hey what's going on welcome to the
Duggar show my name is Doug Huntington
and in this episode i chat with Clayton
Johnson of the Hoth the Hoth is a SEO
company if you're unfamiliar they have a
suite of products they do link building
they can write content for your site
they do a lot of other specialized and
very useful things as far as ranking
your site and if you're into affiliate
marketing you probably maybe not but you
probably have heard of the Hoff one of
the really cool things that I learned in
this interview is that the 4-hour
workweek was sort of the genesis of
creating the Hoff and the Hoff is a
pretty damn big company at this point
they have 45 people and their offices
down in Florida in the st. Petersburg
area but they started with a couple
dudes in a you know apartment they were
working from home and they build it they
built this from the very beginning to be
you know scalable to have systems in
place and so that they wouldn't have to
remove themselves from the business like
Tim Ferriss did and the 4-hour workweek
all right so they they built it to scale
and they built it in the beginning so
that it would be the kind of business
that they would want to work for part of
that part of the value there is location
independence now of course they got the
people in the office but the founders do
have that luxury
in fact Clayton and I talked a little
bit about how some of the biggest growth
that the Hoth experienced was during a
period when he was out of the country
all right he I'm not gonna give away the
whole story but he left the country and
did a little soul-searching spent some
time internationally you know what
Clayton tell the story of course before
mention that number one I do use the
Hoth and I have been testing out
services
in 2019 in like the summer timeframe of
2019 specifically guest posting I'm
gonna be testing out a few other
products as well and it's important for
me to note that I was it yeah I'm paying
for the service right I paid for these
guest posts that I am checking out so
I'm not going to get any special
treatment or anything like that so
that's number one I am a user of the
Hoth the second thing and I'll share
some of the case studies and stuff so
that I can share actual results right
now I'm just you know testing things
I've used them in the past but I kind of
got away from using services but people
ask me about services all the time so I
want to be able to use services be able
to recommend them confidently and that
is why I'm checking out the hotha get so
that is point number one point number
two is I'm an affiliate for the hot so
if you were to purchase through my link
I really appreciate it and I would also
get a commission which I like I said I
appreciate it it's how I pay for the
hosting is how I pay for the equipment
this microphone and all the other
business that I'm doing here so just
want to note that I am an affiliate for
the Hoth and I'm disclosing that very
clearly right now so anyway thanks about
to Clayton for spending time with me if
you happen to be new to the show the
Doug show welcome
I appreciate it check out some of the
other episodes if you're into affiliate
marketing and SEO and stuff like that I
think you're gonna find some interesting
stuff and I hope you like it and I hope
you subscribe so let's let's talk to
Clayton hey what's going on it's Doug
Pennington here I'm with my friend
Clayton Johnson of the Hoth how are you
today
oh man I'm doing amazing how about
yourself I'm doing really well and I've
worked with a hoss for a long time
actually since I got started doing any
kind of internet marketing so I
appreciate you taking the time it's a
pleasure to speak with you and I'm
pumped to like have the hasan my channel
and all that kind of stuff
yeah me too thank you much
thanks so much for having me right on so
for the people that don't know you
personally Clayton can you give a little
intro and then sort of what you do with
the Hoff yeah yeah so where to start so
my name is Clayton Johnson I'm the CMO
chief marketing officer of the Hoth but
I've actually been around from the
beginning if anybody's never heard of
the Hoth before were an SEO company we
started as a as a link building company
then kind of expanded so we started in
2010 and we've really grown over the
last few years and welcoming us get
speeding nine years now that I've been
in this and now we have an office full
of forty-five people here in Florida and
we got hundreds of people across the
u.s. that are that are working for us so
yeah man it's been it's been a great
journey and yeah I do all the marketing
for oh so you you been with the Hoff
since the beginning in 2010 yeah exactly
cool so what was it like in the start
dude when it's when you're in a start-up
man it's like it's so much different
than it is now so we actually started in
Chicago and I lived there for five years
no the cold six 17-month winners but it
was just a few guys in an apartment and
we actually launched with just a youtube
video and that's kinda like boy what
it's like we had that really startup
lean scrappy mentality and just try to
get something out there and actually we
were so fortunate in that we we had a
product that connected with the market
we have just a simple like one link
building service and it was enough
revenue to say hey you know this might
