James Dooley Podcast

James Dooley and Jason Barnard explain why businesses should improve their brand SERP and brand SEO to boost conversion rates, recruitment, investment opportunities and asset valuations.

Show Notes

This video explains which digital marketing strategies businesses should focus on in 2026 to improve brand SERP conversion rates, recruitment outcomes and investment opportunities. James Dooley and Jason Barnard start with KPI tracking because measuring brand search presence and conversion shows whether your branding is genuinely tipping decisions in your favour. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.

The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for businesses.

PromoSEO lead generation for businesses recently received recognition as the "Best Businesses Lead Generation Agency."

Where to Listen to This Episode

🤔Reasons You Need to Improve Your Brand SERP | Branding Advice🤔 is available on:

Creators and Guests

Host
James Dooley
James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.

What is James Dooley Podcast?

James Dooley is a Manchester-based entrepreneur, investor, and SEO strategist. James Dooley founded FatRank and PromoSEO, two UK performance marketing agencies that deliver no-win-no-fee lead generation and digital growth systems for ambitious businesses. James Dooley positions himself as an Investorpreneur who invests in UK companies with high growth potential because he believes lead generation is the root of all business success.

The James Dooley Podcast explores the mindset, methods, and mechanics of modern entrepreneurship. James Dooley interviews leading marketers, founders, and innovators to reveal the strategies driving online dominance and business scalability. Each episode unpacks the reality of building a business without mentorship, showing how systems, data, and lead flow replace luck and guesswork.

James Dooley shares hard-earned lessons from scaling digital assets and managing SEO teams across more than 650 industries. James Dooley teaches how to convert leads into long-term revenue through brand positioning, technical SEO, and automation. James Dooley built his career on rank and rent, digital real estate, and performance-based marketing because these models align incentive with outcome.

After turning down dozens of podcast invitations, James Dooley now embraces the platform to share his insights on investorpreneurship, lead generation, AI-driven marketing, and reputation management. James Dooley frequently collaborates with elite entrepreneurs to discuss frameworks for scaling businesses, building authority, and mastering search.

James Dooley is also an expert in online reputation management (ORM), having built and rehabilitated corporate brands across the UK. His approach combines SEO precision, brand engineering, and social proof loops to influence both Google’s Knowledge Graph and public perception.

To feature James Dooley on your podcast or event, connect via social media. James Dooley regularly joins business panels and networking sessions to discuss entrepreneurship, brand growth, and the evolving future of SEO.

James Dooley: Hi, so today I'm joined with Jason Barnard from Cali Cube, also known as the Brandur guy, and today is all about brand SEO and trying to improve your brand setup. So let's get straight into it. Let's give some reasons as to why people need to be looking to improve their brand setup.

Jason Barnard: Yeah, there are loads of reasons and I kind of end up, the more I look into it, the more I can find reasons. I think the principal one people think of is converting prospect to bottom of funnel. They've got all the cut touch points, you've convinced the prospect to Google your name. They're now comparing you to the competition. Your brand setup on Google looks great. You look more impressive, more credible and more believable as a solution than the competition. That's something that could well tip the balance in your favour compared to the competition. But also if somebody comes to your brand set and it's so convincing, they click on the link, they come through to your site, they could well just convert in the flow of that, just from the way that Google has presented you. So you can expect an increasing conversion rates from those bottom of funnel prospects.

