Craig Campbell SEO 2026 Predictions And Trends

Executive Summary — Craig Campbell on SEO in 2026

Summary of Craig’s Philosophy for 2026

• Do not cling to outdated SEO tactics; evolve with technology.
• Diversify how and where you drive visibility.
• Build a personal brand and network widely.
• Embrace AI, automation, and new search paradigms.
• SEO is broader than just Google — it’s an ecosystem of discovery.

Interview on Divramis.com (DIVRAMIS SEO AGENCY) with Craig Campbell, seasoned SEO expert (25+ years) and entrepreneur.

Main Focus:

Craig Campbell doesn’t lay out a strict list of numbered “2026 trends” but instead shares insightful perspectives on how SEO is evolving and how practitioners should adapt. His key predictions and observations emphasize broad shifts in the SEO landscape, especially around AI, visibility strategy, personal branding, and diversification of traffic sources.

 

Key Points

1. SEO Is Evolving, Not Dying

Craig stresses that SEO isn’t disappearing — it’s changing significantly. Practitioners must embrace new technology (especially AI) rather than resist it.

• AI automation, AI search interfaces, and changing user behavior are reshaping how visibility is achieved.
• Clinging only to “old SEO” tactics (like pure link building or traditional keyword stuffing) won’t be enough.

Takeaway: Adaptability and willingness to evolve are essential.

2. Multi-Source Traffic Is Critical

Craig emphasizes that relying just on Google organic search is increasingly risky. He points out that traffic now comes from multiple sources — including AI platforms, social media (e.g., TikTok), YouTube, email lists, and even Reddit.

• SEO today includes optimizing for all places users can discover content — not only search engines.
• Diversifying traffic sources insulates businesses from shifts in any one platform’s algorithm or policies.

Takeaway: SEO success in 2026 means broad visibility, not just Google rankings.

3. Personal Branding & Networking Matter

Craig repeatedly highlights personal branding and networking as powerful levers for long-term success. He talks about:

• His own brand (YouTube presence, global speaking) as a key asset.
• The importance of attending events and building real connections rather than waiting for clients to find you.

Takeaway: Who you are and who knows you can be as important as what you optimize.

 

4. AI & Future SEO Strategies

Although not listed as bullet trends, Craig acknowledges that SEO in 2026 is heavily influenced by:

• AI search and automation, including how content is found and summarized.
• New optimization frameworks like AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) that go beyond traditional SEO.

He emphasizes the importance of learning and applying these new components to stay current.

Takeaway: Today’s SEO includes AI inputs, outputs, and optimization for AI-driven discovery.

 

Craig Campbell SEO 2026 Predictions And Trends Full Transcipt

 

321, and we’re live. Hello. Hello to everyone. This is Yannis Dviramis from Diramis SEO agency or divramis.com. And for the first time for the greek market, we have the superstar of SEO, Craig Campbell, directly from Glasgow, Scotland.

Yeah. It’s you can see the weather. I’m not in any kinda sunny environment, but, yeah, it’s home. Thank you, Craig, for having you. For the first time in the Greek market, I think, there will there will be a translation also with AI.

Not good. But We’ll see how that we’ll see how that works out. Okay.

So, the first question is, who is Craig Campbell? What do you do?

So I’ve been in the SEO space for twenty five years. I have had an agency. Well, I’ve I’ve been a freelancer, then I went on to building up an agency. And then about fifteen years into my career, I decided that doing client work was no longer for me. I see it as a an apprenticeship.

So the first fifteen years of my career, I was learning, developing my SEO skills. And then from there, I pivoted towards working on my own projects and doing affiliate marketing for the last ten years. So completely flipped away from from doing client work to becoming my own client, if you like. So, you know, relying on myself to make money rather than making money for other people. And, that’s that’s where I’ve been for the last, ten years doing affiliate, building ecom stores, buying and selling websites, investing in some stuff.

And, I’m not saying everything’s been a huge success by any stretch of the imagination. You know, I’ve entered niches that I shouldn’t have entered. I have done deals with people I shouldn’t have done deals with.

So it’s it’s been a long journey, but, like I say, twenty five years in and, you know, through all of the the good, the bad, and the ugly, I I now have a very, specific approach to how I make money online, and and that’s doing it for myself rather than for you or for another guy who has other products or services. So, that’s where I make my money.

Exactly. But, I see here your website, that is craigtumbledseo.com. Yep. Yeah. And you have some link building packages.

So you’re still are you still working with clients?

I’ve got I I own a link building agency. I don’t personally someone else runs that for me. So, obviously, for someone like me who has a following and expertise, yeah, I I still have very specific services that, one of those is link building. You know, we have a link building agency called linksforyou.com, and that’s been around for around eight years.

I am obviously the owner and the face of it, but I am not sitting there personally doing links. You know, my my brother-in-law actually runs that for me. So, yeah, you’ve obviously got to, utilize the the exposure and stuff that you have. And, yeah, we do we do bits and bobs. You know?

I do certain things. I do a lot of consultancies still. I do a bit of reputation management work because I enjoy that, and we we do have the link building agency. Yeah. So indirectly, you know, I don’t have anything to do with the clients.

You know, it’s not me that goes on the calls. It’s not me that does the links. It’s not me who does the support. That’s all done by, my brother-in-law. So he he manages and runs that business.

Are you working with other brands?

Alright. So you’re not running any SEO agency, but you’re using your personal branding Yeah. To build or to run to have other people run many businesses you have. Yeah. And also, I work with other brands like Odys Global.

You know, over the years, I have, again, leveraged my brands to help build their brands. So, you know, it’s the same same method. You know, I I work with currently with GoHighLevel as well. Again, more from a promotional standpoint, using my following and educating people as to why you might want to to use GoHighLevel and stuff like that.

So, yeah, I do a lot of brand deals with people and obviously being on YouTube, having a social media following, having a big mailing list, speaking at conferences, I’m able to highlight certain things that still are hugely important from an SEO perspective.

You know, it’s not like, I would promote some shite. You know, link building is still an important part of SEO. Digital PR is still an important part of SEO and, you know, even, you know, filling out the LLMs with information. Digital PR works really well. So, you know, I lend my hand to some of my own brands, but also I do work with, other SaaS companies and and other digital marketing agencies.

