071: Scaling with Strategy: Ross’s Journey from Creative Writing to Digital PR Leadership

C: Podcast




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.

Key Points + Topics

  • [1:14] Ross went to Chapman University, where he first pursued creative writing before switching to business administration with an emphasis on marketing. This decision transformed his perspective on what he could achieve professionally.  
  • [2:43] His strong background in athletics influenced his work and leadership style. The teamwork and perseverance skills he developed on the field became crucial as he moved into the digital marketing world.
  • [3:50] Regarding mentorship, Ross has a clear vision: a mentor offers help and advice without expecting anything in return. As he says, they’re just putting themselves out there and assisting others out of the goodness of their hearts.
  • [4:33] He adds that the digital marketing industry is uniquely collaborative, with agency owners often supporting each other despite being competitors.
  • [5:38] One of Ross’s most influential mentors was a fellow agency owner and competitor, Wil Reynolds. He provided Ross with tremendous inspiration and advice that helped him navigate the complexities of running an agency.
  • [7:34] Another critical figure in Ross’s journey was Grayson LaFrenz. His mentorship came at a crucial stage during Siege Media’s growth. Grayson offered the guidance needed to steer the company during pivotal transitions.
  • [13:46] Ross’s approach to mentoring is built on a foundation of trust and verification. His approach is hiring talented individuals and instilling confidence in them to grow. But to his detriment, he’s learned that’s not how everyone wants to be mentored.
  • [15:02] A defining part of Ross’s professional growth has come from delegating responsibilities over time while learning to navigate a growing team.
  • [17:03]  Ross says his “trigger point” in hiring a COO came when he became overwhelmed with “people” problems. He was burnt out. That was when he realized he needed a COO, and the impact of delegating operational responsibilities to scale was crucial.
  • [18:50] Under Ross’s leadership, Siege Media has successfully scaled over time through incremental improvements, formalizing training, and documenting processes.
  • [23:20] In their most recent strategy shift, Siege is focusing on product-led digital PR. This involves leveraging first-party data across various channels to build a brand and attract links.
  • [25:03] Though the company’s audience has historically been SEO people, Ross is transitioning his company towards an organic growth model and rebranding its content strategies to move beyond SEO metrics.
  • [26:15] In the age of AI-generated content, according to Ross, one of the best ways to differentiate yourself is by using first-party data in content. 
  • [30:30] Indeed, today’s digital landscape is challenging, especially with the advent of AI. Though AI is valid, creating high-quality content is crucial to maintaining a competitive edge.
  • [31:18] For Ross, the human touch is most crucial. He adds that Siege Media uses AI only for editing and qualitative checks. 

Guest + Episode Links

Full Episode Transcript

Danny Gavin Host

00:05

Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor. Today, we are here with Ross Hudgens, CEO and founder of Siege Media, who has been named many times to the Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 list. You can see the trophy behind Ross. They’ve been named to Inc’s Best Workplace twice as a fast-growing company in San Diego, six times tops on Buzz Sumo’s list. I would say Ross is also a Golden State Warriors fan. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but he’s not a bandwagoner because he’s actually from that place. Maybe we’ll talk about it a bit, and today, we’re going to talk about Siege, SEO content marketing, and, of course, mentorship. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

01:11

How are you Good? Thanks for having me, Danny. Glad we could do this. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:14

Yeah, this is awesome. All right, so let’s jump right in. Tell me more about where you went to school and what you studied. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

01:21

I went to Chapman University. I originally started as a creative writing major and sold out and went to business administration with a marketing emphasis. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:32

But I think that’s a very foretelling of the power. The bottom line is what you do. Today, a lot of it is all writing, so I would say that some of the best marketers are writers, so it doesn’t surprise me, actually. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

01:42

Yeah, it’s crazy how I appreciate you saying that. Sort of worked out, and I was building some kind of skill set there, seemingly, anyway. 

