How does working with James Burfield work?

All work starts with a discovery call to understand your current situation and objectives. From there, a sprint is scoped, a fixed piece of work with a defined deliverable set and timeframe. You deal directly with James throughout, with no account managers or junior staff involved at any stage.

What industries do you work with?

SEOBurf works across a wide range of sectors including ecommerce, professional services, technology, healthcare, hospitality, and local businesses. The common thread is businesses that want senior-level SEO thinking applied to their specific situation rather than a templated agency process.

Do you work with businesses outside Bath and Bristol?

Yes, the majority of work is delivered remotely for clients across the UK and internationally. US-based businesses in particular find UK SEO consultants offer strong value: senior-level expertise at rates significantly below US market pricing, with English as a first language and time zone overlap with the US working day.

How much experience does James Burfield have?

James has been working in SEO since 2000, over 25 years of hands-on experience covering the full history of Google's algorithm development, from early PageRank through to BERT, Core Web Vitals, helpful content, and the current AI search era. Burfield Digital Limited was incorporated in 2006.

ABOUT ME

I am James Burfield.
Senior SEO consultant.
Based in Bath.

25 years of hands-on SEO experience, applied directly to your site. No agency overhead. No account managers. No juniors handling the work you paid a senior for.

I started in SEO in 2000, built a digital agency, went client-side to grow a publishing brand to 800,000 monthly visitors, led SEO at agency and client-side roles, and launched SEOBurf as an independent consultancy in 2024. Every engagement is handled personally by me.

HOW I WORK

The consultant model, done properly.

Most businesses come to me after an agency experience that did not deliver. They paid a retainer, got monthly reports, and were never quite sure who was actually doing the work. I understand the frustration because I have spent 25 years watching it happen to brands that deserved better.

My model is simple. You get me, directly. I audit your site, build your strategy, write your briefs, and review your results. If something needs doing, I do it or I direct someone senior enough to do it properly. There is no hand-off point where a junior takes over and the quality drops.

For specialist work on AI search visibility and technical audits I bring in Tayyaba Ameen. I stay across every account either way, so the direction and the review are always mine. I also build my own tools rather than only recommending other people’s, and you can see what I have built. New tactics get tested on my own sites first, and the results are published in the lab whether they worked or not. And when a Google update lands I write up what actually changed rather than what everyone is guessing, which is where most of the blog comes from.

I work best with in-house marketing teams and scale-ups that have the resource to execute but need senior strategic direction. I sit alongside your team, set the priorities, and make sure the work is actually moving the needle. If you do not have that resource yet, I can help with that too whether that means doing more of the execution directly, or helping you build and brief the right people.

Cruise Nation. 5 months. Measurable traction.

Brought in as Head of SEO to rebuild organic performance after a weak foundation from the previous agency. Poor site structure, thin internal linking, commercial pages isolated deep in the architecture. I re-architected the deals ecosystem, fixed internal linking at scale, and rebuilt key revenue pages around intent and trust signals.

+78%

Clicks
first 30 vs last 30 days

+67%

Impressions
first 30 vs last 30 days

+18.7

Positions gained
avg position 30.97 to 12.29

1,472

AI citations built
across 567 cited pages

Architecture fix

/cruise-deals internal links: 2-5 to 21+. Key commercial pages pulled from avg click depth 3.8 to target 1-2.

Intent mapping

Rebuilt priority pages around transactional intent, trust signals (ABTA/ATOL, Best Price Guarantee), and entity connections.

Content at scale

Scalable FAQ blocks (8-10 per key template) to close long-tail and objection query gaps across the deals ecosystem.

WHAT I BRING

Experience that actually transfers.

Deep technical knowledge

25 years of hands-on technical SEO across some of the UK’s most complex sites. Every architecture problem, every crawl issue, every rendering edge case.

Client-side perspective

Having worked in-house, I understand budget approvals, stakeholder sign-off, developer queues, and how to navigate them without losing momentum.

Multi-sector breadth

Legal, Pharma, Travel, SaaS, Sports, Publishing, Betting, Ecommerce. The most competitive verticals in UK SEO. That breadth shapes every engagement.

MY JOURNEY

25 years in the making.

