Before founding On Top Marketing, Dan M. Jones had never worked a traditional job, never managed a team and had no formal business training.

Today, the Manchester entrepreneur is recognised as one of the UK’s leading SEO and AI optimisation specialists, helping businesses across the country improve their visibility in both Google and modern AI-driven search platforms. But according to Jones, building the company was never part of some carefully structured business plan.

Instead, it grew out of necessity.

Jones originally taught himself web design through YouTube videos and online forums after leaving college early due to financial pressures at home.

Growing up in a financially struggling household with both parents unwell and living on benefits, he says traditional education felt too slow and too uncertain to provide the future he wanted.

“I realised very early on that if I wanted to change my life, I was going to have to teach myself.” said Jones.

“I didn’t have connections, business experience or anyone guiding me through any of it. Everything I learned came from books, online courses, YouTube videos and years of trial and error.”

After building websites for local businesses around Colchester, Jones eventually became fascinated by search engine optimisation after he managed to get his own freelance website to outrank established agencies in Google for local web design searches.

Some of the same agencies that had previously ignored his emails asking for web design work eventually began contacting him asking for help improving their Google rankings.

“That was the moment I realised how powerful SEO really was.” Jones explained.

“I suddenly had established agencies with entire teams asking me for help because my own website was outperforming theirs in Google.”

As demand for his SEO work increased, Jones found himself overwhelmed with clients, working late into the night seven days a week while also dealing with ongoing health problems.

“I physically couldn’t work more hours than I already was.” he said.

“So I started paying external service providers to help fulfil some of the work, but I was constantly disappointed with the quality. Too many people were focused on delivering tasks rather than actually getting results.”

That frustration eventually led Jones to make a decision that would fundamentally change the direction of the business: building his own in house team.

After researching remote hiring extensively and investing in courses focused on recruitment and operations, Jones began learning how to source, vet and train staff himself.

He says the biggest challenge was not the technical side of hiring, but learning how to identify the right people.

“You can have somebody who’s incredibly talented, but if they don’t communicate well or fit the culture of the business, it doesn’t work.” Jones said.

“I had never been anyone’s boss before, and I’d also never been anyone’s employee either. So I had no idea how to hire or manage people.”

Jones remembers feeling significant imposter syndrome after hiring his first employee, despite the company already generating strong revenue.

“I remember thinking: this person’s future is now partly in my hands.” he said.

“I didn’t want to become the kind of boss I’d seen other people complain about. I wanted to build a business where people actually enjoyed growing and becoming better at what they do.”

According to Jones, one of the biggest mistakes he made early on was failing to give capable people enough responsibility.

“I convinced myself nobody could do certain things as well as I could.” he admitted.

“But eventually I realised that if you believe that without actually giving people the opportunity to prove themselves, it’s just ego. And with some people. it was true...they couldn't do it as good. But with others, they could do it better.”

That shift in mindset became one of the defining turning points for On Top Marketing.

Jones says he knew the business had become a “real company” when one of his team members independently delivered work that generated new business for a client within just a few months, with minimal involvement from him personally.

“That was the moment I realised this wasn’t just me anymore.” he said.

“It wasn’t just the ‘Dan Jones show with assistants’. We were becoming an actual company with genuinely talented people producing real results.”

Today, On Top Marketing operates with a strong focus on systems, procedures and continuous learning, something Jones credits heavily for the agency’s growth.

He believes many SEO agencies fail because they rely too heavily on individual people rather than building repeatable systems that consistently produce high quality work.

“If somebody figures out something that works really well, it needs to become a process the entire team can benefit from.” he explained.

“The business can never rely entirely on one person, including me.”

Jones says audiobooks played a major role in shaping his approach to leadership and business. When asked which resources had the biggest influence on him, he highlighted titles including The E-Myth, Systemology, The Lean Startup, The Personal MBA and How to Win Friends and Influence People.

He also credits continuous self-education and studying business systems as one of the key reasons the company has been able to scale successfully.

“I became obsessed with learning how businesses actually operate, how leadership works and how to build systems that allow great people to perform at a high level.”

Despite becoming recognised for his expertise in SEO and AI optimisation, Jones says the thing he is most proud of is the team itself.

“We’re not a massive company with hundreds of employees.” he said.

“But we’re an incredibly powerful team that’s helped businesses solve major problems. That’s what I’m most proud of.”

Jones also believes business owners should make an effort to understand the basics of SEO themselves rather than blindly trusting agencies.

That belief recently led him to launch “SEO Demystified”, a completely free SEO course designed to help beginners, business owners and marketing managers better understand how modern search actually works.

“A lack of transparency is one of the biggest reasons people distrust SEO agencies.” Jones explained.

“If business owners understand even the fundamentals of SEO, they can make much better decisions and properly judge whether the work being done is genuinely helping their business.”

More information about Dan M. Jones can be found at: https://danmjones.com

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Company Name: On Top Marketing
Contact Person: Dan M. Jones
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Country: United Kingdom
Website: https://ontopmarketing.agency/