Danny Gavin Host

01:49

Not everyone on the podcast goes to university, but the fact that you did. When you look back at that experience both inside and outside the classroom, are there any memories, teachers, or situations that were impactful in directing your path? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

02:02

I don’t know that I have a specific teacher or experience that stood out, but definitely appreciated my time at Chapman. It made me take schooling seriously. My grandparents used to joke that I majored in football when I was in high school. I only had a 2.0 GPA, and I went to a junior college to try to get into Division One. But Chapman was an amazing school and kind of showed me what’s possible and got me more excited about it, which I don’t think my high school experience necessarily did. So a great teacher, teachers, I think. Generally, across the board, they were solid, and that created some motivation for me. 

Danny Gavin Host

02:36

So, I didn’t know you were an athlete. I guess a good question would be, do you approach your company and life now at all from an athletic perspective? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

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, or you’re listening to this, but I’m not a super great athlete. So, I worked my way up to be successful, and I also dealt with it. I think there’s an aspect of being on a team and working with others, and all of that, I think, undoubtedly was beneficial. I sometimes go back and forth of, like, oh, I should have jumped right into business, but I’m sure I would have lost some of that fortifying element, and my friends from that time are still my best friends today. 

Danny Gavin Host

03:23

That’s awesome, and I know you’re a father as well. Is that something that you feel is important for your kid kids to be part of team sports? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

03:31

I’d like that. I mean, I’m not gonna lie to you; that’d be fun for sure. But I hear people that you don’t wanna force or pressure them, so I’m nervous about doing that myself. But if they would like to, I would definitely support that. 

3:45 Danny Gavin Host

That’s the right answer. So, Ross, how would you define a mentor? 

3:50 Ross Hudgens Guest

A mentor is someone who is willing to kind of help without really any other benefit to themselves. They’re just willing to put themselves out there and assist you just out of the good grace of their personality, which is amazing. Very often, it can fly, at least in my experience. It could conflict with their actual business model. Sometimes, I’ve been lucky to get help from people who technically compete with us, which is wild, but still, we’re graceful, which I’m sure we’ll get into in a bit. 

Danny Gavin Host

04:23

And we’ll get into who those people were. But do you feel like that’s unique in our industry, where just people are more willing to help, or do you feel like you kind of see that in general just really depends? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

04:33

Yeah, I think relatively. I know a lot of people say with frequency, at least other agency owners that I talk to, that there’s a lot of business to go around. So there’s that sense that even though there is obviously only a finite amount of business, you’re not necessarily grabbing it from the same locations. And I think that kind of matters; it’s all about relationships and things of that nature that allow people to lower their guard down. Well, in athletics, obviously, I wouldn’t go to my competing team and share the same things because it’s so obvious that the winners and losers are in that case, and I think that that helps a lot. 

Danny Gavin Host

05:10

I’m part of a peer group here in Houston, Texas, and we have like ten agencies, and it’s pretty amazing that we all can sit at the table and talk and share our problems and issues and actually help each other out, even though technically like you said, there is enough business but in sometimes there’s not. But it’s cool; I feel it is a little more special in the digital marketing world than maybe other places. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

05:28

Yeah, a lot of great people, generally. So I think that’s part of it. They are very humble, helpful people, and that’s got to be part of it to your point. 

Danny Gavin Host

05:38

All right, so let’s jump into some of your most influential mentors. So let’s first talk about Wil Reynolds, who has been a guest on the podcast before and, yes, I imagine a significant competitor. But let’s talk about why you consider him your mentor. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

05:50

Yeah, Wil, especially early on in my time at Siege, I just he was around ten years in front of me, and I aspirationally respected a lot of what he did. I mean, he has his company volunteer all the time. He’s selfishly like he’s sleeping out in Philadelphia to raise money. He clearly cares about doing the right things for his clients. So, I always looked up to that and wanted to do it myself. So, just a few times, I reached out to him with some problem things, and he graciously was willing to jump on a call with me quickly and talk about those things. That just like was shocking to me at the time. We offer similar services. I had to do the previous combo. I don’t know how often we like had butted heads in a pitch, I’m not sure. But regardless, knowing Will, I don’t think that would have mattered that much, honestly, because he just, I think that’s naturally in his DNA is to go out and help people, help people grow, and yeah, I was super appreciative of that. 

