SEO Mistakes B2B Tech Companies Make: Sam Dunning

Eric M. (00:02.667)
I'm Donnie. Welcome to Innovators Can Laugh. How are you doing today?

Sam Dunning (00:05.692)
Hey Eric, thanks for having me on man. Looking forward to the chat.

Eric M. (00:08.267)
Yeah, me too. For those who don't know you, let me share a little bit about your background. Sam Dunning is not your ordinary SEO guru. He has a top 10 B2B marketing podcast called Breaking B2B. He's the founder of Breaking B2B SEO and web design agency. And he produces some of the most valuable and unconventional content on LinkedIn, like the Ask the Public series. And all my interactions with Sam.

He's always been energetic. And I've noticed that when I talk to other people and his name comes up, they crack a smile. Okay. So I think that's a really good thing. Okay. So for this conversation, I thought we dive into three things. The first thing is why do you think websites in salespeople are the same? What's what do B2B tech companies get wrong when they're starting SEO? And the third thing.

We're going to talk about your LinkedIn content like the Ask the Public series and how that's going for you. OK, so why do you think terrible salespeople and websites are the same, Sam? What's what's what's going on there?

Sam Dunning (01:16.956)
Yeah, yeah, sure thing. So often say often ramble on about LinkedIn, on LinkedIn as to many others that your website can be a 24 seven sales rep as unlike a salesperson that you may or may not hire. They typically would only work nine to five, Monday to Friday. Whereas your website can be working around the clock, either helping to grow your business, trust, brand and revenue, or doing the exact opposite.

I'll share a quick story that will give you some context. So some time ago, this is probably going back four or five years ago, maybe a little bit more. Someone connected with me on LinkedIn. They dropped me a DM and they reached out with a problem that I had at the time. So it was relevant and it was for some piece of software. I can't even remember. It might've been a piece of CRM or something similar. And because I had a need at the time that cold outreach was super relevant. So I said, yeah, yeah, I'll hop on a demo.

So we booked the demo, I jumped on the zoom with that sales rep and it was probably one of the worst calls I ever had. So they introduced themselves and then went on to talk about their company for about two minutes, where they're set up, their founders, the awards they'd won. Then they talked about the tool for another five minutes. Then they were sharing all their client wins, all their results.

Probably about 15 minutes in the sales rep hadn't asked me one question to understand if I was facing any of the problems they fix. Hadn't even asked like anything about my world, my current state, where I'm trying to get to my goals, the results I want to achieve out of this. And probably about 20 minutes in, if that I had to cut it short. I said, dude, like you've just talked about how great you are for 15 minutes. You haven't bothered to ask me anything. I haven't even seen anything of your offer or your demo. Let's cut it off. Like wish you all the best, but it just isn't for me. So.

The worst sales folk ever just talk about how great they are, their offer and how amazing they are. And it's the same with websites. That's how it links back to websites.

Eric M. (03:09.675)
OK. OK. And this is recent. You sure that phone call wasn't with me? Because that sounds like my first sales demo call like four years ago. And I got so excited. I was on the call. And I was so enthusiastic because I really liked the product. And I was like, you can do this. And it can do that. And it's great. It does all these things. And then finally, the owner of the company was like, hey, I know you really like the product. But that's not how you should do a demo call. So what should?

What, not necessarily what should a salesperson do right? But what should a website, you know, how do you make it so that it's working for you 24 seven and it's not destroying your brand and it doesn't suck.

Sam Dunning (03:50.428)
Yeah, so I'll go through some high level basics. So basically do the opposite of that sales career. So you've probably been there. You might have been on a tech company's website or a software company's website or just a B2B website in general. And so many of them, what I call ego driven. So they're driven mainly by the founders or the CEOs or the exec team and what they think looks cool, sounds good, is gonna look good on there as opposed to what you should be doing.

is building for dream clients or focus buyers, aka the folks that are going to land on your site and potentially work with you or request a call or book a demo, whatever that next step is. Cause you've got a warehouse full of your software. You've got an unlimited supply of what you're providing. You don't need to buy any more of it. Why should it please you? It should please the folks you actually want to do business with. So you've probably been there where you've been on a website. You've read the headline and it's something super jargon focused and confusing, clear as mud, or it's something like.

