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James Dooley and Kazra explain which digital marketing strategies tradesmen should use to win more jobs, generate consistent leads and build a profitable brand without relying on a single source.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies tradesmen should focus on in 2026 to improve lead generation, return on investment and a consistent flow of enquiries. James Dooley and Kazra start with KPI tracking because tradesmen need to know how many leads each source produces and whether the cost is delivering a worthwhile return before scaling spend. 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 tradesmen.
PromoSEO lead generation for tradesmen recently received recognition as the "Best Tradesmen Lead Generation Agency."
Get More Jobs as a Tradesman: A Step-by-Step Digital Marketing Guide is available on:
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: So today's question is how to get more work as a tradesman. Use things like social media ads or you can be listing yourself on a lot of the big tradesman websites like trust a trader rated people check a trade never have a single like point of failure in the business. So today's question is how to get more work as a tradesman. I'm joined with James and we're going to be answering this question.
James Dooley: Yeah. So, how to get more leads as a tradesman? Um, you've got several different options. Um, you can do in-house SEO or you can do PPC. You can do things like social media ads or you can be listing yourself on a lot of the big tradesman websites like Trust a Trader, Rated People, Check a Trade, Yellow Pages Advertising, or teaming up with a lead generation company. So, Kazra, over to you. Which one of these do you think that a tradesman should be doing? Should be doing all of it or part of it? Like what's your thoughts on it?
Kazra: So, right now, if you're not doing anything, you're obviously not going to get seen. So, it's it's important to to pick one and picking one that actually works. So, I'll I'll obviously rattle off a few where we've seen mistakes of trades that just doesn't work for, for example. So, we've had a lot of businesses and they come to us and they're like, "Hey, we want lead generation or we want more leads or we want more inquiries." And they don't even have a website. They don't even have a Google My Business set up. They they just have no online presence at all. So, if you don't have a website at all, I in I highly recommend investing into getting a a web developer on Fiverr or just hiring one from uh your local um location and getting a website. set that up. The next step is to get like the Google business um set up because again if somebody's searching for plumbers near me or gardener near me then in that case you there there is a likeliness of of your Google business actually showing up when somebody searches that. The next thing is obviously um driving traffic through to it. Now, you said before there are a lot of like premium directories like Check a Trade for example, Builder Builder. There's a few others that you can get listed on like um Premium Yell and stuff like that. Now, you've obviously said in the past you never want to just be spending in one vertical. You never you never want to have all your eggs in one basket. So, I'll I'll pass this over to you, but what do you mean by that?
James Dooley: So, let's let's say we've got our website set up. we have our Google business set up. We just want more traffic. We want more leads. What What's your next step?
Kazra: Yeah. So, for me, when I say don't throw all your eggs in one basket, let's say you your only way of generating leads was via organic SEO and ranking in Google. If a if an algorithm update came along and then you got hit with the algorithm update, all your lead supply is gone because that's your only lead supply. So, I would always say never have a single like point of failure in the business. So try to diversify of where you're getting leads from. So can you do a little bit of organic SEO yourself in house? Can you do a little bit of PPC which is pay-per-click and using Adwords? Could you be doing social media advertising or just organic social media to try to generate some leads? Um but yeah, I mean in general you want to diversify it. However, a lot of people have been watching these videos and now they've come back to us saying, "Well, James, you told me that I need to diversify. So now I'm spending money on check a trade, on build a builder, on trust a trader, and I'm wasting so much money. And I'm like, well, wait on a minute. In all of these videos, I also say you should be tracking your KPIs. So you should be checking how many leads you're getting from each source and what your return on investment is. Obviously, if you signed up with, let's say, as being an example, my builder, right, and you was only generating one or two leads a month and it was costing you £2,000 a month, then quickly you're going to start saying the return on investment of this isn't good enough and then you should switch that off. If that was the same for Yellow Pages premium listings, then again, you would switch it off. However, there might be one or two places like Bark. You could get a listing on Bark and it could generate you quite a lot of leads and that might turn into profit. Well, I would continue to do that. So, you've got to try, depending on the geo of where you're based and what industry that you're in, you should be trying a lot of them out, seeing what works and what doesn't work. I mean, I am slightly biased, but over at Fat Rank, it's a no-brainer if you get accepted because we do a commissionbased lead generation service. So, every single business should be trying that out to see whether they qualify. if they do, it's a no-brainer for businesses because all what they do is pay out of the profits. You don't pay anything up front. You literally just pay out your profits. It's like a no win, no fee setup. Um, and obviously every business should be doing that, but they should also not just being 100% relying on Fat Rank to generate them leads. They should have different kind of ways of generating these leads as a tradesman to get a consistent flow of inquiries that come through. So, that's kind of what I'm saying. Do different sources of lead generation, but 100% be tracking your KPIs and making certain that you're getting an ROI on that.