Danny Gavin Host

06:59

And I believe, correct me if I’m wrong, you both were in San Diego at a time, so were you able to bump into each other face to face and, therefore, have a better connection? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

07:09

Yeah, I met him for coffee a few times. He was gracious enough to come on our podcast, which was our first one. We have a podcast called Content Conversation, and he and Rand Fishkin came into our office. And it was like one of my favorite podcasts to this day. 

Danny Gavin Host

07:23

And I guess, with you know, saying that he’s ten years your senior, has it changed how you have maybe reached or treated agency owners when they reach out to you? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

07:34

Yeah, definitely. I think he kind of set the standard for what I should do and feel to people who are the same version to me. So, I try to be as helpful as Will was when it comes up. I think that’s a benefit. Is the paid forward that he showed me that you’re supposed to do that to the extent I can? Of course, I try to do that myself as well. 

Danny Gavin Host

07:58

All right, let’s move into Grayson LaFrance. Tell me about your relationship with him. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

08:02

Yeah, Grayson’s a more recent version. I have a lot of respect for both of them. Grayson, specifically, is in a stage with Power Digital Marketing. He was the CEO of Power Digital. I think he’s now just the chairman of the board there. They acquired several different agencies. They eventually resold after an initial sale to private equity, and he had done many things several times that I had never done in a very similar fashion, really for no reason. He was willing to jump on a call and give me, like, well, you could probably consider a thousand dollars an hour, advice on this stuff without asking for anything, which was amazing and surprising. And yeah, it just stood out a huge amount and a similar version of just paying it forward, which I appreciated. He was also in San Diego; I met him for coffee a few times, and that helped build the relationship. 

Danny Gavin Host

08:59

Were you introduced by someone, or did you just reach out? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

09:01

Yeah, we had some conversations about working together from a business capacity early on. That fell through for various reasons, but we maintained a positive relationship afterward. So that was kind of the forming function. Of course. Similarly, I’d heard of his agency in San Diego had a lot of respect for them, and I think that because we were initially headquartered in San Diego, now we’re fully remote, that I think, probably brought some initial awareness to both sides. 

Danny Gavin Host

09:29

Listing two people who are both agency founders or CEOs. I think that says a lot. Do you feel like it’s essential for the head of a digital marketing agency to have a mentor who is an agency owner from a different agency? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

09:46

Yeah, I think so. I mean, there’s also the variant that you briefly mentioned before this call. I’m in a similar thing with peer groups. You could call them a mentor; I suppose I’m also in. I was previously in EO, and I’m now in YPO, which is a kind of peer group for entrepreneurs, and that’s been super helpful. I wouldn’t necessarily define some of them as mentors, but definitely, people have done several things more than I have, so that probably does count. So I highly recommend those, and it’s good mental health therapy for entrepreneurs as well, or whatever world you’re in. I’m sure there are other versions of that. 

Danny Gavin Host

10:24

Often in life, we think that we’re like we’re on an island on our own; it only happens to us, and just to have that transparency helps, and it’s interesting. I mentioned it to someone a couple of days ago, and, oh yeah, misery gets together, but I’m like, no, that’s not the point. You know, the idea is like you don’t want to just sit at a bar drinking and saying how horrible life is, but the idea is to find a group that, yes, your peers, but also how you can support each other. That’s not just a complaint. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

10:54

Yeah, agree; entrepreneurship is lonely. Some people do this. I’m amazed that they are super close with their coworkers as the entrepreneur or CEO of the company. That’s always been a hard line for me to walk personally. Um, so that’s just how, like, you can literally only say certain things to those people, 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 celebrate the same way with other people. 