But I, again, am not doing the fucking work. You know? Like, oh, this global, my face is on it. I can talk about the benefits of aged domains and the services that they provide. But if you go to them, it it it’s not me you’re talking to.

It’s obviously their staff, their team, their products, and everything else. So, yeah, you you see my face on a lot of things, and some I own. Some I just collaborate with other people. But, again, I’m very, very selective on who I work with, what I’ll promote, and and whether I’m offering value as a a person, you know, whether that be, you know, link building or or reputation management or whatever. So, yeah, there’s still bits there where, yeah, I use my face to to make some money.

How about the Odys Affiliate Programme

Right. So what is the the Odys link? What’s the what? Sorry. The Odys affiliate link you have.

Odys.cc. Odys.cc is is my affiliate link. I’ve you’ve done some research. Yeah. You know, we you know, I I I didn’t necessarily do odus as an affiliate.

As such, they were they were my YouTube channel sponsor, but they wanted to track who was coming from where. And the easiest way was for me to build a brand saying go to odys.cc so that they could see what was coming verbally from YouTube because not everyone clicks on an affiliate link to hear odis, and they just Google odis and go there direct.

And I and I’m not getting the kudos that I should be because they heard me talking in YouTube, and they just googled it and went there. So that’s why we we cleverly came up with the idea of odis.cc, and we I’ve verbally said that on videos or at conferences or whatever it may be. So, yeah, that way and that obviously diverted onto my affiliate link.

But, yeah, people just thought that that was the the brand name. So, yeah, it was kind of affiliate, but it was more for the oldest perspective. They wanted to track how valuable or where people were coming from because they were sponsoring the YouTube channel. They it wasn’t an affiliate deal, but they just needed somehow to know are these motherfuckers coming from Craig, or are they coming from some of the other marketing things that these guys do? Because they they’re all over the place.

Yes, Craig. And there are many copycats SEOs around there. And, I had my own link as well that is odys.click. But there’s an odis.cc. So if you wanna buy eight domains from Craig, you have to visit odis.cc.

But if you prefer me, that I’m a poor SEO man. No. I cannot compare with you. You can click on odys.click.

Correct? Yeah. That it works out well, and it worked well for me. I I can’t say otherwise. So we’ve done well.

Okay.

How do you feel when you go to meetings and, interviews to other YouTube channels?

Because I noticed that you have a huge following everywhere. It’s 1,240,000 subscribers in your YouTube channel, while mine has only 253. But but you said yes.

When I asked you about the interview, you said yes. Why? Why? You know, we’ve obviously met in person. I don’t do a huge amount of interviews with other people.

I’ve done certain podcasts and stuff. But if I meet someone in person and they’re pleasant, polite, and, you know, I’ve met them and and listen. I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve I’ve, you know, I started my YouTube journey nine, ten years ago. You know, if you look at my YouTube channel now, yes, I’ve got a nice following, but I have done hundreds of podcasts.

I’ve done thousands of videos, on there, and I know it’s a hard slog. You know, interviewing people, trying to get people on, it’s fucking hard. So I’ve been in your shoes, and I like to give back to other people because you’re now starting your YouTube journey. You’re starting a podcast, and you’re wanting to to to get people on that can talk some sense. And I’ve I was there.

I’ve done that, and I asked people, can you come on my podcast? Can you come on here? Can you come on there? And, you know, a lot of people did say, fuck off. I’m not interested.

Go away or just ignore me. And I try not to be that guy. Now, of course, people jump into my Instagram and, and ask me and all that stuff, but I’ve met you several times and, you know, we’ve had little conversations. And, you know, the the biggest thing for me is I met you in Greece, right, when I came to did did I meet you in Greece, or did I meet you somewhere else? And I know I met you in Chiang Mai.

But where are you in Greece as well? No. No. It was in bar Barcelona. Was it in Barcelona?

2022. So I’ve met you a handful of times. And then when I met you in Chiang Mai, and then you you asked me, I’m like, that. And and, you know, the biggest thing for me is I can see you, traveling to different events to network. And for me, I’ve been there as well.

You know, I traveled to Chiang Mai when I was, you know, earlier on in my career, met some great people, meet some contacts. But you’re investing your time and your effort into, one, attempting to do YouTube, and, two, you’re going out there and meeting people with your own eyeballs. Now it costs you money to go to Chiang Mai to network and everything. So I have a lot of respect for people who do that, and they actually go out and try and engage in conversation as opposed to someone who I’ve never spoken to, never met, that slips in my fucking Instagram or my Facebook and says, hey, man. I really want to leverage your fucking audience.

Can you fucking come and talk shit for an hour? I could, but why should I? Who are you? I’ve never met you. I don’t know who you are.

I don’t know if you are just one of those guys who do a couple of YouTube videos and then move on to another job. Whereas I’ve seen you at multiple events, and you’re spending money trying to to become better and learn and network and everything. So I’ve got a massive respect for, what guys like us do because I’ve been in your shoes as well. And I’m still in your shoes. You know, I still go to events, still network.

It’s the same thing. But, obviously, I’m older. I’ve done it for longer. So I I I’m You’re not older. You’re not older.

I mean, not older. But yeah. So older. I’ve got but no. I I respect, that.

So why it’s easy for me to say yes to you because I have I see what you’re doing, and I respect the fact that you’re spending money trying to do it. So I’m like, fuck it. If I can help you in any way and I see what you’re doing, I I will absolutely, say yes to to anyone like that. Whereas there’s a lot of people out there who just want to leverage me. They don’t try and engage in conversation.

They don’t travel anywhere. They’ve never bought anyone a beer. So why why should I? So, you know, that’s the honest answer, mate. Like, I’ve been in your shoes, and I fully respect guys like you and the many others who travel around and pay money to network and stuff.

So I’m like, yeah. Fuck it. If I can come on here and, you know, lend a hand and and, you know, help you gradually move up a step and and, you know, the same with other people who come on your podcast, then, you know, you will get there. But it’s a hard slog, and and I respect it. So that’s why.

Yes. I would like to say a small comment about, the first time we met, we were on, a field called Barcelona. You were they were sponsoring your channel to promote them, and you have a very intensive, how can I say, presence on the social media, especially in the their Facebook ads Yeah? If you if you remember that. Yeah.