James Dooley: Let's let's um I'll I'll put a little twist to the end of this video. Let's say you are a local plumber, right? And I'm going to rattle off a few things and you just need to say yes or no if you would invest in it. So, would you invest in getting a website?
Kazra: Yes.
James Dooley: Would you invest in email marketing initially?
Kazra: Yes. If I if I've got a good database, then yes. Right.
James Dooley: Okay. So, if if you have a database, which is pretty key, like for example, maybe you've done a load of boiler um installations and you might want to send out an email saying like, "Hey, your uh yearly checkups coming up, right?"
Kazra: So, you would do something like that. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. If I've not got a list though, then no.
James Dooley: Right. Okay. Perfect. Social media and we we'll we'll categorize this into two sections. Social media organic like posting on Instagram, Facebook, etc. or ads.
Kazra: If I've got a lot of money and I'm a big brand, then yes. If I am not making and doing several million in revenue a year, then no, because you're going to end up spending a lot of money and you're not going to get the ROI in it. But longterm, if you want to build a brand, you see the long-term vision, then potentially, yes, you want to do testimonials and case studies and stuff like that. But if you're looking for a quick fix to generate more leads and more business today, no.
James Dooley: Right. Okay. One one very quick thing to touch on that as well. A lot of business owners, they're like really great at being business owners. So whether it's fitting a new boiler or actually doing the job, but when it comes to like Facebook ads and PPC and stuff like that, although Google and Facebook try to make it out as if it's like really easy, one click and you start getting leads, it's never the actual case. Um it's it's almost like a trade in itself. Word of mouth marketing, would you would you be recommending your clients to recommend you?
Kazra: Absolutely. Yes.
James Dooley: Right. Brilliant. However, too many businesses rely on word of mouth marketing and then they start moaning that they've not got enough leads coming through. But if you can generate leads via word of mouth, then that's a brilliant way of you getting a consistent flow of leads coming in. If you have lots of referrals, however, it starts to dry up, you need another source, right?
Kazra: Yeah, definitely agree with that.
James Dooley: Business cards. Would you invest in business cards?
Kazra: Um, yes, I would because if I'm going to certain events, then yes, I would make certain I've got a business card. If next door came looking at a boiler I've just installed at a certain house and they said, "Oh, you're doing a great job there." I'd go, "Oh, here's my business card. Get in touch." And it's very cheap to do them.
James Dooley: Yeah. Flyer drops. No.
Kazra: How come? Just think it there's better ways of spending your money. You want to try and make certain it's not it's a relatively cheap way of doing it, but for you to drop a load of leaflets off and be able to hit someone at the right time. If you're looking at plumbers to fix a tap or something, it's it's unlikely that you're going to get much business from it. So, can you win business from leaflet drops? Absolutely. Would I recommend it? No. I think you can spend money better elsewhere.
James Dooley: Local newspapers?
Kazra: No.
James Dooley: Right. Okay. Online business directories. Yes, because it's free. There's some that you have to pay for, but um Yes. And it helps the website rank better. It builds trust. Partnerships. So, you you you've spoke about this before, but like um a shoulder in niches, for example. Explain that what what you mean by that a little bit.
Kazra: Absolutely. You should be doing this. So, let's say someone does a lot of let's say there's a company that only did boiler repairs and they didn't do new boilers and you're a new boiler company that you just you just want to install boilers. try and team up with companies that just do boiler repairs and every time that they a client comes to them saying actually I don't just want it repaired I want it replaced they then refer you the replacement of the boiler and likewise if you didn't want to get into servicing and maintenance and cleaning of the boilers then obviously you can refer business back that way so you kind of both referring each other work that each of you don't want and it works well both ways and the last one vehicle advertising No, you you wouldn't you wouldn't spend money, right?
James Dooley: Okay. No, I mean, obviously, if you can wrap a vehicle that's doing site visits and it's for certain stuff where you're driving up and down the motorway, could you get an ROI in it? Yes, potentially you could. But if we're looking at a a business, a trades person that wants to generate leads quickly, my first protocol is using a lead generation company that knows what they're doing, that gets a consistent flow of inquiries coming in, that I can turn that into winning paid work, and then further down the line, once I'm starting to make quite a lot of profit, I can then start to look at building a proper brand online.
Kazra: Yeah. So, if you are struggling with lead generation for your trades business, head over to fatranks.com, fill in the contact form, and our team will be in touch. Thank you for watching.