We help you 10X your revenues with our all -in -one wizardry platform that's going to skyrocket revenue for the next 365 days. And you've read the headline and you're thinking, not sure what this does. Scroll down a bit further on the homepage. Nope, still no idea. Scroll right down to the foot. No, I'm still clueless. Like I have no idea what problem this fixes, how it helps me or how it's going to improve a job that I'm trying to get done. So in short, clarity is your friend, just like messaging, copyrighting 101 or your website.

So there's a test that you can run called the Grunt Test on your website. And basically that was coined by a chap called Donald Miller, I believe. And it basically, the principle is within a few seconds of landing on your website homepage, the top section, the hero or the banner area, could you stick your website in front of a caveman sitting in their cave, grumbling away, they've seen your site for the first time ever. And could they within a few seconds of firing up that laptop understand exactly what you do, how it helps them.

and how to either learn more or take that next step. If not, your website is not hitting the mark and you're potentially getting folks that are bouncing off and maybe going to a competitor or getting frustrated and getting a sour taste in their mouth about what you do. That's the first step, but there's a ton more.

Eric M. (05:56.555)
Yeah, Sam, I'm guilty of that. When I first launched B2B Pod Pros, I found a catchy headline that was sort of like I saw it on another website and I made it my own and I thought it was fantastic because I understood the product and I got it. And then I shared it with a few people and I'm like, Hey, can you just take a look at my homepage? Give me feedback. And a couple of people came back and they circled the headline and they were like, yeah, I'm not really sure what this means or I don't really get this. And that's when I realized, yeah, I think I need to be.

I think I need a write for the intended user and not necessarily what gets me excited.

Sam Dunning (06:29.02)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And there's like, we don't have time on this episode, but there's, there's so much that you can do to make your website resonate. I mean, one of the most powerful words I could say when it comes to website design, messaging, copy, and the way you build it out on terms of your main page is resonating with target prospects, target clients. And there's a whole bunch we could talk about around customer research, doing calls with we shouldn't be one clients or target prospects, but we haven't got time today. But, but carrying on with some of those basics.

Like if we were to flip that sales demo on its head and instead of doing what I talked about where I had to hop off the call early, but if that sales person had taken the time to understand my world, any problems, any frustrations, like the root cause of those problems, the impact those problems were having, where I wanted to get to. And then after doing all that, then building trust with me by saying, okay, I understand XYZ is the problem and this is the impact it's having on your business and this is where you want to get to. Here's how we've helped similar folks.

this is the process, here's some examples of results, here's the pricing, and here's the next step. And your website should do the same, right? Like, I mean, a lot of, especially in the B2B world, a lot of folks are coming in probably with some level of education on your offer, if they found you through search or an ad, a recommendation, however they've been referred to your website. And typically, on my podcast, Breaking B2B, we've interviewed like 380 B2B execs. And from that data, we've...

kind of drilled it down and understand B2B execs want to go on your site, quickly get an idea of what you do, problem you fix and how it helps them. They want to check, they want to see your offer in action. So if it's a SaaS tool or software, they want to see some kind of live demo, video examples, GIF examples, et cetera. They want to see some proof of results. So that might be case studies, customer testimonials, video reviews, examples. They want to check your pricing. So they want to see they can actually afford your offer before they take the time to speak to a salesperson.

They want to get their common questions answered. So any FAQs around integration pricing set up. And then on the basis you check those boxes, they want to make it nice and easy for them to book a call or schedule a time to book a demo or whatever that next step is. So if you do that stuff right, you're ahead of like 97 % of most B2B websites.

Eric M. (08:43.019)
Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing the guy got wrong on that phone call, the salesperson, is that it sounds to me like he didn't even Google your name. Because if he at least Googled your name, he would have realized who you were and how you are like the SEO superstar and one of the top SEO gurus out there. And I would have greeted you that way, like, hey, I'm talking to the Sam Dunning. I mean, this guy probably knows his stuff, at least in the tech space, but it sounded like he didn't even know who you were.