Danny Gavin Host

11:26

Talk about relationships with coworkers. Is that something that maybe you tried at one point, and it backfired, or have you always been pretty firm about separating the two? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

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 school together at Chapman actually, and he was our first full-time graphic design hire, and we were always good friends after that. But it just changed the dynamic a little bit. Even though he so greatly impacted Siege, I was just like, I would rather have this guy be my friend after that, and that’s coming from a friend into the company. But there’s a reality like, for whatever reason, you need to make tough decisions around layoffs or performance. It’s just very difficult to do that. Of course, if someone’s a high performer, that could hopefully make it a little bit easier, which is the case, but there still can be tough decisions around compensation dynamics around those things. It’s just so, so difficult, at least in my experience, that I wanted to keep the separation of church and state there. 

Danny Gavin Host

12:32

Yeah, I once had a coach. He heard me using the term family, you know, like the Optage family, family, and the reason because you do feel close, and we’re working together in the trenches. But he called me out on it, and he’s like, you know what? It’s difficult for a family. There are certain things you don’t do. But in business, sometimes you have to make those hard decisions. So, to use that term isn’t the greatest, so it’s more like a group or team. I love your perspective on that. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

12:56

Respectfully. It sounds like you’re aligned with him. I would agree with that take. I tried not to use that term. In particular, I’ve heard similar kinds of echoings. I like the team idea. We’re not a family, but hopefully, we can still be close. I’ve had difficult conversations with people who are still relatively close to this day. So, I still treat them great, and I’d rather be on the same wavelength as I want these people to feel like friends like I want. I want to say you’re still spending so much time. It is your second somewhere. I think they say the data is you spend more time with your coworkers than your family, or maybe this was pre-remote work, but close anyway. So you better like these people. So I definitely still that’s still the case, but there’s got to be some delineation. 

Danny Gavin Host

13:46

It seems like let’s talk about you mentoring others. I think you’ve got two direct reports. You’ve mentored other agency owners in the past. Love to know what’s your mentorship style. How do you hold people accountable? Love to talk a little bit more about that. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

14:00

Yeah, I wish I could say I’m a great manager. I think I’ve learned that over time, clearly not so incompetent to be. That Siege turned out decently well as we scaled and realized that that would be in better hands with our COO, Melissa, who is a much better manager than I am. My general style is trust and verification. That was Derek Sivers, who wrote a great blog post, and I think that one sentence is quite helpful. So that’s generally what I try to do with the team: hire someone, great trust and verify with them, and help them grow. I do think that was almost to my detriment as well at the beginning. My gut wants to promote people, and I always want to grow. So, I assume everyone else wants to grow to be a manager or director, which was not necessarily the case in some instances. So I like helping people out, and it’s surprising to me, but sometimes they don’t want to grow in content in our SEO, and that’s understandable as well. 

Danny Gavin Host

15:02

I always think there’s. I’m not saying it’s like this in every organization. Still, you hope like the idea of growth is sort of like vertically and horizontally right, like so you could become a manager, director, like in one way, but in the other way you could just get deeper in what you know and just be you know better at SEO. It would be nice. I mean, it’s not always like that in every organization, but it would be nice to have both those paths right so you can still grow. But it doesn’t always mean that you have to manage people. Do you have any thoughts on that? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

15:29

Yeah, agree; we did work on building those tracks. We learned some lessons there as well, where I built tracks for people that we didn’t necessarily need as a company, and when things get leaner, that gets tougher and turns out to be a bad decision. So that’s where it’s like your mind; wanting to help people can sometimes be counterproductive for the broader company in the organization. But I agree it’s, and there are those people. I definitely try to have that conversation now that I’ve learned some of those things and try to be harder. Sometimes, the conversation arrives now that I have transparent conversations with people. For example, maybe our company is just not going to be the growth path for you. We can have a transparent conversation about it. We could help you. We’re going to support you. Just like being upfront, being professional while you’re here is totally fine. I’m I’m cool with that. I’d rather have that conversation than force you into something you don’t want to do.