be something might be something big so
we just invested in that kept growing
and I did did operations for that so I
if anybody's ever run a business you you
you know how like you do every single
thing in the business at some point so
yeah that's that's exactly what I've
done so yeah it started just like a few
guys and then we add a little bit more
people a little bit more people and then
you know a few years ago we kind of had
a break point where we just kind of
exploded so that's the whole the whole
entrepreneurial rollercoaster has been a
crazy ride man
I believe it so did you have like a well
how many people did you start with send
like two three guys yeah it was like
essentially like three people and then
we started yeah you know getting like a
little team you know essentially
contractors okay and then did you have a
background in SEO prior to that
hell no I had like no background in SEO
you know I went to school for like they
call it telecoms count like
communications and then I worked in a
t-shirt printing shop after that doing
web stuff and then started doing the hot
but I mean I think that's that's kind of
like how everything works now and what's
amazing about the time that we live in
is that most people whatever you're
doing you like there's a good chance you
did not learn that in school and
actually you learned so much more we
have so much access to learn anything
now even for free that you know it's
just a crazy time to be living it man
yeah for sure that that's pretty cool
just getting started out of an apartment
and then just organically kept pushing
did you feel like the dip of Seth Godin
Fame did you feel that dip early on or
it sounds like maybe it was pretty solid
at the beginning um can you tell me what
the dip is I read that book like 10
years ago
I forget okay well it's like when things
aren't working out do you need to move
on to a new project cuz it's a bad idea
or a bad fit or are you just in that dip
and once you push through then things
will work out you know I think that we
were we were really lucky and that we
did find product market fit like pretty
quick and it was it was enough to
generate revenue that you know it's a
sustainable business but at the same
time like I think everyone feels at
least some sort of did right like almost
all the time so I think we were very
fortunate and in that but but you know
like when the business isn't really
generating that much in the beginning
you're like is this like a real big
thing or is this just kind of like a
blimp is it gonna go away because we
didn't have recurring revenue you know
it wasn't like some businesses like
starter software and they they can
predict their revenues you know we had
like that one-time purchase type of
thing it's kind of like I mean if Philly
it's a lot of times like if you have
like
somebody might come and they might
purchase and then it's gone or the
website Dubes or whatever we felt that
kind of you know like we didn't have the
recurring revenue cell right gotcha and
then you mentioned at some point things
sort of popped like do you know what
that inflection point was what caused
that yeah yeah man well there was a lot
of things to say about when we went we
essentially in the last cent from 2014
to 2019 we have now 17 extra revenues so
that's like a 44 year period and when I
say 17 X you know if you were making
like a dollar in your 17 next it you'd
be making like $17 so let's just say we
started way above that
so we significantly significantly
improved our revenues and the thing that
caused it there's a lot of different
things that go into it but I think a
common story with everyone is that the
thing that most limits people or the
thing that really makes a big explosion
is almost always starts like internally
with yourself you know yeah there's that
that's exactly what happened to me you
know we ran a business and it grew and
it was doing is doing well but at a
certain point like kind of stalled out
right we were we're just a certain
revenue and we couldn't really get above
that and I felt that kind of not only
just in the revenue but I also felt like
my life like where are we going next
what am i doing all that kind of stuff
and then through the pain of Chicago
winters finally forced me to say like yo
something has got to change and so I
decided to not not do that anymore I
didn't want to I didn't want to live
anymore winter and I wanted to find
something and I didn't even know what it
was but the cool thing about you know
going looking for something is like
sometimes you find it right and so I
sold everything I had and I moved to
Columbia in South America and that was
October 2014 and right then I just start
like working on myself I started working
on like daily routines started working
on being like grateful I stopped
complaining like eliminated complaining
from my life not to say I never do it
I'd do it all time
you know it's like a goal so I really
worked myself personally and then and
then at the same time kind of started
setting goals and trying to figure out
like how to actually achieve those goals
and through that process I had like a
lot of realizations I kind of moved from
an operational capacity you know rent
running operations and to into marketing
and you know that was kind of the start
