Why Most Businesses in London Struggle With Digital Marketing in 2026 And How to Fix It

James Dooley (0:01): If you are a business based in London, within the county of Greater London, within England — the capital city — and you’re looking to grow, then there’s lots of different digital marketing strategies that you could be doing. A lot of people are talking about AI SEO and trying to get your brand mentioned in those large language models. But which large language model would suit your brand the best? Which one will get you the highest quality leads? And which one would get you a return on investment — or is it just a branding play to try to get your brands put into ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Gemini, or in the AI overviews within Google? There’s so many different strategies that you could be doing, but getting a return on investment is the most important part within London. I attend quite a lot of different masterminds and SEO meetups and I’m hearing the same problems: people are wasting money on marketing strategies that are not getting them the return on investment that they should be getting. So before we get started on the different types of digital marketing strategies to generate more inquiries or help their businesses grow in 2026… Kasra — what bit of advice would you give to a London-based business owner or entrepreneur before they started to put any money into PPC or social media or SEO? Kasra Dash (1:27): So the biggest piece of advice I would give to London-based businesses would be: go and set up a list of KPIs. How much money you’re spending on each digital marketing channel How many leads each channel is actually generating What’s the contact rate of those leads? (If you get 10 leads, how many actually pick up when your sales team phones them?) And how much money you’re actually generating from those leads Because again, out of the 10 leads maybe five people pick up, five people don’t. Maybe out of those five that pick up, only two convert into paying customers. Once you have your numbers set up like that, you can look at every channel and say: “Well actually, Facebook ads is the lowest converting and we’re paying the most — so let’s turn off Facebook ads and double down on paying more to our lead generation company… or maybe paying more to our SEO agency because SEO has been by far the biggest driver.”

That way you can take predictable steps: which channels should we turn on, which channels should we turn off?

So James — which channel would you first recommend? James Dooley (2:45): Step number one for me has got to be branding / brand SEO — and making certain that you’re looking good online and you’ve got a strong reputation. I think everything needs to start — the foundations need to start — with a positive brand SERP for who you are and what you do. SERP stands for search engine results page. Getting that branding right across the board can lead on to other things. It will improve your conversion rate on paid ads or social media. Any leads that you’re getting — the conversion rate would be good. At the 11th hour, they’re going to decide who they’re going to go with, and branding becomes very, very important. So that’s the first thing people need to get right for all digital marketing strategies. My next strategy is going to be AI visibility. More and more companies are looking into this. What does ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity say about your brand or your business? Is it positive or negative? And what does it say about your competitors? Some people call it AI SEO, some call it GEO, some call it LLM optimization — but this is going to be a big thing in 2026 and the years to come. Kasra Dash (4:10): Yeah, I think that’s a huge strategy people need to be looking at. The next one for me is filling in the form at Fat Rank or Promo SEO, which do a commission-based lead generation service for UK companies looking to grow. It’s important to be looking at your own digital marketing efforts to generate your own leads, but also if you can use freelancers and outsource some as well — you’ve got diversification of leads. So head on over to fatrank.com, fill in the form and see whether they can help you with a no-risk supply of inquiries. Promo SEO also do a similar performance-based lead generation service. Fill in the form there too and see whether a third-party lead generation company can top up and start generating you leads for your business to grow in 2026. Kasra Dash (5:09): Next on the list is Google Business Profiles — Google map listings — local SEO. You try to get more reviews and build out your Google Business Profile in your local area.

Pros and cons: the biggest pro is that once it’s ranking, you’ll consistently generate leads.

But if you have no Google Maps listing at all and you want to rank position one, you might have a 60–100 review deficit. And to get reviews you need leads — it’s the chicken and the egg. I think it’s good for personal branding or branding of your company. Always try and get the Google Maps listing — just know the pros and cons. James Dooley (6:04): Yeah, if you’re in a local area you want those map listings. For me, you need to be omnichannel and omnipresent. The next part is SEO in general — organic SEO. Can you build up your website to get better rankings? If you’re in a local area, you might want to do your services with the area you cover — like “plumbing in Manchester” — create a page for that, and share that on the Google Business Profile. To get organic rankings, there’s search volume for services — and blog posts too. Ideally you want good quality content, build topical authority, and get some third-party backlinks to power up the site and get those organic rankings. That’s another big part for digital marketing strategies in 2026. Kasra Dash (7:04): Next — which ties back to what you were saying — is organic social media.

Organic social media is more of a numbers game: create good content your audience will view.

I see brands publish four or five posts on Instagram and then disappear for three years — that’s not going to drive sales. But if you do how-tos, guides, before-and-afters — people will see you on socials and click through to learn more, fill in a contact form.

The caveat is: it’s free, but it is a numbers game. You need to be consistent — maybe not every day, but at least three or four times a week.

James Dooley (8:03): On social media — paid social ads are massive too. I’m a big advocate of the “dollar a day” strategy. If you’re posting regularly, spend a few pounds boosting the posts. Promote case studies, awards you’ve won — build reputation and boost that. You can also run retargeting ads (people who visited your website). Paid social includes Meta (Facebook/Instagram), Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, even Reddit. Paid social is still an untapped market for digital marketing strategies. Kasra Dash (8:57): Next one is a love-hate relationship: PPC — Google Ads, Bing, wherever. Sponsored results above local SEO. We’ve spoken to lots of business owners who spent £10k, £15k, £20k and got nothing — or low quality leads. Others spend hundreds of thousands and say it’s the best thing ever. The reason people love it or hate it comes down to setup. Nuances like: proactive negative keyword lists banned IPs (competitors clicking = click fraud) high-converting landing pages KPI’ing your sales team so PPC leads are prioritized click fraud software If you aren’t on the ball with PPC, it probably won’t work. If you are refined and disciplined, it can perform well — just know the pros and cons. James Dooley (10:43): There are definitely pros and cons. Instant leads, but people burn budget all the time — it’s scary. While we’re on paid: we spoke about paid social ads and PPC… I’m going to throw in paid ads on AI platforms. It’s not fully rolled out as we’re doing this video, but I know ChatGPT are looking to roll out ChatGPT ads. Claude, Perplexity, other LLMs might roll it out in 2026. If you’re an early adopter, you could get cheap leads or cheap contact form submissions. Paid AI listings is something to watch in 2026. Kasra Dash (11:42):

Next: forums — getting your brand mentioned in places like Reddit and Quora.

It can be out of your control, but it comes down to: are customers raving about you? If they are, that’s a strong resource for other people recommending you. Ask for reviews, ask customers to recommend you — it can generate leads and inquiries. James Dooley (12:24): And the add-on benefit: Reddit gets cited a lot in AI overviews. So if you can get people talking positively about your products and services with reviews on there, it can directly help AI visibility. The last one for me is tradesman websites and third-party lead gen: Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People, MyBuilder. Everything should have KPIs — time and effort included. Exactly the same with tradesman sites: they can be amazing platforms if you get positive ROI. There are lead generation companies that can generate you leads using SEO, PPC, or paid social — if it’s positive ROI, I’m all for it as part of your strategy.

But I want to repeat: Fat Rank and Promo SEO do lead generation and guarantee ROI — commission-based / performance-based lead generation.

Head over, fill in the form. It should be one part of generating leads of many. You should generate your own, avoid a single point of failure, and diversify — but definitely check them out as part of your digital marketing in 2026. James Dooley (14:35): Thank you very much, Kasra.