Danny Gavin Host

16:23

Yeah, I’m just thinking how we’re like brothers from another mother because I think I am definitely ten years behind you with that same concept where it’s like when you’re starting out like you just want to help everyone, every individual. After all, every individual is so important, and then, as you’re growing and scaling and realizing that not everything fits the business, sometimes you have to make those tough decisions, and when you’re naturally very kind and giving, it’s difficult, it’s a difficult transformation. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

16:51

Yeah, agree; when times are good, that works very well. Unfortunately, when times are not as good as they have been in the last couple of years, those decisions generally come to roost. Yeah.

Danny Gavin Host

17:03

When did you realize that you needed that COO? At what stage was it? I don’t know, because I know you’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 where I’m at. I want to scale, but I kind of need someone senior outside of me. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

17:24

So we had an operations manager. Basically, our current COO was just promoted incrementally. The trigger point to make her a COO specifically is I was just so overwhelmed with people problems, uh like I was getting burnt out by this issue, that issue, this other issue, and I just hit a breaking point where I was like I need some help on this stuff. I can’t be in the weeds on everything, and I read, uh, Rocket Fuel, which I recommend. Yeah, it’s a good book that basically talks about working with a COO productively. I did that later, but that’s one reason I have so few direct reports now. This is sort of models through the COO to kind of like take the vision forward with someone who’s far more organized, better at working with people day to day and can manage many direct reports. I’ve had seven or eight direct reports, I think, but eventually pulled back from that when I realized maybe it was not the best. Once you have 90 people’s problems on you, it certainly compounds. 

Danny Gavin Host

18:36

I don’t want to get into revenue numbers, but they say you get to a certain point at an agency where you’re too small to be big, too big to be small, and that’s like the growing pains, you know profits are down. You kind of have to push through. You know what helped you scale. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

18:50

Melissa definitely helped with a lot of those scaling functions. We just kind of did it iteratively over time. There is no secret sauce necessarily. There are different incremental things I can think of. We really invested in learning and development. We were in person for a long time, and I think in-person training worked. Then we went fully remote, and we needed to do this process doc thing. Now we have hundreds of process documents, everything’s documented. There are videos for everything, including a very formalized training process where every new hire has a learning development lead. They kind of get everyone with the same messaging in the door. That helps with consistency. 

19:33

I think, yeah, a lot of those things, over time, helped in delegating. I mean, I just slowly, over time, got better at, and I’m still not amazing, don’t get me wrong, but of letting go of things. I was in sales for a long, long time doing it myself, and now we have a full-time person. I still help, don’t get me wrong. But that’s an example of slowly delegating, just incrementally as budget allows, and you realize there are better people for stuff. 

Danny Gavin Host

20:03

And I have to give you credit for that because I don’t think people realize an agency owner should hand off the sales to someone else. That’s a big deal, right? Because often I feel like, at least in the beginning, sales go through. People know Siege, but they also know Ross, right? So it’s like to think that I’m handing it off to someone. That’s pretty crazy. What’s helped me? I haven’t done that yet; you’ll have to teach me, Ross, but I always say that for me, what would help me start with delegation is the realization that when I hand it off to someone else, they’ll most probably only be able to do what I could do 80% of the way. But you know what 80% is going to be good, good enough. Do you look at delegation? Similar? Do you have a different strategy? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

20:48

Maybe it’s optimistic, but I would round up that number. I sometimes say you’ll probably get 95% of what I would have said. Maybe that’s not completely true; maybe it is 90, 85, 80. And we’ll just talk about it after. Like you will do things I’m not going to do, but we’ll just talk about it, and it won’t be a big deal. 

21:08

And I think that’s the play, is you just got to do that and then be willing to invest heavily your time in that person to learn iteratively, like that’s how it’s gonna, of course, process stocks, scale that up over time, um, but that’s the kind of the core component and try to just keep the high leverage moments. Like I’m still, I do attend. I was on a proposal call earlier today. If it makes sense, I’ll still attend calls and do things of that nature. So, I still think it makes sense. However, the lift of the proposal builds out the intro call; you just realize that the steps you can touch later and later still have the same result 98% of the time. 

