The Biggest SEO Mistake Agencies Keep Repeating | Sam Dunning

Key facts about

Sam Dunning is the founder of Breaking B2B, an agency focused on helping B2B companies turn SEO into measurable revenue rather than simply increasing traffic. His approach is built around commercial intent, customer research, strong positioning, and creating content that supports real buying decisions.

Sam advocates for a revenue-first SEO strategy that starts with understanding what customers are searching for, which problems they are trying to solve, and which keywords are most likely to generate qualified leads. His work combines commercial content, on-page optimisation, partnerships, guest posts, listicles, backlinks, and authority building to help companies strengthen both search visibility and trust.

He also shares practical insights on agency growth, client selection, team development, personal branding, and using AI responsibly. Sam believes AI can accelerate research and execution, but human judgment, quality control, and strategic thinking remain essential. His approach centres on consistency, speed, strong client relationships, and building an agency that delivers business results rather than vanity metrics.

What You’ll Learn

In this episode, Samy talks with Sam Dunning, founder of Breaking B2B, about building SEO programs around revenue, active demand, and measurable pipeline rather than traffic for traffic’s sake.

Sam explains when companies are too early for SEO, why category creators should first build awareness where their buyers already spend time, and how his team maps every commercial search and prompt a prospect may use when they are ready to buy.

They discuss

• Why Sam turns away prospects who are not ready for SEO
• How to distinguish active demand from category creation and awareness work
• How to build a money keyword and money prompt matrix Why sales calls, customer pain points, and competitor comparisons should guide content strategy
• How existing commercial pages can produce faster wins than publishing more top-of-funnel content
• How Breaking B2B structures its 90-day path to pipeline and revenue Why small teams can outmaneuver enterprise competitors through speed and fewer approval layers How partnerships, podcast guesting, guest articles, and backlinks helped build authority from zero
• Why one fully AI-written content project led to a major traffic collapse
• How the agency grew through cold outbound, LinkedIn, YouTube, paid distribution, and founder partnerships
• Where AI currently supports research, briefs, knowledge bases, reporting, and opportunity analysis
• Why listicles can still drive AI citations and, in one client case, 20–30 demos per month
• How Sam approaches hiring, delegation, client churn, and learning from operational mistakes

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