How to grow a locksmith business? | Locksmith Business Lead Generation

James Dooley and Kasra Dash explain how locksmiths win more emergency jobs because SEO, PPC and Google Business Profile target users at the exact moment they are locked out. They show that fast response times increase conversions because callers choose the first company that answers. They argue that reviews boost trust because five star feedback proves reliability in urgent situations.

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.

Kasra Dash: so I've been locked out the house and I'm trying to grow a locksmith business how what would you recommend how would you do it
James Dooley: so if I'm the owner of a locksmith business and someone is I'm looking to generate inquiries for someone who's locked out my house or locked out my car then what I'm going to do is certainly do Facebook ads because when you locked out your house you're GNA sit there on Facebook scrolling and go to see an ad no I'm just joking obviously there's certain niches where Facebook ads can work and there's certain niches where it doesn't work very well in my opinion if it's locksmith it's the emergency Niche yeah so anything to do with repairs or anything to do with locksmith under the emergency Niche is what we call it is search yeah so therefore for search it pretty much has to boil down to I think there's only three major players in in to grow a Locksmith Company can I guess these PPC yeah Google business profile yeah and your actual Organic website yeah I I was put in Google business profile with SEO so I was I you're right though in in those three but I I was having that you need PPC SEO and lead generation company right okay right there're the three major players of what you can do traditional marketing I think there's almost no point in even talking about that so like billboard advertising radio advertising TV advertising doesn't really matter you only need a locksmith when G you're locked out right and it's an emergency say and then you need to be inquiring then so traditional marketing I don't think works very well Facebook ads I don't think works very well I even go as far as saying that just general organic social media is kind of pointless um apart apart from with regards to organic social media I would still want my client from a trust standpoint just in case front of mind if they did get locked out they remember like somehow remember the telephone number I remember the brand and stuff like that but speaking um SEO there's two parts there's the website and then there's the Google business profile which is shown up in the Google Maps so for anyone that doesn't know much from SEO if they literally own a locksmith company now and we're talking about search engine optimization what would you do for SEO of the website and SEO of the Google business profile
Kasra Dash: so I think what what I would be looking out to do is let's say for example if I cover Manchester as as the the locksmith um I would look to build out as many different locations that I can so for example locksmith Alm locksmith Eckles locksmiths um wherever else um and that basically gives you the reach of if somebody is searching within a certain post code or a zip code there is a lot more there's a lot higher chance of actually showing up for let's say lockmith old them um and then obviously having clear cult actions as well so again I'm going to assume that not many people are going to want to fill it a contact form in this industry they they're wanting to they've been locked out their house they're they're Miss potentially missing the Euros or whatever is on TV that day and they want to be back into their house as quickly as possible so having a clear call to action with your telephone number and obviously making certain that um you actually have a good response time so if some of these phone in you're not just letting them go to voicemail you're actually picking up within 2 three seconds what's your thoughts
James Dooley: yeah I mean we do a lot of lead generation for locksmiths um so if anyone is a locksmith business owner and they're looking for leads head off over to fat rank.com and we can provide you uh the way you only pay on converted jobs so any inquiries that we send you you don't pay anything for the inquiries you only paying converted jobs but what Kaz just spoke about there that's very important is on we need to qualify whether you're good enough to take our leads and the number one thing that we're looking at is do you have a telephone number that can ring and are you answering that call straight away so do you have some sort of internal sales team or call center or someone that can answer it and get hold of that client because if they don't if you don't pick up they are ringing the next locksmith further down that page and once they've got the next locksmith generally speaking there's not that much of a battle on price it's just who can get out to let me back in the house or let me back in the car at the fastest possible full time so it's all about the service that you can provide so if I'm generating leads at fat rank for locksmith businesses I need to make certain that you can convert those otherwise I'm not getting paid and you're not getting paid so that's a that is a major play but yeah you're absolutely right it's all about the telephone number as the call to acum this is where PPC in this one could work alright it's PPC normally can come across as being expensive and it still is expensive very expensive in for lock Smiths but you can do like click to call yeah um and certain other ads of what you can do and you show up for anyone that doesn't know what PPC is and it's AdWords where you pay per click to be at the top of Google search so every click now they might not convert into inquiries you'd like to think that they would if someone's clicking through and looking for a locksmith in Manchester then you hope hopefully they locked out the house or locked out the car and they're looking for a lockmith and they'll land on your p and you say you are a specialist locksmith based in Manchester and then they ring you up hopefully you convert the job and make some good money out of it the only issue is it can be expensive on on that front so and then the third option is SEO to organically trying to rank your website and Google business profile something I would recommend bit in a big way if you are a locksmith business owner try and get as many reviews as you can every time you do a job job if you get them back in that house they're going to be very pleased with the work that you've done while you're there maybe go and get yourself some review cards so there's a certain website like review cards.com and you can take that business card out it's like a business card tap it on their phone it'll open up your Google business profile and when you stood in front of them you've got a better chance of them giving five stars an amazing locksmith based in Manchester help me um get back into my house those five star reviews go a long way for trust but also help your rankings as well so that's another big big play that I would do for lockmith so I think I think that's it really but if any of you guys do want lead generation for your locksmith business make sure to check out fat rant.com the link will be in the description down below