of everything I you can like literally
look at our traffic graph our revenue
graph and the amount of fun we're having
graph and they all look the same they
all go like this it hit the like late
2014 or early 2015 and just starts
skyrocketing so you know that that I
think that was a big catalyst is if
you're stalled out you know a lot of
times what you need to keep that next
level to figure out how you yourself can
get to that next level
I was definitely true myself interesting
and one I'm glad you brought it up
because before we started recording
everyone else who wasn't here basically
I was like hey you know st. Pete Tampa
traffic's a little rough and you're like
I haven't had a car in a while yeah she
told everything and blah blah blah that
was like whoa that's crazy so you're
telling me you moved in to Colombia for
a few years and then that's when the
business took off and you were working
remotely yeah oh I would say like look
there's there's a lot of different
elements to it you know I said I'm down
there but at the same time there's a lot
of other things that happen in the
business you know we were able to bring
on some really great people we were able
to expand the product line but for
myself personally that's how I see my
vision in like how I improved and I
would not I don't think it would be able
to be there I wouldn't be able to do
what I do now without having that
personal transformation so got it got it
cool so let's let's transition a little
bit because I know a lot of my audience
is interested in some of the technical
SEO stuff so we're just we're going to
knock out some of these babies here so
from an SEO standpoint in the Hoth like
how have you guys been able to stay
current from 2010 until the present with
algorithm updates and that you know
changing landscape of SEO that sort of
thing yeah man that's that's a great
question and yeah and you know that we
started since we started in 2010 like
right after 2010 that all the
sup dates of all time happened to panda
penguin all that kind of stuff
and it was like we started a business as
a link building business and it might
have been like the worst time ever to
start a link building business because
it was just raining fire um luckily you
know what happens is that you know to
some extent I do love this industry
because after those updates happen as he
was always band together and look at
data and figure it out and thanks to
what's happening now we have like these
companies like 80 trips that are putting
out like sick data and they have access
to it now we're doing less and less
guessing all the time so you know even
back in the day we had people analyzing
the the SERPs and figuring out how to
how to come come back from it or
whatever so we were able to survive
through all those when we when we
started like to expand the park line I
think that was like a big part for us as
well which is you know we're building
links we had this one link building
product and we started expanding into
like local citations and I think a big
transition happened when we started
expanding into content you know people
might have known us as a link building
company in the past but actually we sell
a ton of content we do a ton of content
and we kind of reinvented the process to
do it a little bit differently than the
typical content Mills and that's been a
you know doing that a little bit in a
little bit different way and training
the people that are coming on to be our
concentrators that really changed the
game and we the content became a big
part of it and then on top of that after
expanding all that product line we put
together you know a managed service and
that really catapult catapulted us into
like the next category because for the
most part I think that business owners
want to run their business and SEO is is
really a one part of marketing albeit
like a very strong powerful ROI positive
part but when people can get so many
times when we talk to clients they can
you so easily suck down in the details
it like they get so smart it prevents
their success you know what I mean so we
we created that service and now we can
actually help clients get today so they
don't have
so that evolution I think helped keep us
current got it and I was gonna say well
I didn't ask this earlier but that
original product can you in link
building strategy can you tell us what
that was is that proprietary sure yeah
well actually the the park was
originally called the Hoth which which
is a lesson if you're starting a
business you got to think bigger think
like you're gonna expand your product
line at some point okay because that
became confusing later on but yeah it
was called the Hoth now it's called hot
foundations and this essentially it was
very simple we're starting 2010 what we
do is we create a little bit of content
we put them on web 2.0 type properties
and we put your link in there and then
we power those properties up with
second-tier links and yeah that's pretty
much how it works it's very simple
strategy and it works great especially
for you know like for low budget you
know what I mean right it's an expensive
way to get links to your site cool and
just make sure I got it right and for
the other folks so you would create
maybe a few blogs like blogger WordPress
and put some content out there that's