James Dooley: So just to expand on that one, because obviously there's many other reasons as well, but just to expand on the one with regards to the conversion rate, um, I strongly recommend the link in the description. Check out the link in the description. It's about a video where me and Jason, another video that me and Jason are on, of how Jason managed to generate millions of revenue for my company, based in the UK that builds sports pitches and playgrounds. There's a video on there that explains how we was up against five other companies and we got narrowed down into the last two companies. We was working for a school. It was in Bradford, for Bradford Council. And the school, the head teacher, then had both quote side by side, and was very similar on price. And he went, when we, we ended up winning the job and it was 550,000, this one job, and he went online and Googled our company and their company, and he said he spent, this is this is from the head teacher's mouth, I spent 30 minutes online looking at two different companies. I was looking at the reviews and looking at what others was saying online. I wanted to, it was almost like he, he typed in our brand, minus brand is being the domain now, he wasn't savvy enough to do that, but he wanted to eliminate what we said online and wanted to know what everybody else said online. And because our brander was so much more powerful than this other company that was also a very very good company, now I'm not saying that, like both companies deliver a great job, this other company had a lot of testimonials offline, on email, on letters, and they did not move the offline reviews online. We, who'd been good at marketing, had everything online. We was inundated with testimonials, reviews, lots of people saying how good that we was, how trustworthy that we are, even subcontractors that we'd worked with saying how amazing we are to work with. Where this other company, they look like a small company online. They wasn't. They was doing 15, 20 million in revenue per year. There was a huge company. But we won that job and many others. And that's exactly what you're trying to talk about. At the eleventh hour, when someone, you're not certain what SEO agency to use, what do they do? They go and Google them both. This one looks better. Okay, they're both might be ÂŁ3,000 a month, ÂŁ5,000 a month, but at the eleventh hour, they go and quickly check what are others saying online, and it can be a massive difference in conversion. So the next one I want to talk to you about is about the benefits of the brand sur. Is have you ever heard any stories about recruitment? So obviously I've seen a lot, since I've improved our branding online, we get a lot of people now saying we want to come and work for you. So have you had any other clients come to you about recruitment side of things, of benefits for the brand setup?

Jason Barnard: Yeah, 100%. Um, the fact that you look impressive online as a company is really really important to recruitment. And as I learned in Saigon with mad singers, your team is what's going to make your business. And if you get the right team, you're going to have a great business and you're going to flourish. Getting those right people, people who really want to work with you, requires that you project the brand image that makes them want to work with you. So your company needs to look incredibly impressive. Your company needs to look like it's credible and has a bright future. And you, as an individual, as the CEO or the founder, need to look hugely impressive. Because people come, at the end of the day, to work for, as much as they're working for Cali Cube, if not more so, your personal brand is hugely important and your corporate brand. And it will get you the right candidates, super enthusiastic to work for you. And that that is the thing as well. It's like the eleventh hour comparison you were just making between, do I buy from this company or do I buy from that company, do I commit my working life to this company or that one? It's a huge personal decision. Researching the company is definitely come into that decision. And people research using Google, because they trust Google. And if you can make Google make you look great, you've won the game.

James Dooley: Yeah, I think another one as well, which I want you to try and expand on, another massive benefit of getting a positive brand setup, um, for myself, which I never really thought, but I I used to always kind of revert it back to EEAT signals is investment opportunities. I get now, almost a new inquiry every single day where someone is reaching out to me saying I want you to come into my business and I'm willing to sell you a stake in my business at a hugely discounted rate because I know what value you are going to bring to the business. Prior to me not improving my brand setup and people not knowing who I was, I didn't get presented with these opportunities. But now from an investment opportunity point of view, the brand setup has been a huge benefit for me moving forward. Have you heard any other kind of stories about people saying about, from an investment opportunity point of view, the brand sur?

Jason Barnard: Interesting enough, I get at least one request a month from companies wanting to invest in Cali Cube. And they all come to me and say, we understand what you do and you look super impressive, Jason. We want to work with you. It's actually more to do with me personally than it is Cali Cube. They see the opportunity of working with somebody who's obviously a very successful entrepreneur that I have been over the last 30 years or so. Um, so yes, investment is hugely important in the sense that, number one, the brand sur, uh, can amplify what you already have. IE, you have an amount of content and credibility signals that would put you at this level. If you optimise them right, Google will make you look like you're here, even though you're not. And then if you build on them, yeah, get Google to present you in a more and more positive manner, you'll realise that what you're actually doing is building up your credibility signals across the entire internet. So when somebody comes and searches for you on Google, then they go and look on LinkedIn, then they go and look on YouTube, then they go and look on Forbes, then they go and look on my own website, they see that same amplified credibility that they're seeing on Google. Then it makes sense to them. Then they believe it.