And it was in a a place in the bar, after the event. And I asked you, how can we do a collab or an interview in YouTube for sometimes, not for once. You know? Yeah. I’m just from Greece, don’t have any traction like you.

And you said yes. It’s doable. I exactly remember that. And after that, I left Barcelona. And instead of starting, some podcast with you or doing SEO, I keep doing SEO, but I got into crypto.

Yes. Thousands of videos. The results, after three years in crypto, I lost 150 k euros. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. That that’s true. I had to put down thousands of videos because I was doing four lives per day about getting the crypto, getting crypto because it was a scam. Company closed, and we lost some millions. K?

Yeah. And, what what was the result? I thought, worst ex exactly in the day one, I met again Craig on Chiang Mai SEO  and asked him, can we do an interview? And he said, yes. Again.

So let’s start doing it because after three years of mistakes, huge mistakes Yeah. Costly mistakes. And we’re still have my health, still have you. Yeah. Listen.

Why l promoted WPX in CM SEO 2026?

I think, you know, we’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all invested in the wrong stuff. That’s part of the apprenticeship, so to speak. You know, you live and learn, and it’s horrible, you know, losing huge amounts of money. But I think anyone in business has had a similar similar experience.

We can’t win every time or every opportunity that we go, and it’s nice to be able to take the hit and then try and come back and try something else. So, again, massive, massive respect for that. You know, I obviously go on podcasts and I talk about, you know, making money and ranking well and everything else. A lot of people don’t tell you that they failed countless amounts of times. I have failed way more times than I’ve been successful, and lost a lot of money and equally spent a lot of money on the wrong stuff.

You know, guys are going, oh, you need to do this, and I spent a fuck ton of money on that strategy and it doesn’t do shit. So it’s similar. You know, it’s everything’s a gamble in life and, you know, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it’s how you come back, from that and, you know, if you can come back. Because there’s so many people out there who take one hit and they’re down, and they never they’re too scared to step back up and try a different route. So, again, it it shows the type of person that you are, to to be able to lose significant amount of money, but you’re still going and trying to do different shit even if you go down away from crypto and down the SEO path or whatever it may be.

So like I say, it’s it’s a common thing to happen, but not a lot of people are able to push themselves and keep going. Right. I would like to ask one more question. I saw you in Chiang Mai in the conference speaking there with a T shirt of WPX. Yeah.

Everyone started laughing, right, about the overpromotion. You you always Campbell said, maybe if we look at the his socks, it will be GoDaddy socks. Or his his underpants will be some of the girls, you know, always. No. The the WPX thing, the the guy that owns it, Terry Kyle, is a legend of the SEO space.

He used to do what I’m doing years ago. You know, he’s one of the the OGs of SEO. He used to do all the speaking shit, and I I use him as a host. And, obviously, he’s made a lot of money, but WPX and and, you know, there’s a charity that was on the back of the T shirt, his dog charity. And, you know, you get offers all the time of people saying, oh, can you wear this?

Can you wear that? And all that stuff. And, you know, I think Terry does good things for charity, certainly with his dog shelter that he’s got out in Bulgaria where where a lot of dogs are mistreated and, you know, it’s kinda sad. So I don’t really want to be the promotional guy all of the time. The reason I said yes to Terry was because it was a charity that that was being promoted.

And I think, you know, if you’re on stage and you’re getting photographs taken, and I didn’t charge him a penny for it. You know? It’s not something I’ve done to make money. I’ve done it to try and help his charity. And I thought, you know, this is the right thing to do.

He asked me if I could do it, and I said, yeah. Fuck it. Why not? You know, I I’ve got no financial gain from it. But WPX are a good hosting company, and I think the charity is a a good thing.

And I think aside from that, that’s what Terry does with a lot of his time is spend a lot of money doing charitable work. So not everything’s about making money or promote, promote, promote. You know, there was a charity aspect of that there, that that appealed to me. Because, dude, I get, I don’t know, 20 emails before an event like that saying, could you wear my t shirt? Could you promote this?

Could you promote that? No. You know, I can’t go on stage promoting, promoting, promoting, you know, because no one likes that. You know, I’m I’m trying to be funny, trying to be engaging, I’m trying to to to give you ideas, strategy, and and, you know, I’m trying to mix all of that. And I don’t wanna be up there saying, hey, guys.

You need to buy SEMrush. You need to buy Ahrefs. You need to do WPX. You need to buy from Otus. That doesn’t come across well.

So I don’t wanna be that guy. But if there’s a charity or something where I’m like, nah. I can use my exposure to even if I made them an extra $50, from the exposure, from that event, I’m a fucking happy man, because some some charities got the money. No no SaaS companies get the money. No someone selling shit products has got the money.

So, that’s why I’ve done it from the the charitable side of things. Yep. No offense made. Some questions are a bit hard, but I’m done trying to fench you, to offend you. Sorry.

Are you like an SEO superstar or actor Craig?

And another question that I have is, the first impression that when I show you is this man has huge potential because he’s like a comedian. Mhmm. Like a TV star. You know? It’s not a typical SEO professional that is, with a huge ego.

I know everything. I can do everything. Ask me. Yeah. Because and, that that attracts me to you on the first place.

Do you consider yourself like a brand now?

And, you know, I have read also the gaming book there. Yeah. You you you weren’t, in the book, but someone mentioned you and you say that you are an SEO authority. Yeah.

Like, you know, I work in the iGaming space absolutely. I I chose not to write in the iGaming book because I I I don’t I’m I’m careful in terms of what I want to say in the iGaming space. One, because of legalities in the markets and everything else that you do. You know, gambling is illegal in certain countries. So I chose not to do the iGaming book because I don’t want to have a target on my back.

You know, if I talk about a certain strategy or a certain country that we make money in, then the government or the the the people in charge can go, there’s that motherfucker in a book that’s telling everyone it’s easy to make money in an illegal country. So I kinda stepped away from that book. But to answer your question, you know, yes about a personal brand. No. I am not a a know all.

I if I’m not good at a specific thing, then I will either learn it or I’ll pay the right person to do it. You know, there’s certain guys in the SEO space, who could absolutely wipe the floor with me. You know, Corey, for example, you know, that guy is a geek. And I mean that with a massive amount of respect. That guy is a geek when it comes to, semantics and all of the stuff that he does, you know, reading all the Google patents and all of the understanding that he has.

