel. But I also hear a lot of people who are scared of it and feel that it’s going to diminish certain tasks. I still think you’ll need human beings to operate this stuff, learn it, and learn how to manipulate it. I see that as an opportunity for SEOs to become more like architects, engineers, or master manipulators, whatever you want to call yourself.
For me, it’s like going back to the start of SEO. My thing was, “How can I manipulate this? How can I get my website up here?” Then the maps came out: “How can I make sure my map is up there?” It’s all manipulation. Now it’s, “How can I get AI to spit my name out as the right answer? How can I get it to spit out my content and tell people I’m the best?” Whether you’re a carpet cleaner or anything else, it’s the same thing.
For me, it’s exciting times. And like you said earlier, you are working harder now than ever because of this. But that is because you’re learning and developing. There will come a point where you can literally sit by the pool and have your automation tools doing your daily tasks. You’ll just check in and see that everything is running. But you have to dig in deep now. We are all learning this AI stuff from scratch. No one is 10 or 20 years ahead of you right now.
The general public still thinks AI is just ChatGPT or Jasper from a few years ago. It’s way better than that. I’m involved with an AI agent for lawyers. A lawyer’s biggest pain point is they’re in court all day, so they can’t answer the phone or onboard new clients. You can use an AI agent as a receptionist. It can take on the case, quote the person while the lawyer is in court, and get the job done. That is how cool it is.
You’ve got things like HeyGen and ElevenLabs. There’s just so much out there that people can learn and join together to make virtual receptionists or a virtual version of you. It’s scary. And to take it into a business context, I’m sitting in a taxi with no one in the driver’s seat, and this thing takes me from A to B accurately. It can see traffic lights and traffic. It’s scary good. It’s exciting.
Emanuel: Kevin has a question I will come to. I was reminded of an answer by Kevin, the person who asked the question, but I want to stay on the topic of AI. Let’s talk a little bit about its dangers—not AI taking over the world, but the false impression many have about AI-generated content and the fact that Google likes it or doesn’t. The danger is how many marketers and SaaS founders have used it to build tools without knowledge, thinking it’s working when it’s not and it starts creating issues.
I’ve seen a meme about someone who created a tool bragging about having no developer experience and using AI to build it. A couple of days later, it was, “Hey guys, I’m seeing all these users in my database,” and then, “Hey guys, I’m seeing all this malware inside it.” I believe there’s a big danger in this sense. If I were a junior right now, I would be very careful and try to filter and figure out what’s best.
To your point, things are coming back to where they were. It’s about who you are, building that trust with the main entity—it used to be Google, now it’s all of them—to show that you are the best answer for people performing a certain query.
My theory is that Google used to have those 10 blue links, and that’s it. Well, those 10 blue links are kind of transforming into the 10 links in the AI Overview answer, which I’ve found to be more and more efficient. At first, the answers weren’t great, inviting people to eat glue or stuff like that. But they have improved significantly. There’s still a long way to go, but if you expand the AI Overview, it gives me the impression of the old search engine result page from about 10 years ago.
Kevin asked—and you kind of covered this, but maybe you can add a bit more—”What tips do you give for customers who don’t know a lot about SEO to know which providers and consultants know their stuff and which don’t?”
Craig: I don’t know if I can add too much more to it, Kevin. It’s very difficult to know who talks the talk and who can walk the walk. There are a lot of consultants who knew their stuff five years ago but are not keeping up to date. It can really be hit or miss.
Where I’m able to easily direct people is because I travel a lot to conferences and network. I’ve met people and seen their work. For example, let’s talk about Randy. If someone comes to me saying they need a digital PR blast, I’d say, “Go talk to Randy.” Why? Because one, I use him myself, and two, I know hundreds of other people that have used him. I can say hand on heart that the man knows what he’s doing. He has the right process and system, and he delivers. I can do that because I’ve tried and tested him, and I know friends who have too.
But if you are blindly saying to a customer, “I think that guy sounds like he knows what he’s talking about,” it could be dog sh*t. 90% of the time, like I said, you’re going to get it wrong because there are a lot of people who talk very well about the theory of SEO but can’t actually do what they claim. That’s the big problem everyone faces, and it’s not just related to SEO. It happens across all industries. If I want a plumber to come to my house, it’s potluck. If I get three guys to give me a quote, am I supposed to go for the cheapest or the most expensive? I just don’t want to pay twice for anything. There are so many bs’ers out there.