relevant and then you have some link
there's some websites that you could
send links to those so they have some
authority behind them yeah exactly
that's exactly the strategy okay and
speaking of authority there's a lot of
different companies you mentioned age
rafts
there's Moz or a few of majestic which
metrics do you feel if you can say
because I know I'm sure you know people
at all the companies yeah which which
metrics for authority do you find the
most accurate you use in-house there um
well we we sell posts based on Moz
domain authority because that was kind
of industry standard for a while and
then after that you know internally we
use well first of all we have access or
we use all of the tools we use sem rush
eight revs we actually haven't used
majestic as much lately but we use both
SEM rush and a trips all the time uh I
loved for the last few years eight reps
it's just like smashed it I think my
opinion I love their stats you know
looks like from what they say they have
some of the best crawlers the most data
all that kind of stuff but I will say
that I've seen some studies now that Moz
has just got put their foot back in the
game and they're their new crawlers and
stats are amazing as well and then SEM
rush who was kind of like the the other
one that's in the game I stopped using
them for a while when I when a dress was
coming up and I know these features but
I've just been using SEM rush a lot more
lately because they've had a ton of new
stuff too so to be honest the question
is what is the most accurate I really
don't know I know that we use a dress
for the stats a lot but Moz is really
good too so cool and that's kind of
where I arrived to they have certain
strengths and you guys are obviously
doing a lot more throughput than I than
I am but yeah every every company seems
to have an area that they focused on and
like you said Age refs like up their
game their blog contents even better
they have so much more I think they're
crawling faster than Google I don't know
but even that they want to release their
own search engine no no no I didn't hear
that the founder was tweeting about how
he wants to create his own search engine
I was like dude they can probably do it
because they have so much data and they
know how yeah I mean it could be amazing
that would be great yeah Wow
so from a beginner standpoint can you
tell me the most common maybe mistakes
that a beginner may make from an SEO
standpoint yeah I think probably the
biggest beginner mistake that we see is
that people get their their own problems
that they're too smart for themselves
they will read and read and read and
read and read all kinds of articles and
they will forget to actually take action
and the reality is like you're not going
to become an expert by reading and
reading we don't get enough information
but we get so many people that can
probably talk me or talk talk about SEO
way more technically than I can but at
the end of the day you can go look at
the Hawks like as
traffic and you know we have over
$200,000 a month worth of SEO traffic
that's coming to our site and you know
so it's like it's more about taking
action than getting down in the details
I think people limit themselves by
trying to be too technical and and not
taking enough action that's probably the
biggest mistake that I see okay well you
took my next question which is how to
keep from getting overwhelmed because of
all the information in I think yeah like
spend some time studying and then you
can execute and see what's going on but
there's like unlimited information and
then you don't know how accurate it is
depending on who you're getting it from
yeah yeah exactly
and I mean the reality is that most
people show up this happens all the time
to me like most people show up in
they're very confident in whatever they
say and I find out that for myself which
I've had a lot experience in SEO for
like nine years and doing marketing and
all kinds of stuff and we run a
successful company and I find out that a
lot of the things that I'm very
confident in yeah I'm totally wrong and
the things that I think are never gonna
work then they just work this happens
all the time
so I've let my ego go and I focused more
on like let's just do stuff and then we
will look at the data later sort it out
later yeah it's how do we totally
understand that can relate not unguided
crazy person ah we have strategies we
think but I'm much more intent on like
taking action and trying things than I
am on like trying to get bogged down and
making everything exactly perfect for
sure for sure so from more advanced link
building standpoint as far as like link
building philosophy maybe for a brand
new site I guess what's the
recommendation from the Hoff we came to
you or if I came to you for like a
managed package like how would you guys
approach it yeah well like for the most
part I think the most important thing
for us at least is determining you know
what are you trying to rank for and then
looking at the data objectively to
figure out what it's going to take to
rank for that I think
a lot of people try something like this
where they go like I want to write for
this term and they'll be like a couple
links and they'll be like I'm not
ranking what happened and what we'd like
to do is look more at like for instance
and eight reps have a great feature you