You know, it’s next level freak show stuff. Now no one can go and learn that and link building and run a business and do all of the other components from an SEO perspective. No one can be a master of everything. You’re always gonna have to build a team. You’re always gonna have to delegate and stuff like that.

So, you know, many years ago, I decided, do you know what? I can’t be the the I mean, I’ve I’ve been in the SEO space for twenty five years, and absolutely, I’ve got a lot of experience and have done a lot of things and and, you know, understand probably more than most from an SEO perspective.

But it’s all about delegation for me

It’s all about return of investment. It’s all about scaling a team and getting people to do the work that I need to be done.

I fully respect what Corey does, but I’m not gonna sit there and geek out reading Google Patents and fucking, you know, digging deep into that because that’s a full time job. I then wouldn’t have the ability to run a business, to go and do everything else that I do. So you have to choose the path that you want to go down on. And, obviously, yes, I am seen as a funny guy. Yes.

I do stand up comedy aside from SEO. You know, these are all things that I’ve developed. And, you know, when you say I’m funny, that’s not something, I mean, I’m I’m naturally quite a funny guy. But when I was doing SEO speaking, I’m thinking, how how do I stand out from the other guys that are on stage? And I went away, and I I paid a stand up comedian to teach me Sorry.

We’ve lost Craig. Maybe we can reconnect again. I will try to reconnect. Just a just a moment to yeah. Exactly.

Sorry. So sorry we lost you for a for a moment. Sorry. Well, I’ll do that again. I’ll just record that, but, again, you can cut that out.

Stand Up Comedy Helped me in Public Speaking Events

So what what I was saying there, was when I was speaking at conferences, I was new. I was learning how to speak, but I wanted to stand out from the crowd. So I went and spoke to a comedian, who trains people to be funnier and and understand comedy. And I went away, and and I was doing that to better my speaking skills and have a better stage presence and everything else. So these are all things that I done for personal development reasons to become a better speaker, a funnier speaker.

You know, I know, the personality. People buy into people. You you could talk. There’s guys that stand on the stage, and, yes, they’re super, super geeky, super, super technical, and whatever else, but they’re boring as fuck to watch, and no one in the world has the attention span to sit there, or not many people have have the attention span to sit there like geeks. More people respond better to funny, short, sharper insights.

So, you know, it’s been a very deliberate thing for me to to be that way, because it works for me. People like it, and and they gravitate towards personality or or a bit of fun as well. And, obviously, it helps me stand out, from a lot of other people as well because people say, oh, that was the funniest and and, you know, most engaged talk. Sure. You could argue that I may not have technically the geekiest level of information, but I don’t wanna be that guy.

If you want that, go fucking listen to Corey. You know, so there’s different, When you say Corey, you mean Coray? That’s the guy. Corey. Yeah.

Corey. Okay. So, so, you know, if you want that, there’s different people for certain things within the industry. So if you want Next Level Geek, Google Patent, in-depth fucking super technical stuff, you can go and listen to him. But we can’t all be like him is the point.

You know? That would life would be boring. So, you know, I’ve always went down the route of trying to to, be informative, trying to be transparent, and everything else, and and also add a bit of fun and a bit of humor, and also, you know, talking about failures and shit that have blown up. And and, you know, it worked well for me because people go, oh, you know, you’re funny. You’re engaging.

We like that style. So, yeah, it’s you know, there’s there’s place for everyone in the industry, and it’s just finding who you are and what you want to be. But no one, and I mean no one in the industry is a know all. Everyone is still learning. There’s new shit coming out.

 

You’ve got to constantly embrace the algorithm updates

AI’s coming out. You know, you’ve got to constantly embrace the algorithm updates, technology changes, and everything else. So no one really is a know all, so there’s no point in pretending to be that guy. You know, that’s that’s my thing. So, yeah, I try and stay in my lane, do what I do, and and it seems to to work out well in my favor.

Exactly. And, one thing that you remind me is, mister Bean in SEO. Mister Bean. Rowan Atkinson. Everyone thinks he’s an idiot, but he’s a millionaire, multimillionaire Yeah.

If you have to start from scratch in SEO what would you do?

And genius. Yeah. And let’s say that, you lose everything. Yep. Something happened, and you have to start again from the start.

Mhmm. In SEO industry again, what will you do? What was the first step? I think it’d be very easy. You know, if I lost everything, I’ve still got my personal brand.

You know, if I had to start again tomorrow, I could I could go sell links. I could go sell content. I could go sell strategy. I could go sell consultancy. I I could go and start a SaaS.

You know? There’s so many things, you know, building a brand. Even if I was to feel Google slammed every website I had, I still got the personal brand. I’m still gonna be able to to to make money. I would still be able to do brand deals.

You know, so those those The question, correct, is that you’re nobody again. That’s the time twenty five years ago. Yeah. You’re young younger. Sorry.

You’re still young. But I’m still start from point zero. What will you do? I would go out and do the same thing again. Hustle, go network, go speak to people, get my face out there.

You know, it’s got it’s hard. You know, when you start out, no one knows who you are. No one wants to talk to you. You have no friends. You have no proof that you know what you’re talking about.

But you have to get out and demonstrate that. Talk to people. Have conversations with people. Network. Fucking learn.

Hustle. Speak, sell, all of these things.

You know, you can’t sit in your room not talking to people and expecting local businesses to come and drop in your lap saying I want SEO or whatever it’s gonna be. You have to get out there talking to people, networking. Go to events.

Start fucking making friends, doing podcasts. So that would be one of the first things I would say. Get out and network because I see so many people. A lot of people come to me for advice, training. I’ve got more masterminds, and they’re all going, Craig, how do I get more clients?

Well, fucking go to Chiang Mai. Start talking to people. Show them you know what you’re talking about because there’s so much money out there. People need good people. They can’t find them.

You know, they don’t know where because, you know, although there’s a lot of SEOs out there, there’s not many doing great work, in all honesty. You know, there’s a lot of fucking jokers out there who charge too much or don’t do good work or they’re too lazy to work. So there’s plenty of money out there. If you’re really good at what you do or really have good knowledge and you had to start again, go start talking to people. Get your face in front of the right people.

