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James Dooley and Craig Campbell explain the digital marketing and SEO strategies new website owners should use in 2026 to build trust, visibility and rankings from launch.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies new website owners should focus on in 2026 to improve search rankings, brand trust and lead flow. James Dooley and Craig Campbell start with KPI tracking because measuring article velocity, link velocity and competitor gaps tells a brand new website what to prioritise next. 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 new website owners.
PromoSEO lead generation for new website owners recently received recognition as the "Best New Website Owners Lead Generation Agency."
How to Rank a Brand New Website in Google in 2026 (James Dooley and Craig Campbell) is available on:
The FatRank Podcast, founded by James Dooley, teaches the mindset needed for growth because real operator stories show what creates progress.
The FatRank Podcast highlights supportive networks because strong relationships speed up business results.
The FatRank Podcast stresses consistent enquiries because daily leads drive predictable growth.
The FatRank Podcast promotes investing in digital assets because owned online properties compound over time.
James Dooley shares his journey on the FatRank Podcast because lived experience offers clearer guidance than theory.
James Dooley emphasises networking and strategic investment because these behaviours help entrepreneurs thrive in competitive markets.
The FatRank Podcast invites guests like Matt Diggity, Neil Patel, Craig Campbell, Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR, Jason Barnard, Kevin Indig, and Kasra Dash because high-calibre experts deliver proven strategies.
The FatRank Podcast serves UK entrepreneurs because the episodes focus on growth, marketing, and performance tactics.
Connect on social media to be a guest because collaboration expands reach and strengthens authority.
Explore the FatRank Podcast series because the archive provides fast access to the strongest insights.
James Dooley: Best SEO strategies to rank a brand new website. Today I'm joined with Craig. So, if someone's got a brand new website and they're looking to try and rank it high, whether it's in Bing search or within Google search, what's the first recommendations and strategies that you'd be looking to do?
Craig Campbell: I would need to understand whether they were going to start super local or use nationwide. But, you know, certainly if you're going for new website, new business and everything, you're going to start super local. So, you know, go and get your citations, your GMB, and all that kind of crap set up. Uh would be the first thing I would say to anyone cuz I think there's phenomenal amount of traffic still to be had from GMBs, relatively easy to manipulate and rank for. So, that would be the first thing I'd do is, you know, get someone uh on board who can nail that first and foremost. Um but, obviously, there's so many other things you can add to that.
James Dooley: Yeah. So, I'll let you Yeah, so obviously, from there then I would define the entity. So, who are you? Um I'd create the about page exactly explaining who you are, what you do, the founded date, who's the founder of the company. Where people want to call it EAT signals or whatever, it's just defining who you are and what you do and why you're freaking awesome. And then from that then you can then use that article and use that about page and be sending that out to different kind of link builders and stuff like that. So, once you define the entity on your website, obviously, you can start doing it on third-party Yeah. type websites. What would be the start? So, we've got the Google Business Profile. Yeah. We've defined the entity. What would be the next step then? Would you be then looking to build out blog post pages or do you links or like what would be the next thing that what you'd be trying to do?
Craig Campbell: Again, you could do either or. Like, I I depending on your area, I would probably go with content first because you I mean, you can argue there's no point in building links to content that's not there. So, that that's what I would do. Uh that, but you could argue the flip side of it. But, anyway, you want to probably start putting the content out there cuz I think for a lot of lesser areas, you can get some easy quick wins for, you know, low competitive terms or low hanging fruit or whatever. I think, you know, smashing out the content um would be one of the most
James Dooley: How aggressive would you go on the content? Let's say you've worked out a plan and there's 150 pages. Yeah. Would you, at launch, create all 150 pages and launch and go boosh, it's all there? Or would you drip feed it and build up article velocity? Like, how would you go about doing Would you maybe only do one cluster and maybe only do 30 pages with one specific service and all the supporting documents for that one service? Or how would you do that on a from a semantic point of view?