go in there and you can look at how many
links are coming to the page
the top pages on our on page one or the
top three and see how many links they
have and see what the power and strength
of those links are and so if you can
look at the data more objectively you
say like the top three on average have
seventy links and you start now you just
built three links you got a little ways
to go in order to be able to actually
even compete and in the top one so like
that's for me that's like even more
important than the link velocities like
figure out objective like what is it
gonna take to even rank for this and
then after that I we've seen that at
least this is you know what we've seen
looking over like a ton of different
plans that we've actually had is that
consistency is is very helpful if you
are building your site
I would love from marketing to be like
this like build one link go up one one
space
it never is like that nothing is like
that from like email marketing to social
is never like that so what what I preach
is like consistency you need to be
building more content on building more
links every month and I'm less concerned
with that velocity now there's some some
more technical people out there that
have had some pretty good theories like
you know your your link building should
you can magnify it or you can increase
your velocity as you gain traffic as
that would be natural you know people
find anyway more people finding your
website what people could be linking to
it that would judge that the traffic
would justify the backlinks I think
that's a great theory but in my in my
opinion what I've seen is that those are
the two things that I would focus on the
most number one figuring out how many
links you're actually going to need and
then number two keeping on the
conceiving on consistency going to our
exact goal
got it it totally makes sense I mean
kind of kind of some of this stuff that
we were talking about where it's like we
were very confident about a certain
approach but then you could find
different instances and case studies
where it's disproved or an exception
it's like well it's really hard to tell
what's going on and we can frame the
story around it however we want and then
you end up like making bad decisions
so yeah which makes me like just come
back to that kind of like focus always
like focus on the cores and if you're
doing most of the cores right like
everything's gonna come up when you get
down in the details and try to figure
out everything I think is gonna lead to
like a lot of frustration right it's
pretty right so let's um get away from
some of the SEO specific stuff and I'm
interested personally on like you
mentioned Hoth traffic growing so much
over the last few years revenue followed
can you talk about some of that and like
would you guys do on the blog to get
that kind of growth yeah for sure
so kind of around early 2014 late 2014
sometime in 2014
same time when I would I moved crime
started thinking about this this problem
actually you've heard this phrase before
the the Cobblers children's have no
shoes I think every business owner feels
like that if anybody has never heard
that essentially means you're working on
your clients and they're getting very
success well if you look at yourself you
you're not getting the same success that
they're getting so this is very common
with like marketing companies so if you
looked at the Hoth traffic back in the
day you know like if we look like we
were didn't know what we're doing
because we weren't working on our own
site so what what kind of did I was like
we should probably rank for stuff to
prove to people that or a good SEO
company but I didn't necessarily focus
on like an awesome SEO strategy when I
first focused on was the actual content
that's gonna help the people I always
say like I'm really focused on who we
trying to help who's the avatar that
you're trying to attract gotta get to
know that person and what they care
about so that you can connect to them
through their content right so I start
with that before anything and so what I
would do is I would say what are the
things that they're they're they're here
right now and they want to get to over
here which I want them to get to a
purchase and right and so what are the
things that are stopping them from
to the purchase what are the questions
that doubts the fears that they have
before they can actually purchase or
start having success with SEO and so I
would listen to our sales guys calls and
like hear the same questions over and
over right and this happens in every
market that people before they buy like
a product they're gonna have like the
same like six questions that they won't
answer like which one is the best does
it have this well is the price worth it
on this one or whatever they have the
same questions over and over so if you
know what those questions are then you
can create content around them and that
can just shortcut them to to the actual
purchase right and so that's what I'm
focused on I start focus on what are the
questions that they're asking over and
over and over
I just wrote articles about those and
that was kind of the renewing of our
blog where I actually wrote it to our
customers and not just like blame
updates about the haul
so we started writing about stuff like