So if you are telling customers, “He knows this, he knows that,” but you don’t really know these people and you’ve never seen their work, you’re in real trouble. There is no quick, easy way I can help with that one, Kevin, unfortunately. You’re going to have to connect, network, and hear what people say. And you can’t just turn around to someone like Emanuel and say, “You seem to know what you’re talking about. Show me your client work.” He’d have to say, “Go fk yourself, I’m not showing you my clients.” You need to build that rapport.
These things happen at events, at bars, or in masterminds. They don’t happen publicly. I could have a conversation with Emanuel on here, and I could have another conversation with him on WhatsApp, and he’s going to get a hell of a lot more information privately. I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot or give too much away about my websites, not because I don’t want to be transparent, but because there are a lot of malicious people out there.
You also have to take into account that someone might be withholding information because they don’t want to get negative attacks. So just because they’re being withholding doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing. There are guys out there saying good stuff who can’t perform, and there are also guys giving out generic, basic information but deliberately withholding. That’s where it makes it really difficult.
Emanuel: I am laughing because I was on a couple of calls back in my agency days where the prospect brought in his younger, more knowledgeable friend to ask questions and verify my expertise. I think they printed out something from Neil Patel because you could see them reading the questions. I would simply answer them, and they were not expecting that, probably after interviewing other companies. People tend to appreciate it when you say, “I don’t know. I’ve never been in this situation. I’ve never worked in your market.” They tend to appreciate that honesty.
On that topic, what would you say to someone who has been burned and doesn’t really trust marketers and sees all of us as scammers?
Craig: It’s very common. The chances are that when someone comes to you, they’ve had their fingers burned. Someone has probably taken a lot of money from them, whether for a website or marketing. It happens multiple times. I know people who have been taken for a lot of money, not just a couple of grand. I get why they say, “Fuck SEO, I’m going to go to something like pay-per-click.”
You need to basically try and handhold, encourage, and nurture them along to believing and giving it another chance. Maybe give them case studies, or maybe just do parts of the job to get your foot in the door. Once you build that trust, you can start saying, “Well, I can do this and this and that as well,” and take that off their hands. A business owner doesn’t really want to know the ins and outs of SEO; they just need to know that you can deliver and get a return on investment.
The reason a lot of people get their fingers burned, in my opinion, is because there are so many entry-level SEOs undercharging. They’re charging $300 a month and making it sound like three grand worth of work. But at $300 a month, you’re lucky to have enough money for three links, let alone anything else. You can’t perform on that unless you invest your own cash, which you’re never going to do. It’s impossible for that to work.
I would also be saying to clients, “Look, you need to spend 3, 4, or 5k on this. Look at your competition, the links they’re building, the digital PR they’re doing, the content they’re producing, their satellite websites, their 14 GMBs.” You can show the client that you can do this, but it costs money, and price it accordingly. If you do that and you’re making a profit, you can deliver. It’s a no-brainer. But you’ve got to be charging the right rate.
It’s about educating the client. The client will look back and say, “Well, that guy said he could do all of that for 300 pounds.” And you’re like, “There’s no way he can.” If that guy could deliver all of that for 300 pounds, I promise you, I would give that guy everything tomorrow and white-label it. I just know it’s not humanly possible. You have to educate the client as to what you do, why you’re doing it, and the timescales involved. When you’re transparent, they’re like, “Oh, everything you’re saying makes sense. I want to work with you.” It’s a bit of education and handholding.
Emanuel: I can’t add anything more to that. One of the reasons I wanted to have this webinar is because things have changed. The market is extremely mature and competitive, arguably all over the world. I’m pretty sure that in the Amazon rainforest, you’ll find a couple of GMBs providing some kind of service. It’s not easy, especially in markets like New York City, Toronto, or any major European city. It requires a lot of financial effort and time investment.
