The 2026 Digital Marketing Strategy That Actually Works for York-Based Companies

James Dooley: If you're a business based in Reading within the county of Berkshire and you're looking to grow in 2026, what digital marketing strategies should you be using? There are so many people asking questions about AI SEO. Should they be doubling down on efforts to get cited and recommended in ChatGPT or within Gemini, which powers the AI overviews in Google Search? Is that actually going to get you a return on investment? This is what Kazra and I are going to dig into today when it comes to which digital marketing strategies you should be using, whether that is SEO, PPC, social media or LLM optimisation. Kazra, before we get started, for any business owners or entrepreneurs based in the Reading area, what advice would you give to a Reading based business?

Kasra Dash: The number one thing that keeps coming up when a Reading based business reaches out to us is that they do not have a predictable system in place. That is the case for a lot of Reading based businesses. What I would recommend is setting up a predictable system with KPIs in place. You need to know how much money you are spending on each different marketing channel, how many leads are actually being generated, how many of those leads are contactable, and from the contactable leads, how many are turning into paying customers. Once you have that in place, you can figure out exactly where your leads are coming from, where you should be doubling down on your marketing spend, and potentially where you should be switching certain channels off. Maybe you are spending £6,000 a month on PPC and not actually getting the best results. It might be SEO that is driving your leads. So now that you have that in place, what marketing channels would you recommend for Reading based businesses, James?

James Dooley: Step number one for me has got to be branding or brand SEO and making certain that you are looking good online and have a strong reputation. I think everything needs to start there. The foundation should start with a positive brand SERP of who you are and what you do. SERP stands for search engine results page. Getting that branding right across the board can then lead on to other things that you can be doing. It will improve your conversion rate on paid ads or social media. Any leads that you are getting will convert better if, at the eleventh hour, people are deciding who they are going to go with. Branding becomes very important. So I would say that is the first thing people need to get right for all digital marketing strategies. My next strategy is AI visibility. I feel like more and more companies are looking into this. What do ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Perplexity say about your brand or your business? Is it positive or negative? You should also figure out what it says about your competitors as well. Obviously, trying to improve that is really important. Some people call it AI SEO. Some people call it GEO. Some people call it LLM optimisation. This is going to be a big thing in 2026 and in the years to come as well.

Kasra Dash: I think that is a huge strategy that people need to be looking at when it comes to artificial intelligence. More and more people are obviously using AI. The next one for me is filling in the form at Fat Rank or Promo SEO, which offer a commission based lead generation service for UK companies looking to grow. I think it is important to focus on your own digital marketing efforts to generate your own leads, but also if you can use some freelancers and outsource some work as well, you get that 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 enquiries. Promo SEO also offer a very similar performance based lead generation service that you might want to fill in the form for as well. Just double check whether you can use a third party lead generation company to top up and start generating some leads for your business to grow in 2026. The next one on the list is Google Business Profiles, so Google Map listings. This is like local SEO where you basically try to get more reviews and build out your Google Business Profile in your local area. There are pros and cons to this. I think the biggest advantage is that once it is actually ranking, you are going to be consistently generating leads. However, if you are starting from nowhere and do not have a Google Maps listing at all, the issue is that there might be a sixty or one hundred review deficit. To get those reviews, you need leads. It is one of those chicken and egg situations. I think it is still good for personal branding or company branding, so always try to get the Google Maps listing right, but know the pros and cons as well.

James Dooley: For certain. If you are in a local area, you want to try to get those local map listings. For me, you need to be omnichannel and omnipresent. I think the next part is SEO in general, so organic SEO. Can you build up your website to try and get it ranking better? If you are in a local area, you might want to target your service with the area you cover. So, for example, plumbing in Manchester. Create a page for that. Hopefully then share that on the Google Business Profile. When trying to get organic rankings, there is search volume out there for the services you offer, or it could be blog posts that you could be doing as well. There are different strategies you can use, but ideally you want good quality content, you want to build topical authority and you want some third party backlinks to power up the site and get those organic SEO rankings. I think that is another big part of your digital marketing strategies in 2026.

Kasra Dash: The next one, which ties back to what you were saying before, James, is obviously organic social media. Organic social media is more of a numbers game. Try to create good content that your audience would actually want to view. I see this time and time again where I look at brands and they have just published maybe four or five posts on their Instagram profile and then they have not been active for three years. That is not going to drive sales. But if you can do how to content, guides or before and after posts, people will see you on social media and they will click through to figure out more about you and fill in the contact form. The caveat with organic social media is that yes, it is free to do. It is not like PPC, for example, but it is very much a numbers game. You want to be consistently uploading, maybe not every day, but at least three or four times a week.

