Hello and welcome back to Inside Marketing with Market Surge. Today's guest is someone who knows the ins and outs of digital marketing like few others. Rob Cairns is the founder and CEO of stunning digital marketing, a powerhouse agency known for its expertise in WordPress development, website security, and helping businesses scale their online presence. Robert is also a prolific podcaster host of the SDM Show. With over two decades of experience in the digital space.
Rob has built a reputation as the go-to expert for turning struggling websites into conversion machines and for saving businesses from website disasters, his mission to make digital marketing simple, secure, and effective, and he's here to share some insights. Rob, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having Such a pleasure. Well, you know, it's been really nice to get to know you. Um, I had the opportunity to guess on your podcast recently. Yeah. And that was a delight.
Um, Rob, tell us a little bit about your journey and, and how did it lead you to found and, and run stunning digital marketing? I. It, it's a funny story. Um, I was always in tech, so my dad brought home, he was an insurance business and he was a CFO at a toum one. Personal computers weren't big and he decided to convince his company to buy him an Apple two plus at the time.
And at that time, VisiCalc was the spreadsheet that sort of launched all the spreadsheets we know now Lotus, then Excel and whatever else we use. And Dad found very quickly that that Apple became as much minus as companies very quickly. 'cause it's something I took an interest in. And then I took some computer courses in high school. And so I'm, I'm 57, so I'm dating myself back to, uh, late seventies or early eighties. Um, I've even programmed on cards.
So I was at the end of the tail punch card era, bubble card era. Mm-hmm. And then I decided I was bored. I was really bored as a student in Quebec, so if it wasn't computer science and it wasn't history, I could have cared less. Um, I used to go into history class and read computer magazines under my, um. I instructor's nose because I was bored in his class. 'cause I was way ahead and computers kind of kept me in school.
And then we moved, uh, from Montreal to, uh, Toronto and, uh, here in Ontario, I. The school system in high school isn't based on just applied sciences, it's got more business courses. I took some more business courses, realized that's what I wanted to do, and I went to a community college in Toronto, taking, believe it or not, computer programming, and I programmed for five years professionally, old business systems. So running a language called alt.
There's one for some of the younger generation out there. It's the language that many business systems still run in. Didn't really like it. Always wanted to work with personal computers. And then got into, uh, personal computer support in healthcare, uh, where I was there in healthcare for 22 years. I was a, a team leader, a client support specialist, an on-call person. And then left healthcare and transitioned into web development and running my own agency.
Now there's a funny story there that when I was called a marketing teacher who walking day one in the first year, or butt on the desk, I'm being polite and said, I'm only here 'cause I want my summers off and I don't care about you. And I teach from the book. And I looked at her and said. Give me the course outline. I'll see you on exam days. You won't see me the rest of the year. Don't worry about me. Goodbye. And I'm done. And, uh, the long short of it all was.
And I swore I would never go into marketing and look where I am now. So that's kind of how I, how I got into it. And then I've had a couple really good mentors along the way and people and been involved in the community, which helps along space. So yeah. Fantastic. So, um, you know, there's several topics I'd like to cover with you and, uh, one of them being security.
Sure. But first, you know, if I can, I'd love to ask about website development as a big topic and, um, many in my audience are entrepreneurs and small business owners. And, um, you know, so I know you work a lot with WordPress. What I, if I do as a business is considering building a website, what are the considerations they should make around the technology they use to, or the platform they use to build it on?
So, I'm, I'm gonna shock everybody, but tell the platform is less important than the results generated by the platform. So I'll say that right off the top. So for me, a lot of the stuff I do is WordPress just because that's what I'm comfortable with. But at the end of the day, I think developers need to stop selling to these companies. What the platform is the, the average business owner really doesn't care. What the average business owner cares about is getting traffic to his website.
Using that to generate leads and using the leads to convert. And that is the key. So I'm gonna say the today's day and age, the platform is less. Now that said, there are some cost issues. So depending what you wanna do. So for example, in the e-commerce space, you can go to Shopify. And that's not a problem. And they're a Canadian company. They're based outta Ottawa, and a lot of people don't get that.
