How to grow a cleaning business?

The podcast brings James Dooley and Kasra Dash together to break down why cleaning companies can scale more quickly when marketing systems deliver consistent enquiries and reinforce brand credibility. James Dooley explains that SEO underpins long-term growth because a well-built website—backed by reviews, photos and real case studies—becomes a lead-generating asset rather than an ongoing expense. Kasra Dash highlights the importance of directory listings and citation consistency, showing how they improve local visibility and strengthen search presence in competitive service areas. The discussion also explores why PPC often underperforms in the cleaning industry, as rising click costs squeeze already tight margins. In contrast, social media content such as before-and-after footage increases trust through visual proof, while retargeting campaigns keep brands front of mind for prospects who have already shown interest. James Dooley explains how FatRank’s pay-on-conversion lead generation delivers immediate opportunities with no upfront risk, as businesses only pay once a job converts. The episode concludes by reinforcing that reputation management is non-negotiable, because strong branding and five-star reviews directly shape customer decisions at every stage of the buying journey.

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: So Kasra, I've got a cleaning company today and I want to grow it. What do you recommend?

Kasra Dash: So if you're looking to grow a cleaning business then there's different methods. You've got traditional marketing. Billboard advertising, TV advertising, radio advertising. Or being presented in local magazines. Local magazines might work okay. I would steer away personally from the traditional billboard, TV and radio. But that is one method that you could do to grow your cleaning business.

James Dooley: The next play. Online SEO. Search engine optimisation. I would strongly recommend in having a cleaning business website that's branded to yourself, that's got positive reviews and stuff online and that you're trying to physically rank that cleaning business website that you have. So SEO is definitely a play that I would be doing. Building out content for what you do and building backlinks especially if you can and trying to get as many testimonials. Any cleaning jobs of what you've done that if you can have like a before and an after photo, they work quite well in the cleaning business. So I'd be trying to get that. Maybe a video showing before the job, before you've cleaned the job, and after you've cleaned it. They work really really well as well as being like case studies and if you can attach a testimonial to that, I'd definitely be looking to do that play.

James Dooley: You've got PPC which is Google AdWords. Very expensive. I'd probably steer away from that unless you need to be generating leads today. And it's very important that you need to be generating leads today, that PPC can do that for you. But you will be spending around 50 to 100 per lead. If you're in the US, 130 dollars maybe per lead. It's quite an expensive play. Especially when some of the profit margins might only be that or not much more than that. So I probably would stay away from a cleaning company looking to grow. Probably wouldn't go down the pay per click route personally.

James Dooley: You've got a cheaper kind of way of growing the business which is doing social media posts. So being active every day on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Pinterest. Again, the pictures that you've done that day, just post on social media. If you've got a video just on your iPhone or whatever and you've got a before and after, post that on your social media. Try to upload it to YouTube. All these platforms are completely free to use. So use it. And also then it's potentially being seen in Google Images and Google Videos and YouTube which is the second largest search engine online.

James Dooley: Then you've got social media ads which could work quite well. You could choose a local demographic of where you want to work. So in the United Kingdom it could be within Birmingham or Newcastle or Essex or London or whatever your demographic is. You could work nationwide but start close to where you're best at converting and then expand upon there. From there then you could run Facebook ads or Instagram ads. You could do YouTube ads if you've got some nice videos. That's another play that you could do and could work well for growing a cleaning business.

James Dooley: And then the last one is teaming up with a lead generation company. So over at FatRank.com, they work with a lot of cleaning companies. Could be oven cleaning, carpet cleaning, could be commercial office cleaning, cladding cleaning, roof cleaning, pressure washing driveways. All these different kind of subtopics within the cleaning sector FatRank are working with. And the good thing about FatRank is that they'll guarantee you a return on investment. So there's no risk whatsoever. You only pay when you've converted the jobs. The only caveat to that is that not all businesses are accepted. We need to be making certain that we are checking the company who's got a strong enough brand and testimonials and reviews online that they are good at converting the jobs. I'd definitely from the word go look to the lead generation company because that's going to generate leads instantly. I'd do the social media route and make certain that you're building that up from a trust signal point of view. And then I would be, even though it’s a longer term play, looking to spend some money on SEO.

Kasra Dash: So with regards to you, from a cleaning business point of view, someone’s looking to grow, get more leads, make more profit, what would you be looking to do?

James Dooley: So obviously I understand the value of SEO. I know that it's not going to get me leads in the next 24 hours, right. But if I'm looking to set up a cleaning company and if I'm looking to sell that cleaning company, I think that investing into SEO over the next two years is just a no brainer. It's going to increase the overall value of my business. So well worth doing the actual SEO site for my own website also means that I'm not relying on a singular lead source. So for example if I'm investing into leads from Bark or Checkatrade or whatever else, if those just decide to switch me off one day, I've not got a business at that point. At least if I'm generating my own inquiries it means that I've got my own consistent flow of inquiries coming in. So that's one thing that I would do.

James Dooley: Social media posts is another thing. Like let's say for example if you're doing driveway cleaning. Setting up a nice little video. It could be like a time lapse video where it could be like a four hour job that you do but it's actually condensed down into like 60 seconds. So I would be doing stuff like that. I would be posting before and after photos. And then obviously going to you guys at FatRank for lead generation.

Kasra Dash: One other thing as well that I think would work very well in this industry would be actually getting my website submitted on directories. Getting them listed on websites like Yelp. Yellow Pages. Yelp if you're in America. You would be surprised the amount of... it's not 2002 by any means. It's not like you're getting the big Yellow Pages through your door. But you're going to get some amount of inquiries. I wouldn't probably spend the premium for Yellow Pages because I have heard that a lot of businesses don't actually get the ROI back. But just getting listed on those directory websites can go a long way.

Kasra Dash: Because that as well has a great SEO play. It actually helps you rank better in your local area. So if you've got a website and you're based in Essex and then you go and get yourself 100 business directory listings in Essex, that will help you rank your business better for cleaning in Essex.

James Dooley: Exactly. So yeah it's definitely a great SEO play for that. And like you said I think what a lot of people don't understand, if you are a cleaning company and you're contemplating whether to spend money on SEO or not, don't just think of the return on investment that you're going to get this week and next week and next month. SEO is a long term investment that you need to be doing now. Even if you went and spent let's say 2,000 a month on SEO and you weren't bringing that in directly in business yet, in two three years’ time once you have the topical authority with lots of pages and the power from your backlink profile, you then could be earning money without needing to spend any more money on SEO.

James Dooley: So once you've got your rankings there in position number one, position number two in Google, a lot of the time the other competitors are not going to start building more links than you in a cleaning business. It's not that competitive. So it's a long term play that cleaning businesses should be doing.

James Dooley: But also the most important part of this is reputation management building. It's making certain that you can convert jobs better. Because if someone is searching your business name or brand, you are being seen in the best possible light that you want to be seen online. You've got lots of five star reviews. You've got lots of case studies of amazing jobs that you've done. So strongly recommend doing SEO for the cleaning business. But then also check out FatRank.com. Go to the contact us page. Give your details in. See where you're based and what cleaning actual services that you're providing and see whether you are accepted by FatRank. Because if you are, they provide you leads literally as of tomorrow. And you don't pay a single penny for anything to do with the SEO or the PPC. All the inquiries that are being submitted, you only pay when you convert a job and have been paid from the client. So it's another great play that you can do to help you grow your cleaning business.

Kasra Dash: Got anything else to add onto that for the cleaning companies to try to grow?

James Dooley: No I think you've answered it. I know exactly how to grow my cleaning business now. Cheers Kas.

Kasra Dash: Cheers.