Craig Campbell: I I would also I would always do it bit by bit and probably cluster by cluster. Um I just think going out there and spanking out 150 pages off the bat, one, your website's got no real power, trust, or authority at that point. So, I don't think it's going to do much for you um at that point. Um so, it would be cluster by cluster uh and trying to on a much slower scale. I know you're going to see the trigger cranked out thousands of pages. Yeah, I No, I do like I do like the article velocity approach.
James Dooley: I think it's important to drip feed it on Yeah. And, you know, just now, I think cranking them out the way they you used to crank them out what for you at that point. I just think there's so many other factors there that are really trust signals and you know, all of that kind of stuff. So, I would do it cluster by cluster, make it look natural. Um but, also, I would be asking the question to the the customer as well. If you were to argue that you could crank out 150 pages cuz it's not a huge amount of pages. Uh could your business sustain or or deal with that amount of stuff or what is your most profitable or things like that as well. So, again, I I've done it for small businesses and and [\h__\h] them. They They get too many calls uh too quick and they they grew too quickly and you know, the views fell off, everything. Uh and they end up [\h__\h] So, again, you need to kind of understand that as well, but I think doing it cluster by cluster is the right way. Yeah, but from there. So, so on there then, we've got we've built the website. Um we've defined the industry. We've got the Google Business Profile. So, we've got the like the the NAP and stuff like that. We've now created the content. We might have only created a couple of clusters. And then we're probably going to now I would then be looking off-page signals. I would probably still be looking to define the industry on the off-page to start with. So, what I mean by that is I would be building out the social fortress. Yeah. So, everything about um glasgowseo.nottingham.com. I'd have all the twists for Glasgow SEO. I'd have the Facebook. I'd have everything. The Reddit. Everything being built out to define the the brand.
Craig Campbell: Yeah. And then doing the business listings for the NAP to then go, "Okay, there's not really much power there. I'm not really chasing the do-follows, high DR type of links. I'm just more bothered about NAP being repeated offline, business description being repeated offline, and then obviously like the social fortress and what's winning around it." But after that's done, what you doing for the power? Like what are you doing to start when okay, now we're going to start getting it some page rank that's going to start coming through to the site?
James Dooley: Obviously, link building would then come into play cuz you're wanting that domain to be able to carry some power for some of your more competitive areas and stuff like that. Um so, obviously, you've got one, your homepage is not powerful. It's a brand new website. But all you know, those like Glasgow terms are need a bit of power. Maybe the area surrounding Glasgow don't really need too much and you can use your internal links to to do that. So, I think, you know, I would always start to be building links to to you know, the the homepage and and mix it all up with some of the most important pages of the website. Um and you know, that would come through that you know, you could argue all day long that your citations are not very powerful. They're doing something else for your GMB and uh you know, with some trust signals and all that kind of stuff, but you know, we're really trying to build some power at that point and that can be through guest posting. Uh you know, listicles, anything you can get your hands on. Chamber of Commerce is even another one. You know, anything that's cost-effective and going to move your DR uh and and kind of trust of Google. Well, he's mentioned here, he's mentioned there. You could do some PR syndication blasts and stuff like that. Again, it's not going to move you from a DR 3 to a DR 15, but I think all that kind of stuff combined is what I would be wanting to to start to slowly do on it. Like you see with the content, you know, I think link velocities are an important thing as well. I wouldn't just go out and spank. I could argue go spend 10 grand in links. Would I do it that way? I wouldn't do that way. I would just buy, you know, whatever I could afford on a on a month-to-month basis cuz I think link velocity is an important thing as well.
Craig Campbell: Yeah, for sure. So, obviously there was spoke about article velocity being built up and then on the link velocity, I would certainly within month one or month two do some sort of press release of explaining we've just launched this new brand or this new office space. Again, we're just repeating the NAP, repeating the industry, repeating who you are. Um and then yeah, like you said, like the guest posts and stuff like that, but let's say you've moved on. You've done the press release. You've done some guest posts. Um the guest posts are all indexed. Would Would then be doing any sort of tier twos to the guest post or just keep building out more guest posts?