Danny Gavin Host

21:53

So, what do you find yourself doing now? What are the main things that you’re doing at the agency? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

21:58

Kind of shifting more towards relationships. Like, I was in New York, and I was kind of meeting a big referral partner. I set up a breakfast with ten other kinds of SEOs and marketers. Transparently, we’re thinking about mergers and acquisitions with other agencies. I’m kind of working on that personally and just bigger-picture stuff. Like more time. It feels weird, but yeah, I need more time thinking about those, hopefully one or two. You make fewer changes as you get bigger as well. It’s kind of hard to push through 100 people. I’m learning, and Melissa helped me as well. 

Danny Gavin Host

22:35

And I’m sure you’re loving it, and that’s what the CEO needs to do because it’s about you needing that space to think, be creative, and come up with those game changers. All right, let’s pivot into SEO and link building First of all. Do you like the term link building these days? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

22:50

We use it less and less. Yeah, I mean, we’re calling it. I mean, it’s always been content marketing for us, but I feel like we say link-building a little less. Digital PR is more of what we’re communicating as well. Yeah, there are interesting shifts in it. I just saw a data study on brand authority over domain authority, so we’ll see if we’ll start measuring that instead. 

Danny Gavin Host

23:10

Digital PR link-building has undoubtedly evolved since Siege’s founding. Can you tell me what your take on its role as an SEO and content strategy is now, in 2024, especially in the world of AI? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

23:20

Yeah, we’re calling it product-led digital PR. It’s sort of our most recent significant strategy shift, and our thought process there is getting, if they don’t have it already, first-party data and putting it across the content ecosystem, not just like one asset you promote, but we have a data study on content marketing trends. Then, we use that data across a blog post on what link building is. 63% of companies use link building. Just making that up, but that makes that piece more unique to us, differentiated in a world of AI; Claude or ChatGPT can’t pump that out in five seconds. So doing that kind of data first stuff would be good, independent of whether or not SEO existed, and hopefully, you can truly build a brand, and that’s a big part. 

24:14

And yeah, we’re doing more spread-out digital PR. We’re not doing like 19 link-building assets. It’s like, what is one high-leverage thing? Not always, but some people are more than that. For us, it’s like one big trend report a year that just makes sense, um, and I think that does make sense for many companies. So, like, that’s high leverage; even if links don’t matter, that probably is worthwhile just from a brand-building standpoint, so that’s sort of what we’re leaning into while still thinking links matter. We’re still kind of like do things that make that thoughtful, but it’s more about it’s gotta be really high leverage, it seems. 

Danny Gavin Host

24:52

What are the requests coming in from the companies that you’re speaking with? Is it still from an SEO perspective, or is it more from a brand? Or do you kind of have to educate them or re-educate them? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

25:03

Good question. I think our audience is my audience historically has been SEO people, which may be to our company’s detriment. I’m sure it’s helped. I do think we’re transitioning over time to this idea of organic growth. We haven’t truly given ourselves enough credit for referral traffic and direct traffic, especially to the content sections that we own, so we’re doing more of that. I can’t say that we necessarily hear that from clients, but they seem to resonate with the kind of digital PR, first-party data approach that has been working recently. So, in terms of their problems, I mean there’s more volatility these days. I’m seeing more of that in sales. But yeah, that’s some of the commonalities I guess I’m hearing from prospects. It has been harder for a while, but yeah, it seems like a lot of the panic is wafting away, I guess. 

Danny Gavin Host

25:53

I saw this on LinkedIn recently. It was a comment where you basically, I think, put the four or five top assets on your own website that have done really, really well over time and even shared some of the results. As you know, in this blog post, we got 500 links. I only got a chance to see a couple of them, but all of them were first-party-type blog-like posts based on that. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

26:15

Yes, that is the product-led digital PR idea. So I’m just kind of saying it without saying it. We have it in our top currently. I think we’ll keep it there for a couple of months. There’s a post in our top navigation that says product-led digital PR, or you could Google it, and it speaks to it in more detail. But yes.

