James Dooley Podcast

James Dooley and Karl Hudson explain how SEO agencies grow because targeted positioning and strategic lead generation improve client acquisition. James shows that ranking for SEO terms builds credibility because prospects trust agencies that rank themselves. Karl highlights that networking accelerates growth because direct relationships convert faster than cold outreach. They both stress that PPC and niche targeting increase ROI because focused offers attract higher value clients.

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: how to grow an SEO agency I would say I wouldn't even consider traditional Maring unless I'm doing you're going to be competing against other agencies now those agencies have probably been around for what can sends a little bit of alarm out and get in a room with more successful people than yourself to try and just learn new things if you're looking to grow a search engine optimization agency one of the first things that I would want to do is
Karl Hudson: hi it's car from search here and I'm joined with my business partner James dly and today we're going to have a little chat about what it takes or how to grow an SEO agency so obviously dly owns promo SEO one of his other businesses so it's obviously very relevant experience when it comes to growing an SEO agency so dly let's get into it you know what sort of strategies do you think work when it comes to growing an SEO agency
James Dooley: so I'd start off with if you're looking to grow a search engine optimization agenc say one of the first things that I would want to do is be ranking SEO like and all the terms related to SEO for my own website mainly to generate leads but also as social proof if you're saying you're an SEO agency and your own website isn't ranking very well then it kind of sends a little bit of alarm Bells out so what I'd want to do initially is start ranking for every term I want to rank for for how to improve um search engine optimization for local SEO for affiliate sites or for doing SEO for e-commerce websites and stuff like that so that would be the first thing I would do but a massive caveat that if you are looking to grow your own SEO agency then you will know that SEO is a long-term investment you're not going to start getting inquiries today or tomorrow by doing SEO so you need to be making certain that alongside doing SEO you might need to be doing some sort of other marketing strategies to try to generate leads today so what's your thoughts initially then on um using your own search engine optimization knowledge to build your own site Cal for growing an SEO agency
Karl Hudson: I can think I think it can work but the problem you're going to run into which is what you obviously mentioned there was the time so you're going to be competing against other agencies now those agen have probably been around for a especially if you're starting from scratch they probably got staff straight away there's going to be an hour deficit against you as in you know you might just be a onean band maybe it's two years and there isn't the time of day to spend on trying to get those ranking when also trying to generate income for your company and Etc so I would probably say like yes SE obviously is fundamental I would say it is something that you should be doing as an SEO agency um um but I would personally probably look more towards doing either a pair ad strategy in the beginning um Google AdWords or being or doing some networking or and starting at like little local network and hubs with local businesses yeah yeah I mean on on that like PPC Google AdWords it is a great strategy but you need to know your key wordss you need to know what's going to get your conversion and you also need to know what you're going to get on return on investment from what you're spending it's very important some people that go and start loading up a PPC campaign and then just go in like okay SEO Manchester or SEO London and they might be spending two three 400 just for a lead and the conversion rate is not very good and then the quickly then start to like burn all the budget very quickly and realize that it's not worked you need to look at the long tails and look specifically like what are you good at is it Magento SEO that you good that and that's the only one that you want to go into is it specifically SEO for dentists or for law firms and Niche down in in that way so I'd start I'd make certain I understand what my target audience is and what I'm good at with regards to converting if I'm running um PPC but then also then you can then keep that kind of branding of what you have on your social media ads as well so having the same ads like we are Specialists um at SEO for dental practices or we are specialist SEO Agency for um nurses doctors um whatever it whatever carpet cleaners roofing companies whatever it could be electricians plumbers um I I kind of focus in being like this is what I'm an expert at so do you think traditional advertising has a place here
James Dooley: um no if I'm being honest with you I think the only reason why I don't like traditional like billboard radio TV or magazines is it's so difficult to track your kpis I think traditional marketing is more of a a branding longterm kind of play and only if you're a large establishment and Company I would say I wouldn't even consider traditional marketing unless I'm doing 50,000 a month in revenue or more as a minimum um and then I might start touching upon in local areas to say like okay I'm a local SEO in Manchester and you might start doing some Billboards or radio ads in Manchester but it's costly and the kpis are hard to track what about um Network you you mentioned networking events then so what's your thoughts on building it out like building looking to grow an an SE agency via networking events and is there any events that you would go would you go to business events or SEO events or what would you try to Target on networking
Karl Hudson: so obviously I I personally would probably try business events over SEO ones because obviously you're going to be going into an area which is filled with seos so especially if you were a little bit newer to it or you you know at least a new agency you might feel a little bit overwhelmed when there's potentially you know the big the big agencies there whereas if you're going to like a local um little business Meetup you know you might find them on um meetup.com place like this you just little business little hubs um that you can go in and you might be the only SEO in the room there might be web designers there could be graphic designers Etc so these are all like shouldering niches that you know you might be able to offer value to them and at the same time they can offer value to you um so it's very much yeah that's the way I would look to do it and then obviously you've got masterminds off the back of that so if you don't Mastermind you're probably missing out on a on just a a ton of knowledge you should just you should do at least one Mastermind a year um and try and get in a room with you know more successful people than yourself to try and just yeah learn learn new things
James Dooley: yeah I think I think the last one that you could start to do if you're looking to grow an SEO agency is lead generation so teaming up with a lead generation company um obviously I'm the founder at fat Rank and majority of what we do is lead generation we actually have um a guaranteed return on investment um lead generation service but obviously we're very very selective with who we work with and you need to qualify in making certain that you've got a sales team so if I generate you a lead you responding to them very quick you've got good branding already good testimonials you've already done quite a lot of like case studies so your conversion is high so you've got a good chance of converting the lead that I might be able to generate for your SEO agency if you want to try to apply for that you can do there is actually room for SEO agencies um mainly because I own quite like prime example um Searcher Ral that um I've invested into that you as the founder of we don't carry out traditional SEO agency client work we just do the link building side of things so if someone does want a full management of the want glossy reports every month and stuff like that we might be able to pass those leads and some of these clients are big clients as well they're not small 500 1,000 a month clients they could be 510,000 a month clients um or they could specifically want the handholding for keyword research and stuff like that so if anyone is watching this and you are an SE agency looking to grow there is Partnerships available there um fat rank does do lead generation for search engine optimization mainly in the US and the UK um so if you're interested then um make sure you're fill in the form at fat rank.com but what's your thoughts of like using any other lead generation companies car like clutch or top three rated would you use an S like the only issue with a lot of lead generation companies that we found over the years is they'll resell that same lead to maybe five other companies um they're not exclusive leads which can be a bit of a pain
Karl Hudson: I would be if they already rank in a ranking high they might you know bar I know are very popular within PID ads if they already have that traffic then actually it's usually quite cheap to at least get the leads in at least you get them one bite at the Apple or bite is it bite the apple or bite the Cherry whatever the phrase is at least you get one go um it's you know potentially pitching because that might be something you haven't done before you you you might need to go into a pitch you know sales presentation what you're going to achieve so that at least gets you in quite cheaply to practice those things yeah so from a you know a hacking time point of view I know they might share the leads with three or four or five other companies but at least you're gaining that experience very quickly um which will only help down the line
James Dooley: yeah that's true as well I mean if you've got a good offer um for the client you can win the work do what I mean it's about trying to get that hook and that offer initially to get them on board and once you've got them on board it's about trying to keep the relationship going the lifetime value is is being built up from there so if you are an SEO agency and you've watched this video and you like any of the tips and tricks or if you think we've missed something leave a comment in the comment section whether you're doing anything different to what we've spoken about and you're seeing good growth for your SEO company