James Dooley: I think another, another huge one as well is that you were indirectly educating people how to do proper digital marketing. Where some people have become obsessed with SEO, right, and they just focus on SEO. Where with regards to yourself, he telling them to do YouTube videos, Twitter, LinkedIn, and these are all this omni-channel marketing. It's been omnipresent everywhere. And because you're saying, look, you need to be doing this, next minute you could get inquiries from LinkedIn, from Twitter, from YouTube. And the minute someone sees you on YouTube and says, oh, I really like this that you've said on YouTube, they start to Google you, see this positive brand setup, see everywhere else that you kind of featured, and say, so from new inquiries, it's huge from that. And actually, another one which I've never spoke to you about, actually we've spoke a lot of times, is do you know when you, when someone gets a knowledge panel and they also say people also search, right? That people also search has generated me now, now I've started to improve upon my knowledge panel, that started to generate me inquiries because people have said, oh, I searched for such a body, I then came across your profile. You offer something slightly different to what they're offering. I buy quite a lot from these, but I want to buy this from you and this from you. And it actually, and it all just came from the knowledge panel, you like related search, and it clicked through. And the next minute your positive brand, this is who I am, this is what I do. And those new inquiries as well is amazing. Have you ever, have you ever, has anyone ever spoke to you, what I'm now seeing as well is, um, on my people also search for is Rand Fishkin and Yoast Valk. So what actually happens is, number one, I look impressive because I'm associated with two big hitters in the SEO digital marketing space. But also if somebody searched for Yoast of Valk, he's now an entrepreneur and an investor because he's now sold Yoast, people see me associated with him. So if they're looking to him for investment opportunities, they'll think, well, Jason Barnard is related to him, therefore he might be interesting too, click on it. And as you say, they see this glorious brander with a great knowledge panel, they think this guy is at the same level as Yoast Valk. Job done. And another thing coming back to the point you made before is the people who come to me asking about investing in Cali Cube will say, we found you on LinkedIn, we found you on YouTube, we got a touch point on Forbes, and then we searched you on Google to make sure that this is all legitimate, then we contacted you.

Jason Barnard: Yeah, that is hugely powerful. Yeah, because like old school, my, my brother, my eldest brother does traditional marketing, and what he always always taught me from a young age is like touch points. You need more touch points. You need to be seen everywhere. So if he was to do billboard advertising, he would say you can't just do billboard advertising. You need to complement it with radio advertising or TV advertising or bus stop advertising. Because, norm, it's only about the fifth time, the, I mean, I think it's gone up. I think it used to be the third time, but now it's gone up to the fifth time, before someone's seen you five times before they actually look to inquire. So if you can get all the different touch points put together, you're just doing what old school marketing tells you to do. Get more touch points. Get seen in more places. Get that trust being built up. And not only is it new inquiries, they're already pre-sold upon wanting to use you. It's not like it's a cold web lead who doesn't know what you do. They know almost everything what you do because they can see it all and say, I want you to do this. And and then it's almost like the price is secondary to them wanting to use you. They've already pre-sold upon using you. Now you just need to agree a understand.

James Dooley: And we, we come to a couple of things there. Number one is that the sales calls that I now do, because I'm omni-channel omnipresent, that every time you look around a topic wherever it is online, knowledge panels, you'll find me somewhere with the red shirt. People say, I know what you do. I know what I want. And I know you're the guy because I see you everywhere online. The questions now are, how much does it cost? How long will it take? That's a great sales call to have.

Jason Barnard: Yeah, uh, and then the second point is the, uh, touch points. I mean, I don't know if it's 3, 5, 7, 20, 30, but it actually doesn't matter online. It might be 20, because we see 30,000 brands a day. We don't retain 30,000 brands a day. The red shirt is powerful for that because it's memorable. But let's say it was 20 touch points, 30 touch points online. It's going to be higher than it is offline because there's so much more information overload. You need them in order to get some into somebody's brain to the point of which they now understand that they want to do business with you. And that's the omnipresence that we can bring you at Cali Cube by pushing out our three-phase strategy. One, first is get that knowledge panel. Does Google understand you? Are you clear online? Secondly, is are you credible? Are you understood to be credible? Number three is, are you omnipresent within your niche across all the different channels of marketing? If you've nailed those three, you're going to drive an incredibly strong business. Where, like for Cali Cube, 80% of our business does not come from Google.