Danny Gavin Host

26:30

Do you feel like a site can still rank well these days without an intentional PR link-building effort? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

26:38

I think you accelerate what you’re doing using, like, at least thinking about it, like how we think about it is, oh, we can identify that this topic, if you rank for it, attracts a lot of links. That’s sort of how we’re thinking about it. For the most part, we’re doing very, very little outreach. Still, we’ll do high-leverage outreach on the actual report, but that’s about 5% of the time. Otherwise, it’s more spread out. But I think links are a byproduct of that good content marketing activity. So, I think it was one metric. You look at that. If I rank for this, I will get a lot of links. I think that’s so worthwhile to do. Do you need guest posting outside of your website? I would say no, I don’t think that sort of makes sense. 

Danny Gavin Host

27:20

What do you say to the smaller companies? I know you deal with primarily larger organizations, but what could they do from a link-building, digital PR perspective? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

27:28

Multi-tiered One. We don’t work with locals, so I can’t. Besides multinational, local, multi-location, and national, I can’t really comment on that well. I would guess maybe a little more of that would still make sense for them. From what I am seeing, I think we’re kind of lucky in this way as a company. You’ve probably seen that it’s harder and harder to be small. It’s like, I think the big companies are winning, and it’s tough to say, pack it up, and go home. 

27:59

But that is the case for some search engines, especially affiliates. It’s to be a non-brand affiliate these days. But generally I mean, I think it’s a good activity. It’s where you got to start. If you have a great product that fits in the marketplace, if it’s good for the niche, and you’re biggest in the niche, you can still be a small business in that vertical and be successful. If you’re up against IBM, it might be tough, so I don’t know if that’s the answer you’re looking for, but some of those things come to mind. 

Danny Gavin Host

28:31

No, I think it’s very fair. I think it’s a little sad in some ways because I remember pitching SEO the concept 10 years ago, and it was like Google is the David and Goliath, right? You could be the David and come and be whatever you need to be on the SERPs right and fight those large companies, and I think it is harder these days to do that. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

28:48

Yeah, I think it’s getting harder and harder. I just emailed our business development guy, Drew, who’s great and mentioned it feels like we need to be more discerning around product market fit than we ever have. We would almost kind of walk into engagements and be like they’re 50 DR, domain authority, or domain rating, and sometimes just being good enough there would feel good enough, but now I’m not as confident that even decent authority matters if you’re not a real brand. 

Danny Gavin Host

29:19

It’s hard, right, I would say, for an agency. I mean, it’s kind of like bringing it out, and maybe this is oversimplifying it, but yeah, it’s tough. We get, you know, leads our way, and you kind of want to make it work. But it’s difficult because if you know that that it’s not going to be successful, or you know it’s not going to work for your company, sometimes you know on one hand you need to pull in the revenue, but the other hand you know it’s actually going to cost more. It’s tough, though.

Ross Hudgens Guest

29:42

Yes, I agree. I’ve been with you there, that balance. When times are a little better, and things are starting to get better, and we’re generally lucky to be upmarket. I think that helps to be more discerning. It feels critical. There’s probably a balance there in the bottom 20%. It’s probably worthwhile pushing if you can feel that even in six months’ time, there’s not going to be many results to show here in a month. Like that’s not going to be, even if it’s not. It doesn’t feel like even a great short-term justification in my opinion, yeah. 

Danny Gavin Host

30:20

What are some of the most common SEO misconceptions that you’re encountering these days with your clients? Or do you think people are educated already? They kind of know? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

30:30

Yeah, I mean, it’s hard out there, generally. I do think people still have conversations around AI. There’s a segment of people who like trying to pump it out with a button, and we’re probably not the best fit for that person. So I think that is an ongoing conversation with a lot of people. It’s getting better because the fervor and excitement over it has kind of died down a little bit. It’s still there, it’s still useful. But I think that is probably the most common conversation around the value of high-quality content. If that person has kind of a commodity AI mindset, they might be in the wrong place. 