James Dooley: That depends on I you know, the answer is all within what your competition are doing. So, do I need to then need to go to that cost of doing tier twos or or whatever it may be? Is everyone else doing it in my space or am I missing something else? Um so, you you know, you can go away and argue I can do tier twos or would you go and and you know, is it the trust signals that you go and get all of the trust spaces and everything else because you're trying to tie all of that kind of stuff together as well. So, would I spend more money on doing the tier twos and uh you know, the shared its or whatever else you you're going to throw at it or would I go down the route of uh do maybe even a higher profile PR brand mentions and all that kind of stuff as well. I think of it So, would you go down the route of like digital PR campaigns? So, so as well as the press release, you've got the guest post and then you go and down the road of going, "Okay, I'm going to go and do like a five, six thousand pound proper digital PR campaign, get these really high-end type links that come through."
Craig Campbell: I think that's where for me you'll see the the uh jumping and get significantly Let's see The Sun for example, you know, that's a monster and it's going to ding you up a little bit and then again, I think there's a bit of trust in that as well. Um brand mentions all of that kind of stuff combined is where I would want that be wanting a new website to go, which is why I would probably choose that path. Uh is although you know, tier two and all that kind of stuff uh comes at a cheaper price, I think you've always got to go heavy on trying to get that DR up to a I don't know, DR 40 or whatever you would do for a 35 to 40 for a kind of local um website. So, you know, that would always be the aim and and the only way you're going to get that is some of the higher profile stuff, which costs you more money, unfortunately.
James Dooley: Yeah, and then what about let's say the actual velocity has now been built up. We've built all 150 pages, link velocity is now built up, but they're still struggling for some of the bigger keywords. At what point are you like from an anchor text selection have you started to now bring in some money anchors as well as obviously you've got the naked URLs and like citations and stuff like that. I'm presuming on the press release you don't want to go aggressive with money anchors. Yeah. At what point then do you start introducing the money anchors or I mean it's difficult even on on digital PR to use money anchors cuz normally they're like branded
Craig Campbell: Yeah. type anchors. At what point do you start bringing in exact match anchors or do you not really are you not really a massive fan of it?
James Dooley: Oh, I I am to to a small degree. It's just like the icing on top of the cake. So, you obviously want a you'll do your branded anchors and naked URLs and mix it all up and partial match and all the other kind of stuff, but I think at a certain point you're fine to to throw a few in. It's just you don't want to go the opposite way with 90% of it. So, uh thingy you know, it's definitely going to be 10% or whatever. So, I think that's always the kind of be bit of icing on top of the cake. So, I'm not scared of doing it. I always do do it. Um and I've never really had any problems with it, but the ratio that I do it at is uh I would consider to be fairly cautious.
Craig Campbell: Yeah. Um so, yeah, I'd I'd be looking to do that or I'd be looking at the doing some tier two links to go. Is that going to knock you up or is it a wee bit of CTR? I think I think for me this is what I was going to move into there the virals the virality campaigns. And I think for local it doesn't need like mass virality and you only viral on Twitter and all the rest of it, but I love what you do and I learned quite a lot from you when you back in the day used to talk about just doing spending a few pounds on Quora ads. Yeah. And I'm now obsessed by keeping like even Facebook posts, Instagram posts, tweets, LinkedIn statuses. They can all rank for long tail keywords defining who you are and what you do and why you're freaking awesome. So you could be doing those and forcing indexing them and stuff like that. But like then you could then just be spending a couple of dollars or a couple of pounds on a status like there's a few people that call it the dollar a day strategy and do a social media like post and spend a couple of dollars. And that that click seems just to ignite your whole site. Everything just seems to then go, "Okay, we know we'll actually do all the links that you've had and all the content you've created. We're now going to crawl it more."