James Dooley: Yeah, I mean, another huge one as well, moving on there to another benefit of the brand setup, again I would strongly recommend any viewers who's watching this check out the link in the description. It's to do with selling your assets. If you're ever looking to build up to sell a website online or digital asset online, they do due diligence not just about the website, it and the backlink profile and everything else that's surrounding your profit and loss, they do due diligence on you as the owner. And watch the video of how I nearly, it was 2.3x, and this is talking millions extra on valuation, by me improving my brand setup. At first I got a valuation which I thought was way too low. I then started to realise it's because I was connected to things that I wasn't using on that website. I then improved the brand and came back. I think it was 13 months later. I think initially hit him up 12 months later, but I think it was 13 months later till we entered negotiations. I then got the price that I wanted by improving my brand. So so the sale price of your assets is another. And I didn't even think this was a thing. And obviously I've spoke to you quite a lot, Jason, over the years, and I didn't even think that they even looked at things like that. And now know that they do. And we to spoke to you about it and how much more that it generates. I think even you was in shock that how much, how much the kind of the buyers look into you as a being as an individual. There's so many other benefits to the brand setup. I never once had the sale of your assets as being that you can almost double the valuation. And if again if you've not seen it, check the link in the description, go and watch that video and it explains in detail exactly how I double valuation. Have you had any others that kind of hit you up about that?

Jason Barnard: About no, yours is a stunning story, uh, but it really does demonstrate that you know Google is your business card. Google, people trust Google. People understand that Google understands the world. It's difficult to manipulate that representation of your brand, your personal brand, and you have to walk the walk in order to get that result on Google. Um, the idea that people will research somebody with whom they're going to do business, whatever it is, to invest, to buy from, to uh, sell to, to partner with, to work for, they will always research if it's an important decision for them. So you need to make that research as positive as possible for you. And that research goes from Google to Chat GPT to Perplexity to LinkedIn to YouTube to Forbes, all of the places that you would naturally hang out online. And that's the key as well. Is don't just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope some will stick. You need to be intentional about where you're hanging out, where you're presenting this information. And that's what we do with the 2 million, two billion sorry, data points at Cali Cube. Is we can analyse your cohort, that your competitors, your peers, and figure out exactly where you need to be standing to be standing where your audience is looking every time they look around, when they're researching a particular topic. And then when they research you, that they come across exactly the message, the brand narrative, as you said earlier, the brand narrative that you choose. Don't let Google choose your brand narrative.

James Dooley: Yeah, I I love this kind of saying when you say that about don't just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. And then you say we throw spaghetti at the wall with super glue on and we know what sticks. And it's like I love that. I love that terminology when you say they've got super glue on and we know what sticks because we've got the data points and it's it's calculated and mathematical and scientific in the way that you do it. You know that data point and that data point needs connecting. And if it doesn't, you're going to have a weak knowledge panel or not even have a knowledge panel. So we've obviously gone through now all of the benefits, or no, some of the benefits of the brand setup. So any viewers who is watching this, what have we missed? Is there any other benefits that you know about? Leave a comment in the comment section. There is a lot more that I know I can expand on, but we'll be here all day. So leave a comment in the comment section. Let me know what you think we're missing that you think was is very very important for improving your branding, doing brand SEO, or do you not believe in branding and brand SEO? So leave a comment in the comment section. I want to know what you guys are all thinking about the brand ser. If you don't have a knowledge panel yet, I strongly recommend hitting up Jason Barnard at Cali Cube. If you're needing to improve your corporate business kind of branding online, again just drop him a message prior to even signing up. He'll give you some hints and tips of what you need to be doing prior to him being able to connect those data points and make certain that everything fits in place.