When you go to something like some of these coast platforms, depending on what you wanna do, sometimes the costs scale up and they always present it. That here is a cheap price to start. And then you start digging and say, but I want this, I want this and I want this. Do I. Go to Shopify, or do I pay somebody to do a custom, like a WooCommerce, which is where press is e-commerce, or do I go somewhere else? And what it comes down to is where you wanna put your budget.
Now that all said if somebody wants say a four or five quick brochure site, meaning a site, like an old paper brochure, then the differences are less that you gotta go to a platform than if you do. Okay. No, that makes a lot of sense and, probably, helps to partner with a wise, experienced, designer and developer to help guide that decision. You know, scaling is going to be an early consideration.
Now the other topic I really wanted to drill into and something admittedly I'm not very well versed in is security. So we do so much digital marketing online. Almost every business, whether it's the website, the ads or other digital assets that we have stored online. But I think a lot of small, medium sized businesses and maybe others are really putting security at the bottom of their priority list.
Tell us a little bit about, why we should move that up, the priority list and what are some of the risks that we should be thinking of? So what I'll say right away to start off is it's not uncommon for companies to put security at the bottom until they get bit once. And then once they get bit, their whole attitude changes.
So one of the things I suggest right off the top for anybody, and I just went through this with my partner, Tiz yesterday, and I said, okay, where are you storing your passwords? And she said, they're in my head and all over the place. I said, why don't you have a password manager? That's the first thing, and I said that to her yesterday. So. One of our little mini projects next weekend is to work on getting a password manager. So rule number one in Fiona Password Manager, you get one.
Uh, suggestions. Bit Warden, it's open source, works really well. Or if you're on a Mac, one password on any Apple ecosystem works really well. They're the two that I really like. The one that was the defacto standard up until about three years ago was LastPass. LastPass got bit by a major security issue and didn't handle it properly, so that's why I am not a LastPass fan. Number one. Number two, make sure you, I can't even tell you what 95% of my passwords are during the password manager.
Do yourself a favor and export that list and high and put it in your safe in your safety deposit box somewhere. 'cause if something happens to you, somebody needs access to that list. So I have an envelope in my safe in the closet that says, only open if in the state of an emergency. It's in the safe. So if somebody needs it, it's there. That's number two.
And by the way, you should be doing this for business and for home, because one of the things we don't really do well, most people, is manage their digital assets. And then if something happens, or in worst case, they die, we don't know where they are, we don't know who's got access to stuff. Think about that now take the time and do it. Um, so rule number one with all digital assets is you need to take backups. Backups means three copies, the original and two others.
I don't care if it's your website, your personal files, the stuff you work on every day. Throwing stuff on Google Drive or on one driver on Dropbox is not a backup. That's a storage medium, unless there's another copy somewhere else. And if you're talking personal, please, people think about your photos. They are priceless and they cannot be recreated in most cases. I do that with photos too. I use two photos sites plus OCO copy so I can get at anything. So that's number two.
In terms of website security. Um, and all online security two factor authentication, whenever possible. That means you need a password plus an authenticator key or a code in an app? Try to stay away from codes that are text message to you because there is phenomenal call sim j and where people steal sim card IDs. So be careful, if at all possible. Don't do it. Sometimes you don't have a choice. For example, my bank.
So the alternative to the text, uh, two factor authentication, uh, is the code generator in the app yeah, it is a is authenticator or you can get an authenticator key. They make them as well. So I, I carry what's called an new key. I actually have two of them. They're in sync, so they just go in and away I go, or the Authenticator app, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, um, stuff like that, that works really well. But use the second step.
The other thing is make sure your email password is different because if they get your email password, they can reset all your other passwords. And don't use identifiers passwords. So don't use names. Your girlfriend's name, your wife's name, your dog's name, your street name. I use random numbers and I make them that's why I use the password manager 'cause it fills 'em in. In terms of the web. We'll kind of break down the WordPress site. First of all, backups.
But before we go to backups, think about your web host. Is your web host had a lot of problems? Have they had a lot of security issues? Are they responsive to security issues? That kind stuff matters. Your web hosting company should be your partner, not your provider. There's a big difference here. I, I like to work with people that are my partners, so that's important. Are they gonna help you in a pinch? Uh, two fa do backups.