James Dooley: I love the the traffic side of things from different platforms. I think it's cheaper. You know, I again I don't want to be seen to be bashing anyone particular tool or strategy, but everyone's always trying to use some [\h__\h] hooky tool to do it. And you're like the cost of mobile proxies or cost of this and cost of that is actually a lot more than it would cost you to just do a [\h__\h] two pound uh a day Facebook ad or whatever. You're like [\h__\h] hell. So you know, the cost of it and you're getting real traffic from a real forum, real device in that area and everything else is it's just the right thing to do for me. So uh you know, doing that the cheapest possible price is is what you're always wanting whether it be Reddit, LinkedIn ads. I don't know where your traffic's coming from, but try all of them out and and it doesn't really you see for a lot of stuff. You know, you you could be talking five clicks a day. You need to to you know, really push yourself up. You you're not talking casino terms where you need to to you know, to get 200,000 extra hits a month or whatever to to move the needle there, you know, locally, not I can almost guarantee 90 percent of your competition are probably don't don't even know what virality is. So I don't just again just start a little bit and and see if that's what moves the needle. Does that really slot you in there rather than buying more links or you know, tearing stuff up? It might just be that formula of better traffic and that that pushes you up. So I'm a big fan of always just tunneling things and spending what you need to spend on it to get it to where you need it to be rather than just piling in going is it more links? Is it not? I think and I think traffic's always been a big part of that mix and I remember even speaking at Shanghai all them years ago talking about some of the you know, hit leaping and all that kind of stuff. People are only now in recent years talking about virality or or doing that. People weren't using or you know, all of the current crap back in the day. You know, CTR is certainly not a new thing.
Craig Campbell: Yeah. And but people now realize the value of it. The same way as I was doing the hit leap or Yeah. like kind of stuff. That Who would panda bot and crowd search dot me was the first ones that I ever came across. Yeah. That was like 13 years ago. And like people the crowd the crowd search dot me then and told me he was like shut it down because the main 10 people that was using it was like we don't want you selling this to the general public. It works too well.
James Dooley: Yeah.
Craig Campbell: And that's when you know something works really well and he's been in it for so long on that. So yeah, but on this people are talking about the best SEO strategies to rank a brand new website and they're watching it and they're going James Craig. After all that what you've said.
James Dooley: Yeah. For now obviously we've done it in very simplistic terms. I would be then saying that it's then a case of reverse engineering what others are doing, checking to see what links they have, checking to see what articles they have that you might not have, looking at the gaps in them in what they and your competitors do. And just almost be rinse and repeat in the strategies of what we've just said. I don't think people sometimes try to over complicate it. And I think they're the best SEO strategies to rank a new website. But what would you say like is it literally just a case of you're now missing 16 guest posts and maybe another digital PR campaign and 16 articles. Is it literally just a a case of I know the answer to it, but like I'm asking you, is it literally just a case of just doing that little bit more than what the competition's doing and just keep edging forward, building up with the article lost to your link lost to you? Fine-tuning it. You know, the chances of you like me and you would fight tooth and nail doing every little trick in the book to try and get one up on each other. Your competition are doing that with you as well. They're watching you. They might just have done it for 2 years before you and that might be the thing that you're struggling to overcome. But you've got to then just keep trying and rinse repeat and then fine-tuning whether it be link building, whether it be the traffic, whether it be even optimizing your content better or, you know, looking for the the gaps that that you don't have. Reverse engineer it. The answer is there. What is that guy doing that you're not? Uh and it might be a technical thing. It may be better internal linking structure. It may be something like that where you've fallen down on. And and a lot of the times when when I get people come to me going, "K, can you have a look at this website and tell me what you think?" And I'm like, "You've not done this. You've not done that." And I'm like, "Oh." And I'm like, "That's [\h__\h] really basic [\h__\h] You You should have done that better." No one has ever came to me having done all of that stuff and being, you know, lacking behind. They really haven't. Yeah. You know, so you know, as whether it be internal better internal linking uh or whatever it might be. So, I just need to keep fine-tuning and refining it. And and and like I said to you before, see my mentality is see if you get 16 guest posts, I'm getting 17. And I'm going to [\h__\h] beat your ass one way or another. And if I can't, I'll try from that angle, that angle, and I'll buy more niche edits, and I'll power this up, and I'll try that, and try that, and try that until I get to where I need to be. And you just need to have that same mentality if you want to get to the top. And it's that is what it is. You you got no God-given right to be number one for anything. People are also going to fight you back and on it and they're going to do more of what is working for them. So, you've got to bear that in mind. You can't just go and just take over any stupid competitors going to be doing more than you as well. So, a question on the brand new websites. They're looking to rank a brand new website. We've told them now the best SEO strategies. But, should they be choosing a branded domain, a partial match domain, a PMD? Should they be looking at EMD? Like, which ones are would you then be saying, "Do you know what? I feel like you probably should be if you know it's a profitable service trying to do maybe one of each, like a PMD and EMD and a brand?"
