After 14 years working in senior SEO roles at agencies, Jamie White has kicked off 2024 by launching his own independent consultancy firm.
White, who has previously held management roles at connective3, Modo25 and Search Laboratory, has extensive experience in driving growth for globally-recognised brands in industries ranging from ecommerce, travel, professional services and igaming.
He’s now stepping away from agency life to offer senior-level SEO expertise directly to the clients, through his self-named consultancy Jamie White SEO.
From his luckiest break to nightmare client meetings, White shares all the lessons he’s learnt across his life and career.
Which single daily habit or practice could you not do without?
Doing a quick sense check on keyword rankings and site health – I wouldn’t be able to rest not knowing that the ship was steady across all my clients. When it comes to SEO, rankings can fluctuate quite regularly so it’s good to be on top of things at any moment, as there’s nothing worse than a client finding something before me.
What’s been your luckiest break?
Getting a three-month summer work placement before my final year at university. I must have emailed and phoned every marketing agency in the North. Two of them got back to me. One of them – Stickyeyes – had a job opening for a link builder, which I had never heard of in my life, but I figured that work experience is work experience! I’ve never looked back and been involved in SEO for my full career since.
I managed to rejoin Stickyeyes straight after university in the same role and spent a great couple of years there learning the ropes before moving onto a broader SEO role.
What’s your best failure?
I find that the worst moments of your life always offer the best learning opportunities, so I’d have to say any of the nightmare client meetings that I’ve been involved in during my career. As horrible as they are at the time, they are a vital rite of passage for anyone, as it’s vital to recognise when things aren’t going to plan and to be able to put together a plan to turn things around.
What is the best investment you’ve ever made, either financial or time?
Financially, Screaming Frog SEO Spider. It’s such a predictable answer for anyone in SEO, but it is ridiculously good value for money and has allowed me to sell audit work to clients that has been worth 10-20x the investment.
Which podcast or book would you recommend others to read and why?
Experts on the Wire podcast. I think that a lot of podcasts can fall into the trap of feeling the need to produce an episode on a regular basis and the quality of content can start to suffer. These guys can often go months between episodes but the content is 10/10 every time and they’ve had a range of different people on to offer unique perspectives of the digital marketing industry.
What one piece of advice would you give your 21-year-old self?
Always trust your gut. If a situation doesn’t feel right, don’t stick it out for the sake of loyalty. There’s been a couple of moments in my career where I didn’t take this advice, and struggled as a result, but fortunately there’s times where I did, and it worked out!
Who or what has had the single biggest influence on your working life?
Personally, my dad has always been an excellent pillar of support in all my career decisions, both supportive but also rational in giving me that crucial second opinion! Professionally, I feel like my biggest phase of growth was my seven years at Search Laboratory, and Ian Harris, who is currently chairman there, was a constant part of that. He enabled me to progress into new exciting roles within the agency and was always a great mentor.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
I once did an eight-week stand-up comedy course which resulted in performing a ten minute set in front of a crowd at a local comedy club! Those ten minutes were the most daunting of my life and I learnt a lot about myself in terms of how I communicate and handle very stressful situations.
If there was one thing you could change about your career, what would it be and why?
I think I’ve always made the correct decisions at the correct times in terms of the roles that I’ve taken, and more recently launching my own SEO consultancy. However if I could change one thing, I would find a way to take an in-house role at some point in my career to experience things from the other side of the table. I think it would help build up my awareness of the difficulties that internal teams can go through when justifying SEO investment.
What does success look like to you?
Success for me is retaining clients over a long-term basis, because that implies that I’m delivering great work that is leading to growth. Watching their business grow in a way that enables them to invest more in marketing, expand their teams and outperform aspirational competitors will always give me a great feeling of satisfaction in the work that I’m doing.