Danny Gavin Host

31:09

Are you adopting AI internally? Is it like a push? “Guys, we have to figure out all the ways we can use it!”  Or is it more just natural coming in? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

31:18

We are. We do have someone who owns it. We’re thinking about it actively. We use it for editing. We use it for qualitative checks like a secondary SME subject matter expert editor. Yeah, we’re continuing it. We have like an AI department with one lead in each thing, but we’re not forcing the issue. Like it’s got to feel good for the thing, but I think it’s important to like actively be practicing using it or could get left behind. 

Danny Gavin Host

31:44

Yeah, All right, we are going gonna move to our lightning round. I would love for you to tell me top three of something that you really like. 

Ross Hudgens Guest

31:53

I mean, family is awesome. I have a four-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old, so that’s a lot of fun. It’s hard at the same time. Of course, my lovely wife, Mel, as well, is number one on that list. We do love traveling is number one on that list. We do love traveling. We’re wild enough to bring all of them with us. We’re doing an SEO conference in Thailand in November, so please wish us a lot of luck with that one.

32:18

Yeah, it should be fun. We’ll see how it goes. Love, yeah, sports we talked about. Yeah, I have a 49ers jersey behind me. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area, and I like playing basketball. I played basketball this morning. Um, wake up early just to play at 6 am, which is a lot, a lot of fun. Uh, enjoy running, just like health. I think of a lot about. Uh, currently, that takes up a lot of energy, but kids take up most of it, for sure do you miss california or you like texas? 

32:52

I like texas, we are. We are lucky enough. We spent a good amount of time in bend, oregon, where, um, we have a vacation rental just to escape the summer here. So, but otherwise, lovely culture, people are nice, food scenes, great, lots of things to do. Uh, I think winters and spring are amazing. Uh, it’s nice to have sun and cold, which makes a big difference coming from seattle where that doesn’t exist, but yeah, so, ross, what is your next big project? 

33:24

next big project? I mean raising kids is one, uh, on the business side, that’s current big project. I would mean raising kids is one on the business side, that’s current big project. I would say in terms of energy. But, yeah, we’re working on growing and we might add some services over time. I think that’s going to be a difficult endeavor. But yeah, thinking about expansion and potential acquisitions of other companies, I think that is a big north star we’re thinking about. So that’s going to take a lot of energy but also really exciting yeah fun, fun, fun. 

33:54

Growth things I haven’t done before, and I think that’s what’s what still to this day, gives me energy super. 

Danny Gavin Host

34:00

So where can listeners learn more about you and your business? 

Ross Hudgens Guest

34:03

yeah, go to siege mediacom, like siege in the castle hard to spell it, but we have the misspelling domain in case you mess it up. But Roz Hutchins on X slash Twitter or LinkedIn as well. I post a lot there. I’ve been posting a little bit more on threads as well. If anyone’s out there would love to connect. Do you find it valuable Threads? Yeah, I honestly just reposted it for the most part. It does seem like a different community than x a little bit, but it seemed to be building a little headway so I felt like it was kind of misguided not to at least cross post. But I still transparently like x a little bit more, but it’s slightly. I think they have gone the direction of like addiction social media, which is not necessarily a positive attribute. No, definitely not. 

Danny Gavin Host

34:54

Well, ross, thank you so much for joining me today. As I told you before, I definitely have been following you and looking up to you, so it’s awesome that we actually get a chance to speak. So thanks for being a guest on the Digital Marketing Mentor and thank you, listeners, for tuning into the Digital Marketing Mentor. We’ll speak with you next time. Thanks for having me, danny. Thank you for listening to the Digital Marketing Mentor podcast. Be sure to check us out online at thedmmentorcom and at thedmmentor on Instagram, and don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts for more marketing mentor magic. See you next time. 

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