Sam Dunning (09:09.66)
Yeah, I mean, to be fair to him, this was going back four or five years ago. So I wasn't that big on LinkedIn. The podcast might have just started. So I was less of a nobody than I am now. But yeah, like you say, I mean, if someone's booked a demo or discovery call with you, like you said, a flick, a quick flick on their LinkedIn, a little basic bit of research.

Eric M. (09:27.339)
Yeah. All right. Well, let's jump into the second topic and that is what do B2B tech companies get wrong when they're starting their SEO, you know, process or SEO campaign or just whatever they're trying to build out their SEO.

Sam Dunning (09:43.356)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so much, so much. So a common thing that often happens when it comes to SEO is I think a lot of tech companies, so perhaps the founder or the first marketing hire might not have the best knowledge on SEO. So they let like a common scenario might be the founder or the owner of the business says, right, we've been relying too much on ads.

or outbound sales or whatever channel or existing network, or if we've been funded, like our VCs have given us all our clients to now. Every time I Google what we do or the problem we fix or our solution, I can see competitors ahead of us is getting annoying. I know that we're missing out on Google search, organic to drive traffic and inbound. So they'll raise that, they'll realize that that's an issue. They'll say, look, we need to fix it. And they'll either try themself or their task, their marketing lead. They'll say, we've got to do SEO. They'll kind of treat it as a tick box activity.

the marketer will probably head on to a tool like hrefs or semrush and go, okay, let's look at a few keywords around our offering. All right, these look low difficulty. Okay, let's build out a couple blogs. All right, we're gonna do how to do X, how to do Y, chuck that into chat GPT or a similar AI tool. Right, gonna do that. Okay, I've built a couple articles, chuck them on the website, right back to my other 99 jobs I've got to do this month on my checklist. And I'll kind of treat it as a checklist activity. Then the...

founder will probably go back to the market and say, how did SEO go? And they'll be like, Yeah, it's okay. We're ranking for three of these keywords. And then they'll ask, how many demos or leads to that driver? None. And they'll be like, why is that? Well, you just asked me to do SEO. I did some SEO. So it's going in with just a random, like scatter gun approach strategy, like, okay, let's check out a few articles. And you've only got a scroll LinkedIn, right? And you'll see some, some folks posting these crazy graphs, like how we got

10 ,000 visits in 20 days. And then I'll post in the comments like, cool, really good work on the traffic. How many demos or how many leads to the drive? And then there's just crickets because it was just some random top of the funnel query that just drives a lot of traffic, but drives zero revenue. So the long story short is that folks take the wrong approach of SEO. They start at the top of funnel or with a random strategy with articles, as opposed to what we call revenue focused SEO, where you're actually working on.

Sam Dunning (12:05.788)
What is my dream client searching for when they're ready to have a sales conversation now? So in our case at Breaking B2B, we literally, one of the first exercises we did was we fired up a Google sheet and we listed out like what are the main types of businesses we wanna work with? So that could be like B2B SaaS, FinTech, SaaS companies and so on. What are the main offers that we wanna be selling? In our case, SEO, web design, podcast production. And what are the main kind of frustrations, problems?

impact of those problems and results that these companies have. And when you're doing that list for your company, you want to make sure these industries that one have the problem you fix, two are motivated to fix it, realize it's an issue. And three actually have the cash to invest in that offer, because there's no point trying to wasting money on an SEO campaign or raising resource and SEO campaign, going after a target market that may have the problem you fixed, but doesn't have the cash to invest in your office. That's super important. And then one of the simplest things you can do is

Once you've listed out all those industries you want to go after and the main offers or products or services that you want to sell to them is building out using a search tool, whether it's HREF, SEMrush or similar, finding out what search terms are relevant for those offers and then building out an exhaustive list of all those bottom of the funnel landing pages that you can build out and kind of trying to build a best in class page for each one of those offers initially and really exhausting what we call bottom of the funnel or revenue driven SEO. So that's an approach that a lot of companies.

