Nick Rubright Podcast Transcript
Nick Rubright joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Nick Rubright. Nick Rubright is the founder and CEO of Ranko Media, a content focused SEO and Digital PR agency. When not working on the business, Nick writes music and plays in a metal band.
In founding Ranko Media, Nick has learned how to operate a business, manage a team, and become a CEO. Rather than facing challenges related to marketing and growth. The challenges at Ranko Media have been more related to scaling operations alongside rapid growth and communication with customers, which Nick has spent lots of time and money educating himself on to overcome today.
Renko media has some mega success stories, having helped writer grow to 2 million monthly visitors in just 1 year and working with brands like Webex, finance, Twilio and Soundtrack.
Well, good afternoon, Nick. Welcome to the show!
Nick Rubright: Thanks, Brian. Good to be here.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. I appreciate you making the time really do.
And we can talk a little bit about some things that I’m in the spaces as well, as far as content and media and that sort of thing. So, we’ll just jump right into your 1st question here. Nick at Ranko Media, you emphasize a content focused SEO approach. How do you balance creativity with SEO demands to ensure content not only ranks well, but also resonates with readers?
Nick Rubright: I think it’s set up in our, in our business’s structure to enable creativity among our teammates because I think the creativity is what, you know, ends up differentiating your content from the pack and with AI content being produced, like, at mad scale now I think differentiation is even more important in content.
And I think especially with SEO, search engines are going to be looking for that.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. It’s not just about the backlinks that everybody is screaming about, right? It’s about, you know, every little thing, obviously there’s some technical SEO you need to know, but also the content, the content must resonate with your audience.
So, I appreciate the information and Nick, how has your background in music and playing in a metal band influenced your approach to marketing and creativity at Renko Media?
Nick Rubright: I think it helps me realize that the creativity is the factor that makes something get that like emotional response in people.
Like when I was playing in a band, we’d. You know, I would recognize that when we play our songs live and I see people singing them and things like that, you know, so that was cool. But then on the Internet, it’s like. You see it when people appreciate your content or like, oh, thanks for writing that or this is awesome.
You know, people want, I think, to hear a unique perspective and a creative take on things. So, I think, I don’t know, I think I, in general approach business, like, being in a band anyway, you know, because it’s very similar. It’s like. You got, you got to have a good team or you’re not going to go anywhere, right?
And when you’re creating even the operations of your business, you need to be creative about that so that you have a unique offering, you know, so it’s just an in every element. Creativity is involved. I would say,
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Yeah, you’ve got to have those creative juices flowing. That’s what really gets kind of…builds that momentum builds that excitement builds that engagement. So, I do appreciate that. And Nick, starting Ranko Media must have been a significant leap. Can you share a pivotal moment or decision that was crucial to your success as the founder and CEO?
Nick Rubright: Yeah, I think there’s a few, there’s definitely a few things that were pivotal. I think at the very beginning of the company, though, was. The, the kind of start of it, I was in a band and I wanted to make a music video and needed more money. Right? So, I was freelancing and then a writer and Webex came to me kind of at the same time asking for some work. And at first, I said, no, you know, cause I was like, I’m making enough money.
I’m playing in a band, whatever. But they needed help. And I, I think I realized like, man, a lot of people need help with this link stuff. So, I decided to put together a team and do it for the money so that I would get money for the music video. And then that sort of evolved into the agency as I got more referral business.
And then later on, I think the 2nd pivotal moment for me was taking the time to really learn about operations and being a CEO and being a leader, you know, because, like. The marketing stuff was obvious and easy to me, but the other stuff was really hard, like the operations, being a CEO, learning how to hire people and like, delegate.
I think those things were, were the hardest parts about building the business for me.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I know sometimes, especially when it’s your baby. And it’s hard to delegate that stuff and you mentioned some of the difficulties of growing into that CEO role. But, you know, that’s what makes us successful is learning to delegate the things that need to be delegated and focus on the things that are more important, like growing the revenue.
So, I really do appreciate the back story and the motivation behind making that. Leap into business to really fund the band. So, Nick, last question of the day, looking towards the future, what trends or innovations do you foresee shaping the SEO and digital marketing landscapes in the next few years?
Nick Rubright: Yeah. So I hate to jump on the bandwagon, but I’m going to say AI probably not in the way people think though. I don’t know if, I don’t know if it’s made its full. Like, splash into the SEO world yet, because I think a lot of people are trying to fully automate their work. So, they’re trying to fully automate link building and fully automate content.
But the downside of that is that when you fully automate yours and your competitor doesn’t, they put a little bit more thought into it. They’re going to win. So. Is this, you know, in the industry, I think it’s still, we’re still trying to figure out the balancing act between and humans and building content.
I think in the future, what’s going to happen is. We’re going to have not so much a, I automating the whole thing, but more like a, I being an assistant to the worker. And I think output is going to increase, so there’s just going to be increased competition in the world and pretty much any content marketing world just because of increased output from these AI tools.
Brian Thomas: Yeah, I’d definitely agree with that. I have seen though; I’ve interviewed quite a bit of people that work in the AI space and develop applications and platforms and that sort of thing. And certainly, see an improvement just in the last probably 18 months. So, I can see where at some point, some of this link building and so forth may actually be automated, but to your point, quality is king and every, every time, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this for sure.
And Nick, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Nick Rubright: Yeah, man, it was awesome. Thank you so much.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Nick Rubright Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