'cause if worse comes to worse and you get infected, you can always do a restore. Now people say, how much should I backup? Depends how busy the site is. All my client sites are backed up nightly, and I stash backups every third night. Offline, do your software updates. So when WordPress, there's plugins and themes, makes you update those on a regular basis. Once a week is not enough anywhere it used to be. Now vulnerabilities come out and they're exposed within hours and minutes, not days.
So think about that. Wow. Um, in terms of, um, updates, WordPress has an automatic update feature. I don't recommend turning that on. And the reason is, if it goes and updates something in your way for a day or away a couple days, sometimes updates will crash the site. So don't do that. I would say do 'em manually. Make sure you do that. Takes care of backups, so you gotta way to recovery. You got updates. I like to run some security software, so I'll run, uh.
A software firewall that will stuff things like bot attacks and things like that. Other things to look for on your forms, your contact form, how people contact you. We've all seen form spam where somebody goes to a website and they fill out, or a bot goes there and they fill in and you get spammy emails. I have political. Clients very common. They'll get 50 to a hundred these in a day, and it's excruciating.
Um, get a form that the form package you're running supports what's called CloudFlare Turnstile. So CloudFlare is the big DNS provider out on the internet and cloud Fir turt style is basically. A fancy way of doing Google captures. You know those little captures where you got tick off the boxes? Yes. Except it's all automated and it will stop spam in its tracks. So there's many of the big form packages, gravity forms. I run WS Forms and WordPress. Disclaimer, the developers a good friend.
It supports CloudFare, it stops that spam in its tracks and then. Do an audit of your site on a regular basis, like go in and look and say, okay, are the things going on? And frankly, I don't believe you can DIY security anymore. I think we've gotten to the point where if you wanna DIY, the website, fine, but you should have a security pro in your back pocket because it's gotten really complicated the landscape. Is changing every day.
Last week in the WordPress world, um, solid wp, which puts out one of the big, uh, emails every week, newsletters had 300 security vulnerabilities and themes and plugins. So the average business owner doesn't have time to do this, so they should concentrate on making money and get somebody, frankly, to do it for them. Wow, that, that was a lot of great information. Do you find yourself being engaged?
Do you find yourself being pulled in to do security only engagements or are you primarily supporting your uh, you know, web development with the security insights you have? I do a bit of both, but I do more on the security side 'cause I've kind of positioned myself that way on that side of it, not the marketing side. But you know, the web development is a challenge these days because I like to describe web development buying options on a cart or a menu in a restaurant, and you get what I mean.
So they walk into the restaurant and you say, okay, i'm gonna start with a rum and coke. I don't know what you drink, but that's my drink of choice. Then I'm gonna start with a salad, then I'm gonna have an appetizer. And by the way, this restaurant doesn't offer a fixed price menu. Okay? So let's get that right off the table and then I'm gonna have a second appetizer, and then I'm gonna have a top of the line prime rib. And then I'm gonna have a dessert. Okay, so drink two appetizers.
Pre dinner a major dinner and a dessert. So we got five items. Guess what? These items all have costs, and it's no different. So you put the pieces together and you start charging for each piece. The average customer. Doesn't get that. They don't get that. Everything they add increases the cost of a project. They want everything and they want it all included, and it just doesn't work that way to be fair.
Have you found that AI capabilities, have supplemented, some people wanting to do it themselves or, have you found AI tools to be helpful to you as the website developer? Where, where do you stand on that spectrum? So, I'm all in with Google Gemini. I have been for a long time. So a couple good things for your Gemini. Rewriting will say copies, so write your copy and then turn around.
If you're not gonna employ a copywriter, the next best thing is to turn around, feed it into an AI product and say, rewrite this. One of my favorite prompts is rewrite the fine text for SEO. And here it's, I do that. Yeah. Um, even my podcast, my show notes are AI generated outta Gemini. Um, I'm working on some books from the podcast. They're AI generated. You can write marketing copy for emails in AI generate, so it's not really web.
Um, I'm working on a project right now for a good friend of mine and, uh, I'm taking all their product descriptions for WooCommerce. They're all going into ai. These are the ones out there off their drop ship, their supplier's website and AI still rewriting them to be even better. So that, yeah, it has all kinds of uses and now you can use AI even to manipulate websites, but you still need a human in the middle of it all. And that's what people forget with ai.