Network with people. Spend your money on that rather than sitting going, what am I gonna do to make money? You can send emails. You can fucking drop into people’s Facebook Messenger. No one cares.

If you’re not known, no one cares about you. It’s very, very hard to even get a hello back from someone in Facebook Messenger. If you just slip into someone’s thing happens to me all the time. Hi, Craig. I’ve got a question for you.

Block. Block. Block. Block. That’s all I do because I don’t know them, and I can’t be fucking arsed engaging in a five, ten minute conversation asking me how my family is.

You don’t care how my family is. You want something, just fucking ask for it straight away. Know, people are not direct enough, but people don’t want that in their messenger. If you meet me in Chiang Mai or you’re in Barcelona and I see that you’re there and you take the time to come up and say, hi, Craig. Blah blah blah blah.

Can we do a podcast? Can we can I talk to you for ten minutes about whatever? Sure. I’ve I’ve no problem. I’m there to do that shit.

But don’t slip in my inboxes and do not be trying to sell to me when I don’t know you. Come and fucking meet me in person, and I can speak to you. I can talk to you. I can ask you questions, and then I’m more likely to respond. So my advice to to myself or anyone starting out, get up off your ass and start networking and talking to people.

Even if it’s locally, go to your local networking events, local meetups, local fucking SEO conferences. You know, you I know, certainly from Greece, there’s not a huge amount of those and you guys have to travel around a little bit more. But, dude, that’s the same for me in Glasgow. You know, Glasgow doesn’t have SEO conferences or SEO meetups. I had to travel down south to do all of that stuff.

I had to travel the world. I had to go to Shanghai. I had to go to fucking India. I had to go to America and and, you know, all over Europe. I’ve been to Athens last year.

I’ve been all over. I had to go out and fucking work my shit. You know? So it’s that’s why it’s easy for me now because I’ve got the personal brand, but I have spent a lot of money traveling the world and speaking to people and doing all of this stuff that that I would do again. Absolutely.

And it’s something I didn’t do at the start, Yanis. At the start, I sat there going, why is no one phoning me? Why is all these clients not fucking landing my doorstep? I’m the best SEO in the world. Why is fucking no one coming to me?

No one knew who I was. No one gave a shit about who I was. I wasn’t talking to anyone. I was sitting behind my agency waiting, and my ego was there and all of that stuff. You know, you have to and that’s where experience tells you, go fucking network.

And that it’s the easiest thing in the world to say, go fucking network. But no one does it. No one can be fucking arse well, to say no one does it is a lie. You know, there was there was 800 people in Chiang Mai. 800 people from all over the world went to fucking Shanghai, but those are the winners.

The the the the the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of SEOs out there didn’t. They’re all still coming into my inbox going, hi, Greg. How do I sell more links? What do you want me to say? Like, no one’s gonna buy from you.

We don’t know whether you’ve got good, bad, or indifferent links. We don’t even know if you’re a real guy. You know, you’re calling yourself Mary Smith, and you’re fucking from India. Like, you’re non trustworthy. No one’s buying from that shit.

So, you know, that that is, you know, my advice to people is get out there and meet people, talk to people. That is how I would start again. And and from there, I would start selling things that, you know, links and and whatever else that I could make money on quickly. Right.

How would be SEO in 2026?

I would like to ask about SEO in 2026.

Mhmm. But I think that, the best prediction is that networking is best that what the technical the technicals of CCO would be in 2026. I mean, obviously, the the world’s changing, from from an SEO perspective with AI AI overviews, LLMs, automation. You know, I think a lot of things are changing, you know, even in 2025 and into 2026. The landscape’s changing.

Google are doing more updates. Things are getting harder and harder and harder. But, again, going back to the networking and learning and embracing the change. You know, I see a lot of people saying SEO’s dead. Fuck it.

I’m gonna go do crypto or fuck it. I’m gonna go do pay per click now or whatever. SEO is not dead. It’s evolving, and you’re just not prepared to evolve with it. You know, embrace the automation.

Embrace the AI. Embrace all of the new shit that’s coming out, the new tools, you know, all of the stuff that’s coming out. But you have to keep learning. You have to keep testing. You have to keep networking.

You have to keep on the the Ferris wheel. Otherwise, you’re gonna fall off and you’re gonna get left behind because with all of this stuff, there’s gonna be so much more money to be made feeding the LLMs, ranking in the LLMs. And, you know, people are talking about geo or AEO and all that stuff in there. It’s still optimization. You’re still fucking optimizing to be found on ChatGPT and Google and Bing and whatever else is out there.

You just have to modify the strategy and approach to it. It’s no longer a case of build content and links. There’s there’s all of those other components to it. And people don’t want to do that hard work, and they don’t want to learn and and change. But, you know, I’m quite excited by the way things are going, and and I think there’s a lot more opportunity out there to to make money.

And even basic things like there’s so many businesses out there who are not using any form of AI or automation to to talk to customers, even just a simple chatbot to collect information from customers. There’s so many things that you, as an SEO, can do to add value to a person’s business from an automation and an optimization and and just all of that kind of stuff combined. So I think SEOs need to stop just trying to be SEOs and and embrace everything else that’s out there because there’s a lot of money to be made with everything that’s kinda tied with SEO. And I think there there’s exciting opportunities out there for people who are prepared to learn and develop. And and like I say, I’m excited by it.

I I don’t see SEO as being dead

Sure. Google is getting less and less traffic, but where does that traffic going? Now you can argue, and I’ve seen it, there’s other business businesses who make money from traffic from Reddit. For example, they don’t do any other form of marketing.

They just make it from Reddit. No matter what, for us to make money as SEOs, we need traffic. It doesn’t matter whether that comes from Reddit. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from the ALMs. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from Google, organic, maps, Bing, fucking social media, building an email list, doing WhatsApp messaging, doing fucking SEO events, whatever.

Traffic’s traffic. And you need to work all of that, and that is all SEO as far as I’m concerned. You know, doing YouTube SEO, ranking your videos, a lot of people go to YouTube to search for information. I’ve done YouTube for the last ten years. I’ve been aware that a lot of traffic comes from YouTube.

Why else would I sit there and do podcast after podcast after podcast and build up that following, spend money in ads and all that shit? You’ve got to diversify your traffic sources. It doesn’t all just solely rely on Google organic.