link building an anchor text selection
and how to avoid penalties and what's
the SEO strategy you should be using
things like that and that was kind of
like the beginning of the blog and then
after that we started creating tools and
tools were a huge one for us you know
sometimes when you talk about like link
building or linkable assets you know
people write ultimate guides and
ultimate guys are great and but for us
an addition to that there's a lot of
times we can make like a resource that's
not necessarily a regular article or a
big thing so for us tools were a big
resource that people could use and that
works really well in terms of like
ranking and getting people to link to
our sites people will totally link to
tools or resources um so that's kind of
how you know the the traffic exploded
but what what was kind of cool was about
that theory as we were testing on our
own site and our website we essentially
built links like consistently build
consistent content and then our traffic
exploded crazy enough building links and
content gets you really bigger hey it's
the two things yeah it's only two things
so we we kind of translated that that
strategy into our managed SEO product
and then we did the same thing with
bunch of clients
so I was really successful awesome yeah
and it's usually I mean we look for more
complicated answers because we we
imagine it must be complicated but it's
like showing up every day every week
like how long did it take before it like
popped by the way just curious
you know what I can't really remember
the timeline because like to be honest I
wasn't even doing it that consistently
in the beginning I wasn't blogged
consistently I was because it was all me
you know what I mean I was trying to
like run marketing make sure the
operations go on creating products all
kinds of different stuff not that I was
like the only person but I'm just saying
like Oh
as somebody like a business owner you
know you're juggling lots a lot of
different things so I don't think I was
even very consistent but if you do do it
consistently what we do see would like
our clients for instance is that you can
start seeing some pretty good results
within three months that's building like
every single month and then after that
you know to actually hit your goals it
just depends on how how competitive you
know it is well yeah if you do it
consistently for three months you can
it's kind of working out you know yeah
yeah yeah yeah yes you got to suspend
your disbelief for that period of time
is that that three months at first three
months when you're building canta
building links like that's the hardest
man because google has had enough time
to pick up your site and Google's just
seeing if you're gonna become an
authority or just like a little
rinky-dink site and and you guys suspend
your disbelief that it's it's not gonna
work and then just keep going and then
once you hit that mark Google like we'll
pick it up see that you're doing it and
they can just unlock the floodgates and
then it's just a lot easier after that
for sure and I mean I feel like it's
like that across the board for so many
things like you said working out or
whatever I've spent a lot of time on
YouTube and it's just like there's no
there's no inflection point it's just
like slow growth or at least for me
right at least for me I know some people
have had like explosive growth but if
you're just showing up making boring
videos like me then slow growth we're
competing with a lot of really funny
videos man I'm not that funny yeah but
you know we got this we figured out
clean and I figured out how to blur our
background so it and
smooth out our face I mean I yeah I I
look much better change right now I
should have prepared better but I'm
trying to grow a beard so I look like
you know not super clean at the moment
but trying to get this thing to go long
no that's good I don't know if that'll
work for Florida very well though but I
guess I mean you know if you had a big
beard before I've never had a beard so
it's new for me man okay it's coming out
pretty good I can't you see I'm like
follically challenged as they say but I
tried to grow a beard over the winter
because it was so cold up in Bozeman
like there's like negative 15 like
extremely very cold so it really helped
but it just looked patchy and I look
silly with a trying to grow a beard to
be honest with you but yours it looks
full and you know you got a solid set a
you know beard follicles so thank you
thank you yeah and I feel like sometimes
like you mean going along and you're
doing something for like a long time so
you gotta change it up and you just
gotta feel like you're ready for a
change of like many different things
like I started growing this out cuz I
moved back to the US a few weeks ago so
I was like that's another great time to
change that's cool that's cool and by
the it's funny just all of a sudden
we're talking beards but how long have
you been growing that I know
oh maybe like three weeks I'm like that
maybe right how far how far you gonna
let it go I don't know we'll see how
long get it man right that's cool that's
cool all right now speaking of Florida
speaking of is it st. Peter Tampa that
you guys aren't just like we're in st.
Petersburg which is like right outside
example if people don't know what st.