Do you feel like, so maybe we could go back to the, um. Security vulnerabilities and specifically to ai, the tools that we're using, um, have, have those presented some new security concerns. I. Uh, that, that didn't exist before. You know, we, we have a lot of automated communication bots, voice and chat. We have, um, you know, I think it's probably increased the amount of spam emails and potentially dangerous emails that are coming in. Um, what are your thoughts on AI and, and web security?
So the biggest problem with spam emails and especially phishing schemes, it's worth going there, is it used to be we could spot them by all the spelling mistakes and everything else, now the biggest problem is, there's no spelling mistakes and the graphics and emails are getting even better and more realistic. So AI's helping the scammers and the hackers find vulnerabilities faster. So they're using ai, believe me, as much as we are.
If you're using a service provider and they say, please turn on voice validation, don't do that. AI can replicate your voice, so don't do it. Especially for somebody like me who's got 500 plus podcasts. My voice is out there. Yours is out there. So don't do that.
It's making it a little more challenging, the other thing that's helping is some of these companies have bounty programs as well like Patch Stack in the WordPress space has a bounty program, so people are turning in vulnerabilities faster. So there's good and there's bad it's just how you manage it and how you handle it. Um, yeah. I'm just not, you know, like not really well immersed in that, so that, it's helpful to hear these tips.
So Rob, let's talk a little bit about your agency and, you know, how you've evolved your agency. Now you do a full spectrum of digital marketing, services. How has that evolved over time? I think you mentioned that, web development may have been a bigger part of your business and it's shifted, to other services. What do you think, is the balance, a few years ago versus today? Yeah, so when I started, I was doing 90% web development. I was doing very little anything else.
So I wasn't doing a lot of email marketing. I wasn't doing a lot of ads. I wasn't playing that spectrum well, folks having a website is not good enough. It's a tool in your marketing toolbox. It used to be if you did a website, people would just find you. It doesn't work that way anymore. You need to get people there, so ways to do it. Email marketing's a big part of our business and we've run spectrums from all over the place.
From everything from Keep slash Infusionsoft by its old name to convert kit to MailChimp to active campaign you name it. I've managed lists as big as a hundred thousand people for clients. So I've done lists that big and some of them being simple newsletters, some of them being what we call market automation. So if you click on a link, you might get a second email that directs you somewhere else, depending on what you do. That's number one. And email marketing is far from dead.
It's still the most successful marketing tool in your tool books. Box outside your website? We do a lot of local marketing, so that means Google Business profiles big places. Those are the two big keys, and then you got the Yelps and the, you know, all the specialized sites on top of that. That can matter. Google business profiles still rank very well for Google, so worth considering. Now that's changing because of AI again in search, right? That's changing my skip a bit.
PPC ads, pay per click ads the fastest way to ROI return on investment. So the big two are Facebook and Google, and then there's. Things like Reddit and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is actually the most expensive ad out there, but it's the only ad network that you target people by position. So it depends on what your budget is and what you're trying to do. There's that. We do some social media management for clients, that. Don't wanna run their social profiles. There's some of that.
So really a whole spectrum. I also with some companies, I've got some regular ones on the go. I do a lot of one-on-one consulting or I sit on some marketing group boards and kinda liaison with the company and their agency and kind of help direct that traffic flow. So I have some of that going on as well. Now, you know, I'd really like to talk about your podcast. You mentioned, that you've done over 500 episodes, which is daunting.
You know, this podcast, I think as of recording, I think I've just published my 15th and thinking of 500 just sounds, very far off like a dream, but, you know, I'm so impressed. How has that aligned with growth of your agency or supported, your journey or your clients? What do you think is the best thing you've taken away from the podcast? Yeah, can I walk you through the journey for a minute too, please? And tell you how it started?
So what happened was COVID hit and I was at home and I was bored. I was really bored. And then I had a friend of mine. His name was Mark Reb and he does some work with a company called Send Out Cards. And the founder of Send Out Cards is a gentleman by the name of Cody Bateman. And Mark said to me, can I send you Cody's latest book? And the book is entitled The Human Connection. And it talks exactly what it is.
It's about making connections with people like you and I have done right and doing that. And I said to Mark, I said, I'll take the book. But I wanna record an interview about the book for YouTube channel. That's my standard answer. You can send me anything you want, but then you better be prepared to put it up. So that was interview number one. Then number two, then number three, and before you knew it, I had 10 and I had 20. When I started the podcast, I actually started two podcasts.