James Dooley: On the subject of social media, paid social ads are also massive. I am a huge advocate of the small daily budget strategy that people talk about. If you are going to be taking the time to post every day like you mentioned for organic social media, then just spend a few pounds on those posts and boost them. Use case studies and any awards that you have won for reputation and start boosting that content. You can also be running retargeting ads. If anyone has clicked through to your website, you can run retargeting, which is paid social as well. Platforms like Meta, so Facebook and Instagram, plus Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and even Reddit can all work for paid ads. I think paid social media is still an untapped market for digital marketing strategies.

Kasra Dash: The next one is probably a love hate relationship, and that is PPC. Google AdWords or Bing Ads, wherever you are running it. That is basically the sponsored results. If you search for a service, it sits above local SEO. James and I have spoken to so many business owners who have spent ten, fifteen or twenty thousand pounds on it and not had a single result, or they might have had a few leads and the quality has not been great. Then you have other people who have spent hundreds of thousands on it and say it is the best thing that has ever happened to their business. The reason people either absolutely love it or absolutely hate it is probably down to how it has been set up. There are so many different nuances to PPC. For example, having a really proactive negative keyword list, making certain that you have a set of banned IPs, because competitors could be clicking on your ads, and that is deemed as click fraud. You also need a high converting landing page. You need to KPI your sales team so when a PPC lead comes in, that becomes one of the first priorities they deal with. There are all these different nuances and if you are not on the ball with PPC, it is probably not going to work for your business. However, if you have a really good, well refined sales team, a really good landing page, a well kept and up to date negative keyword list, and you are using click fraud software, then it will probably perform well for you. But again, just know the pros and cons of PPC.

James Dooley: For sure. There are certainly pros and cons. There are benefits to using it to get instant leads, but like you said, the amount of people we speak to who have burnt a lot of budget and not had the enquiries they expected is pretty scary. While we are on the subject of paid, we have obviously spoken about paid social ads and now PPC with Google or Bing. I am going to throw paid ads on AI platforms into the mix as well. It is not fully rolled out as we are recording this video, but I know that ChatGPT is looking to try and roll out ChatGPT ads. Claude, Perplexity and other LLMs might start rolling it out in 2026. I think if you are one of the early adopters and innovators to get on there, you could be getting cheap leads or cheap contact form submissions. So it is something to look out for with paid AI listings and ads. I think that could be something to watch in 2026.

Kasra Dash: Next on the list, and this is a little bit out of your control, is forums where you can get your brand mentioned, like Reddit and Quora. That very much comes down to your previous customers. Are they raving and shouting about you? If they are, then that is a very good source for getting other people to recommend you as well. It is a bit out of your control, but asking for reviews and asking people to recommend you to friends and other people can generate you a decent amount of leads and enquiries as well.

James Dooley: The add on benefit to places like Reddit is that it gets cited so much now in AI overviews. So when you were speaking earlier about AI visibility, if you can get positive discussion around your products and services and some reviews on there, it is indirectly, or directly actually, going to help you with AI visibility. The last one for me is tradesman websites, so sites like Checkatrade, Bark, or teaming up with a third party lead generation company. Something I would say with all of these practices, and Kaza touched on this earlier, is making certain that you understand your KPIs and your return on ad spend. I think it is very important for business owners doing any sort of digital marketing to track how much time and effort is being put into running organic social media or paid ads. Everything should have KPIs in place. This is exactly the same with tradesman websites like Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People and MyBuilder. These could all be amazing platforms to generate leads that get you a positive return on investment. If they do, you should continue using those platforms. There are certain lead generation companies out there as well that could generate quite a lot of leads. They could be using organic SEO, PPC or social media ads to generate those leads. If they are getting you a positive return on investment, again, I am all for it as part of your digital marketing strategies. But I just want to repeat one more time that Fat Rank and Promo SEO do lead generation and they guarantee a return on investment. It is a commission based lead generation service or performance based lead generation service. So make sure you head on over there and fill in the form. That could just be one part of generating leads out of many. You should be trying to generate your own. You should never have a single point of failure and you should be trying to get that diversification. Make sure you head on over to Promo SEO or the Fat Rank lead generation service as part of your digital marketing efforts in 2026.

Kasra Dash: Thank you very much, Kasa.