James Brockbank
Founder + SEO | 14+ Years
About
Who is James Brockbank?
- Managing Director & Founder at Digitaloft.
- Over the last decade, I’ve grown an agency that started with just myself sat at my kitchen table into one of the UK’s leading digital PR and SEO agencies.
- I’m a HUGE Blackburn Rovers fan; season ticket holder and get to as many away games each season as possible.
James Brockbank is Managing Director & Founder at Digitaloft.
In this role, I’m responsible for overseeing all of the agency’s teams and spearheading our direction and growth.
I started out in SEO in 2009, and launched the agency in 2014, after a number of agency-side and freelance roles. This means I’ve worked in the industry through many of the major shifts, such as Panda and Penguin; something that not too many who are SEOs today can say.
During my career, I’ve worked across the three key pillars of SEO; technical SEO, content marketing and link building and like to think of it as my superpower that I’m advanced-level in each of these areas. I’m a big believer that agencies should be led by people who strive to be the very best in what the team offers to clients, and I’m still very hands-on.
I’m an SEO who founded an agency. Not a founder who got into SEO.
My personal interest in SEO is based primarily around the intersection of on-page SEO / content and digital PR; understanding and demonstrating how these two tactics align to build brands, not just rankings. This, of course, has naturally led to a focus on E-E-A-T over the last few years, with a lot of my work at the moment based on aligning SEO and PR to drive growth by building and demonstrating the reputation of both brands and their people.
Digitaloft Is Open To Work
Advice For Anyone Joining The Industry
Start your own site from scratch and get it ranking for something. It doesn’t matter the topic. It doesn’t matter how competitive the keywords are. Just build out a basic WordPress site and learn by doing.
There’s only so much experience you can get by taking courses and watching YouTube guides. You get the real experience by doing.
Start a blog and write about a topic you’re passionate on. You’ll quickly start to be curious about how you can get it to rank higher, and that’s when the real learning begins. It might turn into a revenue generator, it might not. But that’s not the point. It’s all about gaining first-hand experience that’s totally in your control.
Experience means more than formal education in this industry, as far as I’m concerned.
Areas Of Interest
- E-E-A-T
- Digital PR
- Content Marketing
- On-Page SEO
Education, Awards, Certifications
- BSc Management (Marketing) – University of Manchester
- My work has won awards at:
- UK Search Awards
- Global Search Awards
- European Search Awards
- The Drum Awards
- Northern Digital Awards
- European Content Awards
Affiliations & Past Work
- Money.co.uk
- Confused.com
- BOXT
- ADT
- JD Outdoor (Blacks, GO Outdoors & Millets)
- OLBG
- Tipalti
- Marshalls PLC
Digitaloft is open to work, currently taking on new clients across our SEO and digital PR services.
Published Work & Inclusions
- Would You Still Want This Link if Google Didn’t Exist? A Look at Relevancy in Digital PR…
- eCommerce E-E-A-T: Practical Ways to Demonstrate E-E-A-T as an Online Retailer
- The Role of Digital PR in Demonstrating E-E-A-T
- Breaking Down E-E-A-T to the Content, Author & Brand Levels
- Content With Purpose: How to Set Goals for Every Content Piece You Create
- 5 Types of Interactive Content to Attract Valuable Links
- James Brockbank & Olivia Smith – Viral campaigns and content “fails”
- The ‘traditional approach’ to SEO is broken – how to prioritise your efforts & drive rapid growth
- How to Find & Fix eCommerce Keyword Cannibalization Issues
Any Results/Highlights From Your Work You Want To Promote? Any Impact You’re Proud Of?
I’m proud of the growth that Digitaloft drives for every single one of our clients each year. Over the last decade, I’ve grown an agency that started with just myself sat at my kitchen table into one of the UK’s leading digital PR and SEO agencies, whilst still remaining an independent agency.
Favorite Articles/Publications You Share/Follow
- SEOFOMO – The Weekly SEO Newsletter With Latest SEO News
- Siege Media’s Content Marketing Learn Center
- BuzzSumo Blog | Your Complete Guide To Content Marketing
- The Internet Marketing Driver – Covering the latest in online marketing strategy
- Search Engine Land – News, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
—–
- How To Increase Your Keyword Footprint
- How To Master Keyword Research
- The BIG List of SEO Testing Ideas
- Reddit Keyword Research – Finding Incredible Content Opportunities Using Reddit
- 1,300 Publishers Reveal the Worth of Your Pitch
Cool Fact
I’m a HUGE Blackburn Rovers fan; season ticket holder and get to as many away games each season as possible.
Come on you Blues!
Favorite Food And/Or Restaurant
Pizza every time. I could live off nothing but pizza if I had to!
Birthday
13th April
Other Greats!
Articles
The Office Characters As A Digital Marketing Team
The Office Characters As A Digital Marketing Team!
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