Just don't do properly. Like they dabble at it and then they'll do some blog articles and a lot of that gets missed. I mean, there's a ton of other strategies to B2B SaaS SEO. That's just one of them.

Eric M. (13:44.683)
Yeah, the marketing strategist who described earlier, I was thinking to myself, yeah, that's me. You know, I would like do some, some SEO and I'm not a professional at it. And I just do some, just kind of like check the box, but I've been seeing your content on LinkedIn and you really hone in on, you know, diving into the bottom of the keyword funnel. And I have an interesting story for you. Cause I think you're going to be fascinated by this. The other day I asked myself the question if next year I want to drive.

Sam Dunning (13:51.324)
Ugh.

Eric M. (14:12.555)
Let's just say $500 ,000 in revenue for B2B pod pros. What do I need to do to make that happen? And you know what? After thinking about it, the answer was pretty clear to me was that I need to, I need to rank on the first page in Google for a bottom of the phone, bottom of the funnel keyword, like B2B podcast media network. My brand needs to be there. Right. And that was like clear as day. That's the one thing that I need to focus on. There's other things that I've been doing, but I was thinking,

That's the one thing I need to focus on if I want to do about half a million dollars in revenue next year. And so I've been seeing, you know, pushing out that content about concentrating on the bottom of the funnel keywords like comparison or alternatives to other competitors. So it really hit home with me. That's one of the reasons that you're on the show today is because I think what you, what you preach is very, very valuable, not just for B2B tech companies, but I think for any businesses that are out there and really want to get to that next level and business growth. And I think what you're, what you're saying,

is very valuable. There's something else that you recently did is that you secured three spots on Google for one keyword. And I want to ask you a little bit about that. I mean, what was that one keyword and how did you do it?

Sam Dunning (15:23.036)
I think I've done it for a few now, but I think one of the recent ones was like B2B SEO guide. I've got a bunch around B2B SEO guides, B2B SEO playbook, B2B web design guide and that kind of stuff. Those are the usual terms I tend to go after, but to share the strategy rather than just me rambling on is there's, this is like a little hack, a little tip that you can do and it involves YouTube. So it involves video. So basically.

to go through the long story, the shortened version of this is let's pretend you've mapped out maybe a keyword that you really want to, that's gonna be powerful for your niche. That's maybe gonna drive some qualified traffic and potentially deeds. So let's say you build out a best in class page for that. So usually when you build out pages, you wanna review the search engine like top three organic rankings pages, see what format they are. It's called measuring the search intent. So are they solution pages, service pages?

blog articles, are they listicles, are they comparisons? What are they? What's ranking? Okay, once you assess that, you know what type of page you need to build. You can assess what actually ranks and then review those competitors and look for gaps that you can improve on, that you can double down on, and you can basically provide more detailed, more helpful, more useful, more educational, more trustworthy content to have a chance of ranking top. Let's pretend you've done that, you've built out the page. One of my tips is to then, whatever's relevant to that topic,

build out a how to walk through guide example YouTube video on the topic. And I usually stick that like in the hero area with the headline of call to action. And what that does is a few things. One, you've built out a YouTube video that's searchable, because it's how to do something or a guide or a playbook or an examples. So that alone is evergreen searchable content on YouTube that can get traction, build a brand, drive leads. You embed that into that page that you're building out.

and that can increase your click -through rate on Google search results, because for some keywords that might show your listing as normal in the SERPs, but also a thumbnail next to it of your video. But not only that, for some search terms on Google, they have a video section. So sometimes if you do a search on mobile or search on desktop, you'll see the video results. So you can actually get three results in the video tab. It usually shows three thumbnails plus your organic search result, which can be four, so four rankings.

Sam Dunning (17:44.38)
And if you do an ad, you could even get five. So you can literally dominate the SERPs if you take that approach. And that's just what we've done for some of those keywords, like I think B2B SEO, B2B SEO Play, but some B2B website, B2B web design terms, you'll just see my ugly mug three times in the video search bar.

