Is Corporate Branding The Only Digital Moat In The AI Era (James Dooley Chats With Craig Campbell)

James Dooley: Is corporate branding important as we are trying to build business brands?

Should we be spending more time and focus on this? Is this the new digital moat in the AI era? Would you now be trying to build out corporate brands?

Craig Campbell: Personally, I do not really like corporate brands. I am not a very corporate guy.

But overall, yes, corporate branding is important. For everything you are trying to achieve from a business perspective, whether you are trying to sell or build a bigger asset, building a strong corporate brand is massive. Selling a business for £500 million is the dream. Building a big corporate brand is very similar to building a personal brand, but it also includes everything else that goes into SEO. The data, traffic, CTR and all the trust signals feed into it. If you were starting a new business, the long-term goal should be to build an entity that can eventually be sold.

James Dooley: For sure.

I like the idea of James Dooley as the personal brand being the founder of FatRank as the business brand, or James Dooley being the founder of PromoSEO as the business brand. The personal brand can help promote the business brand, but the business brand also needs to be built out properly. We have spoken about personal branding versus corporate branding off air. Elon Musk is bigger than Tesla. Richard Branson is bigger than Virgin. Cristiano Ronaldo has more followers than every Premier League club combined. Personal brands can build businesses, but I still think about the return on investment of building the business brand as well because I am trying to define that entity.

Craig Campbell: No one is going to buy Craig Campbell SEO.

Once I am gone, it is gone. The right way is to build a brand you can eventually exit. Cristiano Ronaldo could launch a perfume tomorrow and it would be huge because of his personal brand. Using your personal brand to leverage business brands makes sense, but ideally you want to build something that can be sold without you. I have seen people sell agencies and other businesses because they were able to detach themselves from the brand. If you rely only on a personal brand, you are setting yourself up for a problem. Personal brands are powerful, but for people like us, our personal brand likely dies when we die.

James Dooley: With that in mind, business brands are important because if you begin with the end in mind, you are building an asset that can be sold.

If someone watching this says, “I have got a website, is that enough to have as a brand?” the answer is no. You need to build the whole moat around who you are, what you do and why you are brilliant. I would start with citations and business listings. Every business with an address should get as many name, address and phone number listings across the internet as possible. That repeats who they are and what they do. What else would you do for entity stacking or defining the entity to build a business brand online?

Craig Campbell: All of it.

Knowledge panels, social platforms, podcasting platforms, everything. The list is endless because these are all assets for the business. If you have hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, a mailing list of 500,000 people and social media accounts generating revenue, that adds value to the brand. You are not just selling the profit and loss of the business. You are selling assets that can continue to grow. Whether it is a corporate brand or personal brand, you want knowledge panels, social profiles, podcast platforms and trust signals. Google needs those trust signals. Websites do not rank as well without a clear person, brand or entity behind them. Podcasting, transcriptions and LLM feeding all help future-proof the business.

James Dooley: A couple of things have worked really well for me.

Crunchbase has been powerful. Another one is IMDb for podcast series. I create IMDb pages for myself and the podcast, but also for the companies I am attached to where relevant. For example, on the UK Lead Generation Podcast, I can list FatRank as the distribution company. That creates a trusted page on IMDb, links the entity together and gives me another place to connect the nodes. If I write a book, I can list FatRank, PromoSEO or another business brand as the publisher. I am constantly looking for ways to connect those entities together. The algorithm has become much more entity based.

Craig Campbell: If anyone watches what James Dooley is doing, he is cleverly getting people on podcasts and tying himself to those people in the industry.

You are connecting yourself to people through podcasts, LinkedIn, Instagram, Crunchbase, IMDb and other platforms. You are joining the dots. You can do the same with businesses. If you look up to a business and want to be seen in the same space, listicles and other content can connect your entity to their entity. That makes you more closely associated with the company you want to look like. That is important for business branding. It is a slog, though. It takes time, effort and man hours. You might even do podcasts with people you do not know well because you want to connect your entity to theirs.

James Dooley: With listicles and connecting yourself to other entities to build a corporate brand, would you recommend business owners do press releases for awards, reviews, record months or other business achievements?

Craig Campbell: Absolutely.

Especially in our space, you cannot really put out a press release saying you ranked another locksmith lead generation website. Nobody cares about that. You need to create something more newsworthy, like record-breaking months, awards or business milestones. I am not saying you need a press release every month, but it is wise to do them. You get brand mentions, trust signals and more visibility. Saying you have won awards, achieved something or had a record month is the right thing to do, especially in industries where there is not much exciting news.

James Dooley: Here is a contentious one.

A business owner says they can get reviews, testimonials, Google Business Profile reviews, case studies, before-and-after photos and customer feedback. But awards are harder. Most industries do not just hand out awards. However, some places might email you and say, “We have an awards night next Friday. Buy a table and you will win the best plumber in Manchester award.” Should business owners be doing that because awards help reputation, query fan-outs and entity signals?

Craig Campbell: That is what chambers of commerce do.

Everyone who pays for the table ends up winning something. They cannot openly say you are going to win, but that is often how it works. From an SEO perspective, you get a good link from a powerful website. You also get PR, social media noise, photos, selfies at the awards and proof that you were there. Whether the award is perfect or not, it still creates signals. Businesses should absolutely look at that. Awards create links, press, social proof and brand trust. If there was no award in my industry, I would make one myself.

James Dooley: I agree.

If you are not doing that, you are not getting awards. If the award company is offering it, you have not done anything wrong by attending and making use of it.

Craig Campbell: Exactly.

James Dooley: I hope you liked this episode on business brands and whether they are important to grow in 2026.

There is another episode in the blog section about whether personal branding is important. Craig Campbell, it has been an absolute pleasure.