{"id":23831,"date":"2021-10-08T16:32:20","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T15:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polarisagency.com\/marketing-insights\/meet-our-new-head-of-seo\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T13:24:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T13:24:50","slug":"meet-our-new-head-of-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polarisagency.com\/us\/marketing-insights\/meet-our-new-head-of-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Polaris’ new Head of SEO – James Foote"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first week as Head of SEO has been completed after joining Polaris in\u00a0October,\u00a0and\u00a0having met and been in contact with Amo and the team daily since I confirmed my acceptance to join the\u00a0agency,\u00a0these past few weeks have been a rollercoaster.\u00a0A\u00a0fun thrill ride which I have enjoyed every minute.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Without being too\u00a0verbose, I am a\u00a0dyed in the wool\u00a0agency consultant \u2013 having worked in various sized digital agencies since 2014 and being in SEO since 2008 I thought I had experienced all that agency\u00a0had to offer. I was wrong;\u00a0within 5 days Polaris has exceeded all\u00a0that I expected.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More on that statement in a bit, since this is an article that needs to be more about me and my introduction to the\u00a0team,\u00a0I will do my best to give you a whistle stop tour of my life.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Born in Swansea, I am a true patriotic Welshman \u2013 with stereotypical characteristics \u2013\u00a0yes\u00a0I played rugby\u00a0(semi-professional),\u00a0yes\u00a0I grew up in an agricultural environment\u00a0(most of my life\u00a0at\u00a0the family home was down the Gower), I can sing (well I am from the land of song)\u00a0and\u00a0yes\u00a0I enjoy a beer!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having graduated from university with a\u00a0business\u00a0degree in marketing, I left my beloved Swansea and moved across the bridge to Ascot \u2013 where I had my first \u201cgrown up\u201d job working in the marketing department at Pioneer Electrics, a role that I outgrew and was snapped up by Hewlett Packard where I worked in marketing for a period before moving back to Swansea.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Marketing was always my\u00a0passion;\u00a0I\u00a0have\u00a0worked in many\u00a0traditional marketing\u00a0roles\u00a0when I moved back to South Wales, including\u00a0heading up the marketing\u00a0function\u00a0at a\u00a0director level\u00a0multi-million property firm.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During this\u00a0time,\u00a0I learnt how to build websites and read up on this new\u00a0inbound marketing\u00a0approach called \u201csearch engine optimisation\u201d being\u00a0utilised\u00a0in the US market and trickling through to the UK\u00a0–\u00a0but only a few companies were offering it (usually very badly and mainly\u00a0non-marketing focused\u00a0web development companies).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward a few years:\u00a0having learnt all there is to know about SEO, experimenting,\u00a0learning\u00a0and adapting \u2013 I decided to make it a career choice having setup a\u00a0successful\u00a0consultancy firm\/small\u00a0agency working with\u00a0a number of smaller\u00a0clients\u00a0I reached an impasse. I needed to decide\u00a0if\u00a0I\u00a0should\u00a0invest in my own business, build a delivery team,\u00a0or join someone\u00a0with an established agency\u00a0who shared the same vision.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This choice\u00a0lead\u00a0me into\u00a0the\u00a0path of agency \u2013 where I have stayed ever since,\u00a0building the SEO value proposition working in\u00a0senior SEO positions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working in\u00a0the\u00a0agency\u00a0world\u00a0has been\u00a0career defining while at the same time\u00a0inspiring.\u00a0I have\u00a0headed up the SEO teams at multiple agencies throughout the UK,\u00a0had the opportunity to\u00a0create SEO strategies\u00a0and data insights\u00a0for\u00a0a range of clients from SMEs to multi-million global firms \u2013\u00a0working with ecommerce brands such as Rapha,\u00a0Seasalt, Sofa.com, Neptune, Hampers.com to top London legal firms, SAAS products and hospitality resort hotel and private estate brands (The Pig group, Bowood\u00a0estate).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0above\u00a0are just a snapshot of some of the brands and sectors I have helped achieve organic channel growth (it was a running joke at my last agency \u2013 \u201cis there anyone\/any sector you haven\u2019t worked in\/with\u201d).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working in agencies\u00a0has also given me a chance to do what I love \u2013 that is nurture new talent.\u00a0Over the years I have trained and mentored passionate young people starting on their career path not really knowing much about SEO but having a passion to learn.\u00a0All of\u00a0these individuals are still in SEO, with\u00a0many managing and heading up teams of their own. Seeing this happen has been my proudest moment.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a business graduate, I\u00a0also\u00a0love helping businesses\u00a0progress: from\u00a0small passionate start-ups, SMEs to large enterprises spanning a varied sector profile. Defining their organic strategy, working with amazing in-house teams and being very much a key person in their business growth (something told to me time and time again by founders,\u00a0owners\u00a0and MDs) also fills me with pride.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you remember at the start of the article I mentioned \u201cPolaris has exceeded all that I expected\u201d. For the simple reason,\u00a0<\/span>culture<\/span>,\u00a0which always comes from the top.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Without culture, processes,\u00a0and structures,\u00a0agencies struggle to replicate success and retain talent. The quote by Peter Drucker is true, \u201cculture eats strategy for breakfast\u201d.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t matter how good your strategy is;\u00a0without the team\u00a0being\u00a0accountable, working with each other,\u00a0and being generally supportive,\u00a0people won\u2019t get behind your agency.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Actions\u00a0not words.\u00a0The fact\u00a0that\u00a0even before I officially started, we had a great company day-out in London<\/a> last week\u00a0goes a long way.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working closely with the team at Polaris I am excited to see what can be achieved,\u00a0a passionate young team to support,\u00a0with new people being introduced to the team\u00a0next week\u00a0(another very experienced agency SEO) \u2013 the senior team are investing in the company to drive it forward.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are\u00a0working with some amazing clients and winning new accounts\u00a0(new\u00a0large\u00a0ecommerce\u00a0gifting\u00a0client signed today!)\u00a0which\u00a0makes it\u00a0all very exciting.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Agency is fast paced, at times it can be a hard\u00a0graft,\u00a0but you push yourself for the people you work with, who support you and give your\u00a0freedom to grow while you create a\u00a0system of progress to ensure a\u00a0better future for your clients.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first week as Head of SEO has been completed after joining Polaris in\u00a0October,\u00a0and\u00a0having met and been in contact with Amo and the team daily since I confirmed my acceptance to join the\u00a0agency,\u00a0these past few weeks have been a rollercoaster.\u00a0A\u00a0fun thrill ride which I have enjoyed every minute.\u00a0 Without being too\u00a0verbose, I am a\u00a0dyed in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":23832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[291],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agency-updates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Polaris' new Head of SEO - James Foote - POLARIS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Polaris' new Head of SEO James Foote introduces himself, sharing his background, his achievements, and what he hopes to achieve in the future.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.polarisagency.com\/us\/marketing-insights\/meet-our-new-head-of-seo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Polaris' new Head of SEO - 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