Coming back to what I said, if the customer is not involved, you’re unlikely to get the same results as you would if they were. Before AI, I used to talk with them about their top problems. I had a client where I discovered that servicing brought in a lot of prospects who were purchasing from somewhere else and having his business service them. So we developed content around that. Having that conversation, transparency, and trust from the beginning is essential for the success of the campaign.
SEO is just one channel. SEO is not a webmaster, not a site builder, and doesn’t do email or security stuff, though we often wear that hat. Up until now, SEO was mostly Google, but it’s hard for me to say it’s just Google at the moment, and I think that’s a good thing. At the end of the day, Google only wants to show its users the best possible answer for their query. That’s it. Now we need to reverse-engineer how to do that. It sounds easy, right? Just put in a couple of keywords, get the green light from Yoast, and you’re good to go.
Craig: It would be good if it did go back to that. Business owners are unaware of all the little nuances—knowledge panels, building trust, entities. There’s just so much more to it now, and it is painful. It is harder for us to rank websites, but people make it sound really easy. They say, “It’s just content and links,” but you’re like, “What about all this other stuff?” How Google looks at things now in 2025 compared to 2010 is a very different game.
There’s more competition, people are smarter, so it just means you have to work harder. You need to be doing more than your competitors. It can be done. You literally can beat anyone out there if you have the budget and the time. And it is a time investment. Don’t think you can do everything by yourself. We all utilize different vendors, teams, and whatever to make this whole thing scalable. And there’s a cost. Whether you have a team of five or a team with VAs underneath, there’s a significant investment.
It’s not just staff. Even if you want the advanced version of ChatGPT, that’s $20 a month. SEMrush is a few hundred a month, Ahrefs is a few hundred a month. And that’s before you buy any links or content. The guys that make it sound really easy and cheap are killing us. They’re making it look like we are the robbers when you say, “No, it costs this, and I can tell you why.” But when the business owner doesn’t know, they’re always going to look at the price and think the most expensive guy is a crook.
Emanuel: Yeah, and you forgot to mention that you buy links, create content, and pay for tools, but you also need to make some money out of it.
Craig: SEOs in particular very often forget themselves. You’ve got to make money.
Emanuel: There’s no value in what you provide if you don’t get compensated accordingly for your time and effort. Sooner or later, you’ll build resentment towards the client and the work, and you’ll get burned out.
We’re after the one-hour mark, so if you have any last questions for Craig, please put them in the chat.
Now, Craig, if someone saw you today and wanted a consultation, how can they reach out? What’s the best approach to get in contact with you?
Craig: Just go to my website, craigcampbellseo.com. You can look at stuff on my YouTube channel, which is listed there. My social media is on there. If you wanted a consultation, that’s there. The mastermind is there if people want to come in and learn. There are about 1,300 videos on YouTube covering pretty much anything to do with SEO.
I don’t do client work as such. I can help you in terms of guidance, consultancy, and education. I’m more than happy to do that, whether you have problems scaling your team or just need a second set of eyes. That’s where I feel I fit into the market now. Don’t come to me if you’re expecting someone to write you 500 pages of content. I’m too lazy for that. But you can find that on my website. It’s all about trying to give back. If someone needs a bit of consultancy, I love that. I love seeing people grow. If you say to me, “Craig, can you come on my show?” I’ll say, “Sure, I’ll come and help you.” I think it’s a good thing to be doing. I’m not here to pitch you anything, but if you want to reach out and just ask me something, shoot me a message on social media. I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Emanuel: There is value in that because I’ve found myself not knowing what to do, and I’ve Googled it, and you showed up. The videos you put out there, the tutorials, the fact that you were one of the first to actually share your screen and say, “Click this, don’t click that”—that’s very important.
Craig, thank you so much. I highly encourage everyone watching to go and follow Craig, especially on his TikTok account, because he’s getting more and more traction there. Hopefully, he’ll become a public figure who will give you those million-dollar endorsements sooner rather than later.
I said at the beginning, I wouldn’t be much of a marketer if I didn’t encourage you to go to howaboutsomemarketing.com and subscribe to the newsletter and our YouTube channel, where you’ll see past recordings and future announcements. I want this to be a trusted source for everyone to get better at their marketing.
Thank you so much to everyone who attended live and those who are watching the recording. And thank you so much, Craig, for everything. Enjoy the conference.
Craig: Thank you.