You know? And for years, I’ve worked on YouTube about an email list.

I’ve spoke at conferences about a personal brand, all because it happened a long, long time ago. We’ve seen organic search getting pushed and pushed and pushed when GMBs were taking up space. They, you know, they they stopped shit serving ads down the sidebar and, you know, they put four ads at the top and three at the bottom. You could see organic was getting pushed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, not not just in last year. It’s been happening for the last fucking six, seven, eight years.

So that’s why my advice to people is always get traffic from different sources. It’s why I do a TikTok. I shake my ass on there. Why? Because there’s fucking massive amounts of traffic there.

You can build a following on there. You can pitch your shit on there if you want. Traffic is fucking traffic. And people go, okay. You’re the idiot fucking doing a stupid dance on TikTok.

Yeah. I’m the idiot with fucking nearly 200,000 followers. And if I wanted to promote I don’t promote on there, but if I wanted to, I could be I could make a business from just promoting TikTok. I have opportunity because I’ve worked hard, and you might see, oh, Craig’s on there doing stupid stuff. Good.

You know, it it’s like you say, people make assumptions that you’re maybe a fucking idiot. I I have made a lot of money. I have made a lot of money and still will continue to make a lot of money. So who’s the fucking idiot, really? You know, that’s the the the bottom line.

And, you know, my mindset is I do not give a fuck what anyone thinks about me. I really couldn’t care fucking less. I care about, making money. I I I’m doing business and securing my future, my family future, and everything else. And if that means I need to act like a fool and have some fun and you think I’m an idiot, then I will absolutely double down on that.

You know? It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s where the money’s at and and where business is at and down the personal brands at. And, you know, anyone in the comments going, oh, he’s a fucking idiot or he’s this or fuck his accent or fuck this, fuck that. I’m fully aware I’m not gonna be liked by everyone. I Yeah.

About the about the accent, we will have problems with the the the description. You know? And when I write the content down with AI. Oh, dude. Yeah.

It will say something completely different. So, My English are not English, and never the AI catch the point. You know? No. So yeah.

You cannot just rely on Google for traffic in 2026

You know, you’ve got to, embrace everything that’s happening in 2026.

And, you know, I’m not saying I’m a psychic and I’ve seen it all happening, but what I did see many years ago was that you cannot just rely on Google for traffic. You know, algorithm update after algorithm update, if my business is a 100% organic traffic, and Google decides to do whatever stupid update they want to do and it wipes out all of my traffic and my money, I’m fucked. So solely relying on just organic is fucking madness and always has been madness. That’s why I do bits of pay per click.

It’s why I do the social media stuff. It’s why I built the mailing list. It’s why I built the personal brand. And for any business, I think that’s essential. And I see that has been even more important going into 2026 for people because so many people have just sat there doing Google Maps, and that’s it.

And the fucked because it’s getting more aggressive. Their maps are getting suspended more frequently. It’s getting harder and harder to manipulate. And all of their eggs were all in one basket, and and that is dangerous. Right.

How about the Facebook Lives?

Actually, you answered what I would like to ask. I saw you yesterday having in Facebook live with, the American guy. Can you recall his name? Not this Chris. Chris Palmer.

Chris Palmer. And, I saw that you were only in Facebook Facebook live, not streaming from software to many channels. No. We were. We were we’re streaming to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, everywhere.

You you may have only seen it in Facebook, but it goes to YouTube and everything. So that livestream goes to all of them. We use Restream, actually, to do that. So, yeah, if you go check Twitter, you go check LinkedIn, you go check YouTube, they they it’s streamed to all of those. K.

I thought that you were doing all Facebook, and, the question was only Facebook. Why? No. No. No.

No. Put put it out everywhere. Put it out everywhere. More the more eyeballs, the better. Okay.

So which would be the next event you’re going to speak or to attend?

Are you attending or only going to the events that you are speaking? No. No. I I attend some events.

So I am going to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas in January just as an attendee. I’m not speaking there. How comes? They didn’t discover good talent. Yeah.

Oh, no. No. No. I I’d I’m just going to to network and meet up with friends and and catch up with a few people. So, you know, it’s not always about speaking.

So I’m gonna go there. But straight after that, I’m speaking at SEO Rockstars, which is in Dallas, Texas, a couple of days later. So I’m in America. I’ll fly down there, talk at Rockstars. And then that’s me until March, and I think I’m in Lithuania first.

I’ve never been there, but, I met a guy who invited me to go speak there. So Lithuania is my next one after that in in March, and then I’ve got a few other events, in in May, June, and stuff like that. But, yeah, I’ve not got my full schedule yet. I don’t know exactly where I’m going next year, but I think I’m going to India as well in June. And, yeah, I’ve got a few events all over, but I’m trying to do less speaking and, just focus on the quality ones.

And and I’m gonna try and stay away from as many SEO specific conferences as I can. I wanna do more business type conferences, than than SEO conferences just because I can learn and develop more at those events and network with other people. You know? I I’ll still do the odd SEO conference, but I don’t wanna be doing the same conferences over and over and over again. So, I like to try different countries I’ve never been to.

Lithuania being one of them. New crowds, new people to meet with and network and potentially do business with. So, yeah, I’m gonna try and do less, and focus more on ones I’ve never been to. And and I’ll do. You know, if the opportunity comes and there’s a big SEO event, sure, I will I will do a handful of those per year, but I don’t wanna continue to be the the guy talking every year at the same conferences.

It it becomes boring.

How about Saigon 2006? Will you be there?

Or I won’t be there. I I spoke there, in earlier this year.

Great event, and, you know, it’s just such a far trip for me. At that time of year, it’s just too far away for me to go just as an attendee. But it’s a great event. Spoke there earlier this year. Had a lot of fun.

Saigon was actually absolutely a nice place as well if anyone’s never been. Very well put on event as well. You know, Mads, Annie, do very well, you know, in terms of organizing the event, looking after, you know, the attendees, the speakers, the and the place is such a nice place. So, just because I’m not going is not any reflection on the event itself. It’s just so fucking far away for me.

It’s like a twenty hour flight, for me to get there. And in the last year, I was in Chiang Mai. I was in Vietnam. I was in India. So I was three times over in Asia last year, and I’m fucking tired of flying to you.

