James Harrington

Biography

Career Story

James Harrington grew up in Portland, Oregon, where a competitive streak and a love of research pushed him toward a degree in Marketing and Business Analytics at the University of Oregon, completed in 2008. He entered the workforce as the recession reshaped advertising and pushed many businesses toward digital channels.

His early career was spent at a Portland-based performance marketing agency, where he managed paid search and SEO campaigns side by side. By 2011, James had narrowed his focus entirely to organic search, taking a senior SEO role at a Seattle agency specializing in legal and contractor verticals.

In 2015, he relocated to Denver and spent three years at a nationally recognized SEO firm managing full-service campaigns for U.S. e-commerce brands. One flagship engagement involved an outdoor equipment retailer whose organic channel had plateaued for two consecutive years.

After a comprehensive technical and content audit, James restructured the site's category architecture and rebuilt the internal linking framework from scratch, resulting in a 91% increase in organic revenue over the following 12 months.

James came to Local SEO USA in 2018 through a recruiter. He wanted to work somewhere smaller and more focused, where strategy decisions moved faster and client relationships ran deeper. The fit with Michael Chen's vision was clear from the first conversation.