2000

2000, 2006

Withy King Solicitors | Website Development and SEO

Created Withy King’s first website in 2000 and spent seven years optimising it to become one of the UK’s first legal powerhouse sites, ranking number one across every practice area they offered. Built a video server connecting all five offices using Flash ActionScript and ColdFusion.

2006

2006, 2016

Burfield Digital | Director and Founder

Founded and ran Burfield Digital for a decade, delivering design, development, and marketing to over 100 clients. Supervised the SEO department directly while managing the wider agency. Clients spanned Legal, Pharma, Finance, and Travel.

2013

2013, 2017

MX Vice | Director and Founder

Built mxvice.com from zero while running the agency, covering the off-road motorcycle industry and reporting on live events. Took the publication from nothing to 500,000 monthly visitors in four years, entirely through organic SEO and social. Secured contracts with Monster Energy, KTM, Honda, Yamaha, Fox, and the major brands. Identified and developed four individuals now leading US motorsport journalism and videography.

2018

Jan 2018, Oct 2019

Pierce AB | Head of Content

Pierce AB acquired MX Vice as the content platform for their 130 million GBP ecommerce operation. Worked across teams in Poland, Barcelona, and Sweden, shaping content strategy alongside the Head of SEO and Head of Paid, contributing to senior board-level strategy. After 18 months and a CEO change, MX Vice was removed from the business plan.

2019

Dec 2019, 2023

MX Vice | Director and Founder

Repurchased MX Vice through stock options. Four months later, COVID stopped all sporting events. Launched a podcast series that ran to 160 episodes, growing into Europe’s top off-road show and the third biggest globally. Continued building organic growth with a limited budget after the core team departed to the US in 2022, reaching 800,000 monthly visitors and 2 million social followers at peak.

2024

Aug 2024, Jul 2025

AgencyUK | Head of Tech

Brought in to grow AgencyUK’s SEO retainer revenue and build out the SEO team. Scaled retainers by 460% in eight months, improved client satisfaction across eight pharma, ecommerce, and SaaS clients, and recruited two senior SEO hires. Introduced Sprint SEO frameworks, AI-assisted workflows, and a new reporting stack to reduce manual overhead.

2025

Sep 2025, Jan 2026

Cruise Nation | Head of SEO

Brought in to rebuild organic performance after a weak agency-built foundation. Re-architected the deals ecosystem, fixed internal linking at scale (commercial hub links from 2-5 to 21+), rebuilt revenue pages around intent and trust signals, and built 1,472 AI citations across 567 pages. Result: clicks up 78%, impressions up 67%, average position from 30.97 to 12.29 in five months.

2024

2024, Present

SEOBurf | Independent SEO Consultant

Founded SEOBurf to work directly with businesses that want senior SEO delivered without the agency overhead. Sprint-based delivery: audits, backlogs, weekly releases, reporting against hypotheses. Working with in-house teams, scale-ups, and enterprise brands across the UK on structure, intent, and trust.

BEYOND SEO

The person behind the work.

I have three daughters who I am enormously proud of. Two of them navigate significant challenges every day, one with autism and one with type 1 diabetes, and watching them get on with life is genuinely humbling. They shape how I think about resilience and problem-solving in ways that I bring into my work.

At 49 I have accumulated a lot of digital knowledge, but I have never stopped learning. Right now I am deep into AI-assisted workflows, programmatic SEO, and running live tests across multiple sites to understand how algorithmic changes actually behave. The testing never stops.

When I am not in front of a screen, I follow Tottenham Hotspur (a constant source of character-building disappointment), train at the gym, spend time with good friends, and work on renovating my home. Bath is a good place to be.

WHAT CLIENTS SAY

In their own words.

“James helped us deliver two micro sites and hundreds of thousands of extra hits in the following 12 months. Without James’s knowledge, contacts and hard work this would not have been possible.”

Simon P Marshall

Osborne Clarke

“James blew the competition out of the water when it came to proposals, system demonstrations and creative thinking. We chose James above all other applicants and have never looked back.”

Paul McNally

TasteTech Ltd

“His enthusiasm is infectious and most importantly he gets results. My referrals through the website have never been higher and I would unreservedly recommend him to any business.”

Richard Ellis

RWK Goodman

FREE CONSULTATION