That that means that you’re getting older now. Yeah. That that part of it, dude, you know, I don’t wanna keep doing doing twenty hour flights because, you know, coming back from Chiang Mai probably took me two weeks to recover, from the from the jet lag because I’m older, dude. And, I don’t even drink anymore, so I can’t even blame it on, I was out with Yannis, and we got all fucked up and stuff. You know?

It’s literally it’s literally old age. So that has a lot to do with it as well. And, obviously, I’ve I’ve got a young kid at six years old, so I don’t wanna be away from him all of the time either. I wanna see him grown up. So he’s just trying to You can take you can take him with you next time.

I can’t because he’s at school, throughout the year, so it’s not fair to pull him in and out of the education. I’d love to take him everywhere, and I used to take him everywhere. But because he’s at school, it it means that I’m away and I don’t wanna be away. I wanna see him grown up. I wanna see the, you know, the stuff.

So that’s why, again, I’m just trying to cut down a little bit and be more selective with my time. One, for family reasons, two, for age reasons, and three, just to be fair to the SEO industry. They don’t wanna see me speaking at Saigon year after year after year either. And my Why? This is this is exactly exactly the opposite, I think.

Oh. Because some people saw you the last year, and this year would come to listen to you, to meet you, but you’re not there. Yeah. But also, you know, you can start to become repetitive, telling the same stories, but also, you know, from a an event organization point of view. Like, a certain unwritten rule is you cannot have the same speakers line up year on year.

You know, you’ve got to mix up and give fresh speakers the opportunity to speak. Otherwise, you’re not gonna sell tickets to the event. So certain unwritten rules like Chiang Mai. I spoke in Chiang Mai in 2018, 2023, and, of course, this year. Now there was obviously certain gaps, but Chiang Mai will not necessarily normally have the same speakers on the following year.

There may be one or two. That’s it. If they’re doing something cool, but they tend to give breaks, so you’re not there year on year on year because no one’s gonna continue to come and buy tickets to see the same fucking people. So, you know, that’s that’s your argument’s fine. You know, some people might like me and want to come, but Exactly.

In general, you would go every couple of years or something like that. And, sure, you know, if I’m ever invited to Saigon again, I absolutely would go again. But, you you know, Mads and everyone else are not gonna invite the same speakers year on year. They’ve they’ve got to be fair to the overall crowd, and sometimes they may like other people, or they want to see fresh faces. And I’m the same.

If I went to the same event and it’s gonna be the same guys and I’ve seen them two or three times, I’m like, there’s not a lot of value here. I wanna see someone new. I wanna see a younger person that’s maybe more technical, more up to date with AI. I wanna learn from those. I don’t wanna see the same fucking old guy talking shit about AI.

I wanna see someone different. I wanna see something different, show me different shit. So, you know, I could, you know, probably do some of the events again and again and again, but, one, I think it’s not fair to put that onto the organizers. And secondly, I don’t wanna be that guy. You know, I I look at stages and learn and go, I can’t fucking listen to that guy again.

I’ve I’ve heard that story five times before. So I don’t wanna be that guy either. I don’t wanna be hated. You know? So it’s just picking and choosing and having gaps, within, as well to to to make sure that you’re still still seen as semi important, and not burning everyone’s ears with your bullshit all the time.

So, I’m conscious of being that person as well. Okay. I think, we have time for the last question.

Craig Campbells Private SEO Mastermind

Sorry. You said about the mastermind. So could you like to tell us more about this? Is it still open? I mean, you have yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So if you go to the top right hand side of my website, you’ll see the mastermind thing. What we typically have there is is a private mastermind. It’s not something we put out in YouTube or or any other platform.

It’s it’s done on Zoom. It’s locked down. But I’ve got a lot of different levels of people in there, different agency owners, different entrepreneurs, different newbies to the industry, and, you know, there’s a a nice mix of people in there. And and some of them are actually quite well known people, within the industry. And we do different sessions.

We do two sessions a week, where we’ll go on. We’ll talk about it could be pay per click. It could be building a brand. It could be building a knowledge panel. It could be the next AI tool.

It could be looking at this, looking at that. All the different components from a marketing perspective. Some of it even slightly broader than just marketing business things, where to set up your business, you know, all of these kind of things as well. And, you know, it I’ve had that group for five years. It it’s still going strong.

It’s recorded, but it’s done in a private environment so that if you can’t make the call, for for whatever time reason or time zone or if you’ve got a meeting, then you can watch the recording and catch up. And, you know, it’s a it’s a kinda group thing. You know, there’s other people in there who have value to offer. You know, for example, yesterday, we had the mastermind, and we were talking about managing overseas workers. And one of the chaps who was given input into it, is a chap called Randy, who is actually my YouTube channel sponsor as well.

He does digital PR, but in a previous life, he worked in the corporate world, and he he growed and scaled, retail shops. You’ll see he was managing 50 shops and then scaled up to 250 shops. So he was great at managing big, big, big teams of people and has really good structure, really good processes, and a really good mentality to grow and scale that shit. And, you know, actually, let him talk for most of that session yesterday because he’s got that experience from the corporate world, and many of us SEO guys don’t. We’re not used to dealing with 250 shops physically of people.

So he has to be very hands off, very rigid in terms of structure, and that is what most SEO people need. What we know what we need, but we have no processes, no structure, no fuck all. We have no people skills. We can’t manage people. We we’re not nice to people.

So I think, you know, from from it’s not just about me giving the information.

We have a whole bunch of people with different backgrounds, with different experiences who add value to the table. And, you know, that one particular instance, Randy has way more experience than probably everyone in the mastermind combined in terms of growing and scaling physical fucking teams. And his outlook and his theory and his way of working, I think, translates well into managing VAs and not being fucking whipping them all of the time and trying to squeeze them for every hour you can get. Get them on deliverables, make sure they’re accountable, have meetings with them, have structure, and all of that stuff.

So there’s a lot of good value in there, not just from link building or fucking content creation or, you know, just an SEO perspective. There’s there’s a lot more to life than just SEO, you know, from a client a managing clients, managing staff, and and all of this other kind of stuff. So we try and do sessions twice a week on everything to do with business. But, obviously, everyone’s in digital marketing, so there’s a lot of strategy, a lot of even just looking at certain things that don’t work, certain tests, certain shit that just failed, and we we go through a lot of that stuff. So a lot of good value in there, and it only costs £69 a month for all of that.