Eric M. (17:47.115)
wow.

Eric M. (18:04.363)
I'm curious, is your website getting more traffic than your YouTube channel or what's the split there?

Sam Dunning (18:10.332)
YouTube's probably higher. I mean our website, so only just over 90 days. So whilst we have got some decent keywords ranking around B2B SEO and web design, YouTube's doing like, I don't know, 10, 11K views a month, something like that. So I think YouTube's a bit higher, but the YouTube channel has been going like four plus years, so it makes sense.

Eric M. (18:28.235)
Got you. And your main call to action in your YouTube videos, is it like a link in the description that you have or what?

Sam Dunning (18:34.588)
I wish I could give you sound advice on YouTube because I'm yet to crack it. I mean, I'm four years into YouTube and I'm only 1 .5K subs. So I mean, it's usually relevant to the content. Like if it's a podcast interview on Breaking B2B, then I'll say check out the newsletter. If it's a dedicated topic on SEO, I might say, can I check out our playbook? And then at the end, I might say, if you want to book a cool go to the website. So it's usually contextual, but I'm yet to crack the YouTube algorithm.

Eric M. (19:02.571)
Okay. All right. All right. Okay. Good segue into our third topic, which I'm a big fan of. You've got this series on LinkedIn called Ask the Public and you're asking various people on the street, like what is the first thing they think of when they hear like, you know, marketer or a salesperson or LinkedIn. And it's not just this content's that funny, but a lot of your content is really, really engaging and funny. I mean, you did the series called SEO fella.

And it was like in black and white. You got like Tony Bennett in the background. You and Babyface, I don't know if that's a colleague or whoever, are like murdering this guy, putting a bag over his face and making it look like you're throwing his body over the roof and putting it into the car because he ratted you out to the Google police. And then you got like this SEO Superman guy too. Where is this coming from? Has this always been like...

I don't know, part of your creative approach and like, what's the process that you have in there? Do you devote like a certain number of hours a month to like producing this content?

Sam Dunning (20:06.3)
Yeah, I wish I could say that there was a perfect strategy that I followed, but there definitely wasn't. Like we've been messing around with these unusual videos on LinkedIn for at least two or three years. And like you say, we've done anything from SEO man, SEO police, SEO fellas, the SEO father. Like we've done so many spoofs and spin -offs over the years. And they're a combination of like me and at the time, some colleagues and my video guy who's a friend. Like often what we'll do is we'll...

meeting Costa or a coffee place, we'll brainstorm, we'll get the notepad out and we'll just come up with a load of ideas in the morning for like half an hour. And then the same day we'll shoot it, he'll edit it and we'll have it ready like within the day. So that's usually how we've done. Like that's what we've done for the one -off videos that you can find on the LinkedIn and the YouTube. And then the ask the public stuff that was very much like I'd seen on YouTube. I think there's a channel called the school of hard knocks where this guy just, his is a bit different. Like he goes up to folks in.

kind of really wealthy, wealthy areas in, in the States and ask them like, how did you build up a business and how did you like become an entrepreneur? And they share their secrets. And I thought, no one's done this in the B2B space. I could just ask random people on the street, like B2B marketing questions. And they'll be like, what the hell are you talking about? That could be funny. So it's just these kinds of things that I'm always trying to think. How can we differentiate? How can, what, how can I do something that's relevant to what we do at Breaking B2B?

but it's going to make people remember us, it's going to be funny and a bit different to what anyone else is doing. So I'm always brainstorming ideas and that asked the public seemed to do quite well on some of those questions. Like where I was just asking random people like, what is SEO or how would you get to the top of Google or does cold calling still work? Like I asked someone that was walking across a bridge, Hey sir, do you think cold calling still works? And he said, no, it bloody doesn't. I'm a policeman. Like you shouldn't do it. And I was like, Christ. So it's just, just good fun, man.

