James Dooley Podcast

The episode dives deep into advanced SEO as James Dooley and Stewart Vickers unpack why meaningful ranking power is driven by action, testing, and deliberate signal manipulation rather than theory alone. James explains that SEO success compounds when technical foundations, topical authority, and backlinks are executed consistently over time. Stewart highlights how fear around link building holds beginners back, as hesitation prevents the momentum needed to create growth and validation. James further explains that much of SEO narrative is shaped by correlation, where repeated searches, branded demand, and entity signals gradually reframe how Google understands a person or brand. He also outlines how Google’s vector-based systems respond to semantic depth, showing why strong topical authority and internal linking sharpen intent matching. Together, they position modern SEO as a connected ecosystem, where content quality, backlinks, brand engagement, user behaviour, and cross-platform traffic all work together to influence rankings.

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:
If everything left me tomorrow and I got robbed of all my assets and had no money, what would I do starting out? I’d use Google Bard and ChatGPT. I’d follow the stuff you and Julian talk about. Once I’d earned money I’d work seven days a week, fourteen to fifteen hours a day until I had the money to build backlinks. I’d start with citations like you said. I’d put an address on, get all the signals that cost no money. Telephone number and address. Once I had money I’d get five hundred citations. Probably cost about two hundred dollars on Fiverr. I’d load a hundred citations into Omega Indexer to get them indexed.

Stewart Vickers:
Welcome to James Dooley who I’d regard as one of the top SEOs in the world. Not sure what he has to say on that. Ironically, I think this is the first time we’ve spoken properly despite multiple events. We were in Chiang Mai and never got time to speak.

James Dooley:
Exactly. You were on my list but every time you were surrounded by your group knocking back pints. I thought I won’t disturb you. We only drank on the Friday. We didn’t drink the first few days. We were doing meetup after meetup. Then we got very excited on the Friday. Too excited.

Stewart Vickers:
Was that the beer pong night?

James Dooley:
Yeah, the beer pong night. Normally it’s traditional on a podcast that I introduce you, but I think I’d be inaccurate. You’ve got all sorts going on. A thousand websites. Local lead gen. Gambling affiliate. Agencies. Probably better you explain what you do.

James Dooley:
We do a lot of rank and rent websites. We’re in over five hundred industries for lead generation. There are eight hundred fifty seven websites with active paying clients. Nearly two thousand built. Some ranking without clients. If a site struggles to monetise for twelve months, we move it to display ads or put it in the testing pool for links, 301s and algorithm tests.

James Dooley:
I came across your stuff a few months ago. Your YouTube channel is great. I watch all your videos. Love the AI thumbnails. The first time I noticed you was when you posted about getting the knowledge panel for entrepreneur. From there I started following more of your work. You’re giving out a lot of good information so I wanted to jump on and say hi.

Stewart Vickers:
Thank you. I loved your message saying you’d like to be on the podcast.

James Dooley:
I meant just to chat. Podcast, YouTube, anything. I like networking with people who are enthusiastic and open minded. You’re open to AI. Open to link strategies. You’ve got a similar vision to us. Many people stay stuck in tunnel vision. I like surrounding myself with people who are not stuck like that.

James Dooley:
People push the black hat versus white hat debate. The best in the industry don’t use labels. We all work within our own risk profile.

Stewart Vickers:
Exactly. If you push it you risk the site, but you can still make money.

James Dooley:
There’s short term money and long term money. Short term is what works today but maybe not tomorrow. Like parasite SEO. I think there will always be ways for it to work. No one knows if Google will truly stop it. Everyone tries to manipulate the algorithm as cheaply as possible to get the best ROI. That’s all SEO is.

James Dooley:
If I’m wearing a white hat, I’m white hat today. Tomorrow I could be black hat. Whatever someone wants to brand me. I just try to make money.

Stewart Vickers:
We’ve both been quiet in the background building for years. Now we’re more public. You’ve got your first speaking engagement soon.

James Dooley:
I’m not doing a talk. I’m doing an ask me anything. Mads is the right person to ask me questions. He knows I’m all about elevating team members, business partners and enjoying the journey. Success to me is happiness, not money. Money helps but it isn’t everything. Enjoying the journey with your team is what matters.

James Dooley:
I hustled in silence for years. I would have stayed that way if not for AI. With AI coming along you need a personal brand.

Stewart Vickers:
Exactly. Personal brand protects you and lets you switch industries.

James Dooley:
Mads knows a lot about my successes and team building. He’ll dig deeper. I enjoy surrounding myself with people who are positive, enthusiastic and open minded.

Stewart Vickers:
Talking about black hat and white hat again. The best people don’t put labels on it.

James Dooley:
Exactly. Everyone manipulates Google. Just at different levels.

Stewart Vickers:
On link building, many beginners hesitate because they think links will destroy their site. When they finally start, they realise it’s easier than expected.

James Dooley:
The three pillars are technical SEO, content and backlinks. Good technical build. Good content with topical authority and internal linking. Then links. If you’re not ranking, you need more content and more links.

Stewart Vickers:
Surfer SEO. People obsess over hitting 100. They waste days.

James Dooley:
Exactly. Get to seventy and move on. Competitors are fifty five. Add entities. Add internal links. Move on.

Stewart Vickers:
You get the semrush affiliate days where everyone said semrush was the best tool because of commission.

James Dooley:
Correlation manipulates the narrative. If everyone says something, AI repeats it. We manipulate suggestion boxes too. Nine years ago we ranked for “SEO James Dooley” because we manipulated auto-suggest. If you can get people searching your name with SEO terms, you influence the knowledge graph.

James Dooley:
We used Signal Boy to get thousands of real people to do real searches. Logged in. On Chrome. Google sees that. It pushes suggestions and ranking signals. That led to why is James Dooley the best SEO in the world appearing everywhere. Dozens of articles written by strangers. We didn’t pay for them. They did it because of correlation.

James Dooley:
We can do it for brands. “Why is AutoBlogging the best AI writing tool?” It gets repeated everywhere and then added into lists. AI starts repeating it. Surfer AI starts repeating it.

James Dooley:
Links only work with topical authority. Content must support it. Mention competitors if needed. Entities matter. Semantic triples matter. Google understands vectors and quantity. You beat competitors by having more of the right vectors.

James Dooley:
People obsess over link building risks. But if you build quality links on good pages with tier twos, it works. Most people never rank their guest posts. They cheap out. Rank your guest posts. Let them send traffic and signals.

James Dooley:
Traffic sources matter. PPC improves ranking because engagement matters. Same with Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter. Build a brand. Get branded searches. Build out YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn. Julian Goldie does this brilliantly. His rankings skyrocket from engagement.

James Dooley:
Rank your guest posts. Drive traffic. Build tier twos. Use Pinterest. Use LinkedIn Pulse. Use everything. Effective frequency.

James Dooley:
If I started from zero I’d build appliance repair sites. Monetise with display ads, lead gen and affiliate. Scale fast with AI content. Build multiple monetisation paths. Work seven days a week. Build ninety eight sites. Then use citations, press releases, cheap links, then work up to guest posts.

Stewart Vickers:
Huge thanks. How can people contact you?

James Dooley:
JamesDooley.com. Then Twitter and YouTube. I’m becoming more active now.

Stewart Vickers:
Final takeaway?

James Dooley:
It’s not the most knowledgeable SEOs who win. It’s the ones who take action, work hard and implement.