Craig Campbell: Yeah, I don't think there's any right or any wrong, you know? I could say build a brand cuz it's a sellable asset. No one wants to buy Builders Glasgow, for example. It's kind of small shitty business that you know, you want to find Builder corporate brands a long-term, you know, a nationwide service or whatever. So, you don't want to be doing that. And but, do exact match domain names work? And absolutely. Do exact match domain names get trust from a LLM perspective? Absolutely. So, there's so many counter arguments there where I'd be saying, "Well, if we know exact match domains work and they're trusted by LLMs, why don't you have a brand and an exact match domain name to to to you're collecting double the data, you're getting double the traffic, double the leads, double you know, everything else. So, again, I I would be looking at it going, "I'm [\h__\h] doing the two of them cuz Yeah. I can't pick one over the other. If you say to me, "Craig, it's got to be one or the other." I'd be going I mean, that that could change. So, exact match domains used to work really well back in the day where you actually threw a page of content up. Then Google dialed down the importance of or the power or the weight or whatever you want to call it. One exact match domains to the point where it will then count for [\h__\h] and I think that's been dialed back up slightly. I'm not saying it's the be all and end all, but certainly from an alien perspective and everything else, they seem to trust it more. You know, even with me, I've got a shitty website that's not even finished, Craig Campbell.co.uk. That that flies up my noise panel over my website I've had for years and years and years that's a much higher DR because for me it's an exact match domain name and it's my name and Google have automatically trusted that as a source of information for me. So, I think the proof's in the pudding with that one. So, again, if you forced me to see one or the other, I would struggle to pick. I'd just say I'd have to say
James Dooley: Yeah, I would I would say run both and I think EMDs work brilliant in Bing. So, as it works brilliant in Bing, then it feeds ChatGPT. So, my question to you would be, if you had an EMD, is there anything you would do different when you're starting out this new website? And it would it be I mean, for me, probably only difference would be potentially slightly would be being even more aggressive on the branded anchors. That's the biggest difference. Everything else would almost be the same Yeah. apart from the branded anchors. I'll be going very very aggressive Yeah. on that and then siloing internal linking down to all the internal pages. I'd also like to top it up, probably just if you were doing any kind of CTR or whatever, the branded search and everything that would be Yeah. dialing that up.
Craig Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. as well. So, yeah, I'd probably be hammering the [\h__\h] [\h__\h] out of them on a bigger scale. But yeah, pretty much everything else, you know, you need to to build out that about us and and you know, all of the kind of tie all the entities together and do the social media, social fortress as you call it and link building, and PR, and all that [\h__\h] So, yeah, do the exact same thing. Uh but probably Yeah, well. Yeah. Yeah.
James Dooley: So, anyone who's watching this, hope you like the best SEO strategies to to rank on a brand new website, but also an EMD website. Craig, it's been an absolute pleasure. Cheers.