Petersburg is okay and I the reason why
I mentioned that is I saw best place to
work in in that area right you got voted
for that can you talk about that like
what's the deal with the culture there
and all that yeah yeah so for us yeah we
have won Tampa Bay one of the best
places to work for the last two years
and I think that that's really important
like as people grow their businesses you
know wherever out in your business you
know probably there's a good chance
you're gonna have to hire employees in
order to really achieve their full
vision and believe me that's even coming
from a in the Hoth was actually started
on the whole four hour workweek kind of
book as an inspiration like a lifestyle
business is actually
started like that and then as you start
helping people like the vision expands
and it changes what you actually want
but yeah so so from the beginning that
we thought that culture was like super
important you saw like what the Hoth
monster looks like you know it's a
little bit different than a typical like
swoosh logo SEO company and the the Hoth
is actually an acronym it stands for hit
him over the head and it's it's all
about like bludgeoning with awesomeness
or going above and beyond you know like
getting hitting somebody over the head
like oh man that was like an awesome
experience or that was like awesome
customer service I didn't expect that
or whatever it's about going above and
beyond and so we wanted to take that and
make it permeate through everything else
and so that's why we worked really hard
on on our culture we even have a culture
document that describes you know how I
wish operate as a country as a company
and actually wrote a post on if anybody
wants to check it out on Hoth cool but
um oh yeah that was baked in there and
like I feel like if you can take care of
your employees they're gonna take care
of your customers and so we bake that in
it's not just we want to help everyone
with SEO but we'll have a blast doing
that so I think all those things are
gonna help make like a successful
company right now you know in this kind
of climate very cool I know is well
obviously it's really hard to do that as
you're you're growing especially but
it's pretty amazing to have like such a
strong culture just I've worked at a
I've worked the big corporations for a
couple years before I got laid off and
you know you hear the culture stuff and
the culture document and it's just the
mission statement and all that kind of
garbage and you don't buy into and I
think with this like a company your size
right I can believe it but I was in
bigger company so I'm jaded like you
know you would expect and I think it
gets harder and harder as as you grow
bigger because you have so many
contingencies and different
personalities and kind of stuff when you
have five people man you got like a
killer culture because it's you and your
friends are your you know what I mean
but wouldn't once you start growing it
gets harder
what's cool about this is I think that
if you come in from the beginning and
you have that like we were we were lucky
to that I hate so many other things so
I'm like we'll never do that so you have
this like a strong base and the thing is
like when you put it out there to be
honest like we've had a culture talk for
a long time even before we had like a
bunch of employees but the thing is like
when people came in it was crazy because
they took it to heart like they actually
believed in it and the culture like
created a creature of his own
it was wild like when I came back here
his office actually started growing
while I was out of the country and it
was crazy when it came back I could you
see that everybody was like buying into
it and they were even taking it like a
step further it like created its own
monster so I think if you build a
company coming after they try like tack
on culture to it and like rah rah the
people like no one's gonna believe it
but if you start small like wherever
you're at and you build it now I think
that's like how you can do it I think
that's probably part of the reason that
it's been very successful here very cool
yeah that's amazing
now the Tim's like maybe you weren't
like there as much but I'm curious about
growing the the team and the HR aspect
of all of that can you talk about that a
little bit yeah yeah for sure so we
started as a virtual company and we were
virtual for many years we'd never had an
office or anything like that just worked
out of our homes or our friends homes or
whatever co-working spaces sometimes and
that was kind of cool as the team
started to grow you know as we started
adding more revenue it kind of became
more important that we actually have an
office as we want to add more team
members on and just for communication
and keeping everybody together started
to get like yeah needed that office and
we hired an Operations Manager and he
really just led the charge like if you
get those great key first employees like
I think those like some of the most
important and I'm sure everyone's
business operates much more differently
than mine
that was one of the most key hires we've
ever done is an office person and by
operations I mean like okay doing the
marketing of doing this you're the guy
that makes sure that everything runs
okay
like if customers are contacting you or
things are going down and the website
goes down or whatever you're gonna be in
charge of making sure that everything
keeps running right so trying to make it
simple people can relate to this because
I have no idea little businesses they're
gonna so um so we hired that like ops
guy he's he he had experience you know
he came in and he had experience like
hiring people and just took our team and
found where we needed people and was
just able to take you know take our team
from like six people in an office to
like 20 in the space of a year and then
in the next like a couple years you know