But it’s it’s 9 99. Or 99. Sorry. Yeah. And, you know, that gets you, eight sessions a month, but you’re also networking with the right people.

There’s a lot of people with different services and different things within the group as well. So I think it’s not about making money for me. If I’ve done it for free, people don’t turn up because I’ve given away courses and done things for free. People don’t value free shit. So I I went after the low value because it’s enough to make you come along, but it’s affordable for almost anyone, you know, whether you’re in India, whether you’re in America, The UK, or anywhere in Europe.

£99 is not a lot of money. But it’s enough to make sure that you show up because you’re not gonna give me £99 for free. You’re gonna show up, and you’re gonna want to to extract as much value as you can. So that is why I priced it like that, and, you know, I would potentially do it for free. But when you do things for free, people think it’s shit, and they don’t offer value.

So that’s why I’ve got the token fee on it. People charge a lot more for masterminds, and and stuff like that. But for me, it’s building the community, giving it back to the community, networking, and all of that stuff combined in my own environment. And, like I say, it’s not for public show. It’s not something we put on YouTube because certain people talk about client problems they’ve got.

And, you know, collectively, as a group, we’ll look at it and say, you’ve not done this. You’ve missed that. Look at the fucking this. Is it a secret group? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And no one can find this information on the Internet unless he subscribes? Yeah. That’s exactly what it is.

And how many people are in the group right now, approximately? Approximately about 70 odd. Some come, some go, but it’s not something I actively push out there. It it’s on the website, but I I don’t really talk about it publicly. I don’t really promote it.

I I haven’t really promoted it ever. And I don’t want it to have a thousand people or 2,000 people. And the reason for that is there’s people who come in, who leech, who, steal, who report, who fucking can’t Report. Report. Man.

Yeah. Yeah. Human rep. I mean, people come in there, look at what people are doing, and start reporting all their GMBs and shit. You know?

You’ve got people like that in the industry who report shit to Google, and they’re just fucking pieces of work. So I’ve always tried to keep it closed and to people that I say me no. And sometimes you do get the odd ass wipe in there anyway, but we very quickly kick them out. And, yes, I have had to kick people out. Yes.

People have come in and tried to promote shit services into the group, and I kick them out. And I will actively tell the group, do not use that service because it’s shit, and here’s why. So, you know, I I try and I feel, like, obliged to try and keep the quality in the group high because I don’t want some newbie coming in and some fucking idiot coming in selling some shitty links for £300 a pop that we can all buy for £30 a pop, you know, I would be actively telling my group of people, don’t buy that shit because you can get it here for £30. So, you know, we we’ve tried to to make it clean, friendly, spam free, and also open to to newbies, to the industry as a safe place to learn and not be pitched to, not be spammed, not come out of there spending all your money on everyone’s different tools. I am very, very conscious that that happens in many other groups.

So it’s a non pitch fest. You know? By all means, if you’ve got a service to provide and it’s a really good service, come in and talk to the group about it. Tell us what you do. And if someone wants to use you because it’s a great service, great.

You know, we want to do business within the group if you’ve got good shit. But the minute you start selling shit to friends and colleagues in the industries is the minute where I’m gonna say no. That that that that’s not on. We’re not doing that. You’re you’re selling some shit there.

Go go revise your service and come back with the good stuff. Otherwise, you’ll not value, to to the group or to the SEO industry for that matter. Do you know what I’m going to do, Craig, right now when we finish the the podcast? I will sign up for your group. Join it.

Right? Will you accept me? Of course. Of course. Like I say, we just we’re not closed.

We are anything I just we we just don’t want spammers and shitbags in there or negative people. You know, we want to help each other grow and and be positive and and, you know, try and help each other, nudge each other along, and and build a little community there of of helpful people. And that’s all we want. You know? We don’t want to make money or pitch or sell.

And do that you know? And and just on top of that, I have specifically said to people in my group, don’t buy links from me because my links are at the commercial value of what everyone sells links at. As an SEO, yes, there’s a margin on them. Yes. I can get them cheaper.

In that group, I’ll show you how to get them fucking cheaper. Don’t buy from me. I’m so I’m telling you, I’m not allowed to pitch either. Don’t buy from me because what I sell my links for is to the general public who don’t understand SEO. What you can buy links for and what you would pay me are two very different prices.

So in the group, I’m even saying to people, don’t fucking buy from me because it’s overpriced stuff. I’m selling that to agencies, and there’s a margin on it. And, you know, I’ve got staff and everything else to pay. So, of course, there’s it’s gonna be higher than the cost price from an SEO perspective. So, you know, even within that group, it’s not about Craig pitching his shit.

I don’t pitch anything in there either. So that’s how much I feel about selling overpriced stuff to your colleagues in the SEO space. So that group is a very, very safe space in terms of being non pitched. I will only allow people to to actively discuss their services if they are actually adding value and affordable and everything else. Okay.

So how can someone find you on the or to find you not to say who you are, to talk to you, send you message?

You you better go into craigcampbellseo.com, I’m probably filling out the contact form, to be honest. Trying to contact me on Facebook is pretty pointless because I get 100 messages a day of, do you want a nice guest post? Dear, sir. And, you know, there’s only so much of that you can look at and and, you know, I miss a lot of messages on there.

So probably contact form, very simple, very easy, and, get me on there and, you know, you you’ll probably, be more likely to get a response that way. Trying to slip into to my DMs on any social platforms, It can be hit or miss, mate. So definitely a contact form is the easiest way. Right. Thank you very much, Craig Campbell, for coming to the show, to the podcast.

And No problem. And it was great pleasure to talk to you. I feel refreshed because you’re like an encyclopedia of SEO, but, with human heart, you know. It’s Yeah. And, subscribe to our channel, to my channel, Johannes de Vramis, SJO International, and we’re gonna meet on the next podcast.

Thank you, everyone. Yeah. Thank you, Craig.

 

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I am Yannis Divramis, I am a SEO Expert. I have been doing SEO since 2013.

I run the Divramis SEO Agency  and I am very glad that you’ve watched this video and keep watching the other videos, because we are posting every month many videos about SEO.

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