Don't do that to yourself and give yourself some breathing room. And it just kind of morphed into what we've now got is one podcast, which I usually put out two or three times a week, depending on where my schedule is at. I try to do a combination of, uh, short tips. So I might, last week I did a quick tip show, which I'll talk about in a sec 'cause there's a special one, and then I'll do interviews like I did with you or other guests where we'll sit down and drill into a topic of interest.
I am. Now at the point where I have people coming to me every week to be on the podcast, so SEO guys who keep telling me my website can't be found and my business can't be found, go away. I'm being really nice, but. I woke up Saturday morning. I had four requests for people wanting to be on the show. And one of the things, as you know, 'cause you've been through the process I do, is when I don't know somebody, I jump on a pre-call.
We talk about it, we see if it's a fit, if it's good, we book a time, we do an interview. I've used a multitude of platforms for the show. I've used everything from Streamy Yard to you name it, and for me, I settled, believe it or not, back on Zoom. And a lot of traditional podcasters are gonna hate me for doing that. But it works and it works well, and it a no-brainer for me. So, um. I was saying to you before we went there, I almost gave the podcast up last year.
I was, uh, I took a diabetic scare with an abscess and I spent eight days in the hospital. I did a lot of thinking and my partner and I, uh, seroni, kind of kicked my butt and said, you can't give up your business. You can't give up your podcast, and I'm not putting up with you if you give up your business and your podcast. So. If you listen to my show, my podcast is dedicated to three people. My parents, my dad is no longer alive. He died, uh, 15 years ago, July, ate the pancreatic cancer.
My mom, who's still alive and well, she's 80 and rightfully so because of all her inspiration she gives me, um, so much so I just talked about it in episode five 50 where we, I threw out to, 'cause a couple people had asked me why, why I dedicate my, my podcast and frankly I dedicate a lot of stuff I do to her 'cause her inspiration means everything inside me. So that's kind of the journey. And um, thank you. You know, now I love that you've, been able to. Make this into a human connection.
And, um, yeah. So, you know, my journey, just in brief, is similar. I'm, much earlier on the path, but, just had an idea to reach out to a few of the business podcasters that I. Followed and did more and more and started to cast a wider net.
I came across your podcast, reached out, and, you were gracious enough to allow me to be a guest and, I learned so much I do think, these connections are everything, you know, we're in different time zones, different countries and it's been nice to have these conversations and connect I'd recommend it for more people to, do a podcast. You know, it's very low barrier to entry and, it's been so valuable. Really appreciated.
The dirty little secret about podcasting, and I'll share it, I don't know if I've shared this with you before, is you get your guest for half hour, an hour, however you want, you get your own little private masterclass task with however you wanna ask within reason, and then you build that relationship. And I've got friends who. Our dear friends, all because of podcasting. So that is invaluable. Let on the traffic it puts on the business. Yeah. Well, well, absolutely.
Well, you know, and even just today, I, I mean, I was, I was taking notes, uh, for things that I'm going to implement this week and, um, so thank you and thank you for appearing on the podcast. Where can people who would like to follow your podcast or learn more about your agency, where should they find you online? Two, two easy places. Uh, stunning digital marketing.com is the agency site. Rob Karens xyz is a personal site. The personal site is a little different.
It's more a flavor to what I'm thinking about to. Maybe I was out on the weekend and I might, there's some more personal pictures there, but it's pretty wide open. So if you want a personal flavor that will do, um, social networks. LinkedIn is a good place. Do a search. Um, there's also links on the main site. Uh, the podcast is on the blog in the main site. It's on all pod major podcast platforms. So Apple, Spotify, which hosts it.
Um. It's also on YouTube so you can go there as well, and that's probably the easiest place and if you need anything, reach out. I've also got two Substack, one that has technical hints and a separate one that goes out every Monday that's devoted to recap of the previous week's podcast. So feel free to. Subscribe to those as well. We'll connect with Rob and you won't regret it.
He is a knowledge machine and you know, so many outputs and I feel like we're very fortunate to have, spent some time together. Thank you. well thanks Rob, and we will talk again soon.