two to 45 here in the office so I think
like those key hires were there and it's
just finding that right person at the
right time to be able to like help you
out with that and help you scale where
you need to where you don't even have
the eyes like that that was like a key
thing for us awesome see and I think
maybe another point is like you got
someone who was experienced in an area
that I don't know even if you you've you
guys had the skills already you maybe
didn't have time to execute on it so you
had someone that knew how to run a shop
right oh yeah exactly and you know it
sounds crazy but like I couldn't think
of a better person to be to be running
our company now or he's a CTO oh the
chief of operations now but he actually
came from Target and he'd be like dude
you hired someone from Target right what
was kind of crazy is like you start
after hiring a lot of people start
seeing these interesting things it's
like with hiring someone from Target
that's somebody that can that had
corporate development that was able to
grow quickly through they understood
bigger structures they hired and fired a
lot of people they grew through
different teams and became managers and
stuff like that so there's one of those
skills that is irrelevant whether SEO is
important or not he was able to come in
and figure out oh we're gonna need
capacity over here and I have the
experience and the confidence to be able
to execute those things and I've
actually noticed that about a lot of our
best employees our best employees are
not when you think about like hiring the
best SEO or
best PPC or whatever you go out there
you look for that that person and a lot
of times you know that that can be very
hard to do and those people are very
very expensive or Authority the best do
they're good they don't want to work for
you
in hello so what I've actually found
like some of the best the best employees
that we've had at our company are not
what you typically think it's more about
the person that under a lot that is
underlying you know what is their
attitude what is their work style they
they came from Target
they were previous babysitter's there
are previous people that are from rock
bands like literally there's some of the
top people at our company they can come
from anywhere and it's so much more
about the core of the person and the way
they approach their work and their
responsibilities than anything else that
can supersede almost anything yourself
very interesting I did a lot of guest
posting in the past right and I was
nervous to hire anyone who said they
knew SEO because you don't know like the
practices that they're gonna use so I
just hired my writers to do it who could
communicate follow directions and send
emails which is a lot of like what you
know working online is and they they did
awesome they knocked it out of the park
they did way better than anyone else so
I would recommend yeah like you said
looking at the person their core sort of
skills at a higher level like if someone
can follow directions and they're
willing to learn and they're flexible
like that's usually pretty good and then
you needed someone who had you know the
I guess like experience working with an
org chart and like navigating the
politics that that just are inherent
with company as it's growing so very
cool you said something like that's
super perfect which is we you try to you
try to hire from within or we try to
promote from within so like for you you
said that you took your writers that
were good at doing emails and turn them
up and that we've seen the same thing
some of the fastest growing people at
our company they start and support which
is like you know you would think it's
the most like boring basic and it is but
the people that can survive support are
you know they have all the skills in
terms of like you know getting to impact
and being nice to people when they're
they're not happy or being able to solve
problems understanding all the products
and all the contingencies and all kinds
of different stuff so they're like
really set up to just like like excel in
the company and what I love if I need a
new team I love picking people that have
been through that so if you have a
company hiring and promoting from within
I think that's like a jackpot
definitely definitely so a couple
products like we were chatting
beforehand and I know there's a couple
products that I haven't seen before I've
used the foundation from back in the day
some guest posts and stuff even that I'm
testing out right now but the products
are sorry the syndication product that
you have can you talk about that a
little bit and then I'll sort of I'll
ask like sort of the common questions
that may come around from that so yeah
hot syndication it's a new product that
like super excited about um I'm excited
to see what people do with it um so if
you never to contest indication before
it's not really talked about that much
in the SEO industry but in like the
publishing industry it's a huge huge
thing and essentially what it means is
like you can take your client your
content that exists on your website or
our pre-existing content and you can get
it published on all sorts of different
domains
you know like publishers news sites all
kinds of stuff like this and I know what
most people probably thinking they're
like duplicate content red flags are
going off in your mind right now and you
can't even think until we address this
duplicate content thing so so yeah
actually Moz has a great video on this
and actually put it even on the sales
page because under everyone's who's
connected with the content so there
there are we there's a lot to say about
duplicate content but it kind of boils
down to this is like duplicate content
has a lot of misconceptions and I think
that if you put duplicate content like
everything is going to burn it's not
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