Eric M. (22:05.067)
Yeah, there was one guy, I think you asked him, like, you know, what is your, what do you think about LinkedIn? And he said something like, yeah, I don't think about it and I don't use it. And he just like walked off.

Sam Dunning (22:14.908)
Yeah. What do you think about LinkedIn? He was like, who's he?

Eric M. (22:19.979)
Yeah. Okay. Well, I think it's a brilliant series. And for those listening, if you haven't seen it yet, you got to follow Sam Dunning and catch some of that content. I feel like it does differentiate you with other people. Do you think it's helped in terms of like building your personal brand and getting you on another big podcast as a guest and maybe even like, you know, speaking events and things like that?

Sam Dunning (22:45.308)
Probably, probably a bit, probably a bit. I mean, these days, a lot of the stuff that I've done is just longevity and sticking things out longer than anyone else that's smarter than me would do. So a lot of the things that I've grown, like the podcast, literally when I started our podcast, like over four years ago now, Breaking B2B, folks were like, even some people that I liked, they're like,

there's no point in starting a podcast. It's a waste of time. Like you're not going to drive any business from it and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, fuck you. I'm doing this because I enjoy it and because I want to learn from people smarter than me. And eventually we tweaked it. We refined it over time and made it actionable. So I was doing solo episodes, sharing actual tips on websites, SEO, podcasting, interviewing marketing leaders, making new relationships, sharing their stories. And we were driving business through sponsorships, Rimbown leads, director breaking B2B. So.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things, right? I mean, can I directly attribute revenue to asking people on the street what they think about LinkedIn and SEO? Possibly not, but does it keep me top of mind when people need help with SEO? Yes.

Eric M. (23:53.835)
Yeah, but you know the other thing too is that over time you see somebody's content and over time if they're kind of like doing the same thing, talking about the same topic, utilizing the same format, you feel like, okay, I already know what they do, I already know what they're talking about and you kind of start to scroll past their content and not even care anymore. Whereas your stuff, it's refreshing, you know, it's new, it's funny, it's hilarious. And so I think that's one of the things that makes you stand out on LinkedIn versus other, you know.

creators in lack of a better word. Finally, rapid fire series. Sam, give me the first thing that comes pops into your head. Are you ready?

Sam Dunning (24:31.388)
Let's try it.

Eric M. (24:32.619)
Okay, the Academy Award for blank goes to Sam. Fill in the blank.

Sam Dunning (24:40.86)
Just say SEO. That's just not very original.

Eric M. (24:42.731)
Okay, all right. Okay, blank is how I want to be remembered.

Sam Dunning (24:54.268)
entertaining.

Eric M. (24:56.715)
Okay. What is the most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days, Sam?

Sam Dunning (25:04.892)
Most interesting, probably the ask the public videos, I think just because the reactions like we've done a lot of those over the last few weeks. That's fun.

Eric M. (25:12.491)
Okay. All right. Last question for you. Blank is an unusual food that you consume.

Sam Dunning (25:21.66)
This is the most unusual food I can chew. Not that much, I eat quite boring.

Sam Dunning (25:29.82)
trying to think of something unusual. But peanut butter and a rice cake, that was a bit different.

Eric M. (25:35.403)
Okay, that sounds pretty healthy actually. Yeah. I gotta give that a try like.

Sam Dunning (25:38.972)
ish.

Peanut butter's apparently really high in fat, but I love the stuff.

Eric M. (25:44.619)
Yeah. You know, when I first moved here to Bucharest, it was hard to find. And like after like a couple of months, I was craving it and I was like, where the hell can I get this thing? Finally, I found a place that sells peanut butter. It's not as good as the stuff back home, but you know, it works. Yeah. Sam, thanks for coming on the show. For those listening, I'm going to include Sam's LinkedIn profile and his website and podcast and the show notes. Sam, this was a pleasure chatting with you, man.

Sam Dunning (25:59.42)
Nice man, good find.

Sam Dunning (26:13.948)
Appreciate you having me on. Cheers.

Eric M. (26:16.011)
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. And for those listening, if you enjoyed this, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and tell others about it. And this is Eric signing off.