A decade in SEO, fully accounted for

Ten years.
Every chapter.

Two countries on payroll. Five more as a freelancer. One side venture that pays for itself. This is the full picture.

My career hasn't been linear. Alongside in-house SEO leadership in Dubai and Pakistan, I've consulted for businesses across the UK, USA, Canada, the UAE, and Vietnam, supported digital marketing agencies behind the scenes, and built a Rank and Rent (RNR) lead-generation business on the side. Below is every part of it, in order.

Career snapshot 2016 to 2026

In SEO: 10+ yrs
In-house roles: 3
Freelance markets: 5
Side venture: RNR
Backlinks built: 4K+
Keywords ranked: 600+

Jump to In-house roles · Freelance · Agencies · Rank & Rent · Industries

01 · In-house

Full-time roles.

Three in-house roles, three different scales of responsibility, two countries. Where the bulk of the last decade has happened.

2025 to Present

Local SEO Manager

Gold Barn International · Dubai, UAE

Leading Local and International SEO programmes across multiple brands, with additional iGaming SEO work in some of the most competitive verticals on the web.

Own the Local + International SEO roadmap across the portfolio, including hiring, OKRs, and quarterly reviews.
Lead an SEO team executing technical audits, content briefs, and outreach campaigns end-to-end.
Manage iGaming organic growth across casino, sportsbook, and affiliate brands in regulated markets.
Build global site architectures with proper hreflang, internationalisation, and crawl strategy.

2022 to 2025

SEO Manager

Brand Platforms · UAE

Three years of agency-style enterprise SEO across multiple UAE client portfolios. The role that taught me to run campaigns at scale.

Drove an 80% lift in organic traffic across the client portfolio.
Led Google Core Update recovery on multiple sites by rebuilding E-E-A-T signals.
Took clients to Top-2 in the Dubai map pack, paired with Google Ads for compounding lead growth.
Used Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, and GA4 daily to pivot tactics in real time.

2021 to 2022

SEO Specialist

Triverce · Pakistan

My first in-house role. Where freelance instincts got sharpened into team-ready processes and real client KPIs.

Lifted search visibility by 60% across the portfolio via SEO audits and content optimization.
Drove a 40% lift in domain authority through high-quality backlink campaigns.
Built the audit, brief, and reporting frameworks I still draw on today.

02 · Freelance & consulting

Independent work, five markets.

Alongside the in-house roles, I've consulted for businesses across five countries since 2016 — from local UAE service providers to North American e-commerce brands. The work is selective; the goal is the same everywhere: rank the site, convert the traffic, grow the business.

UAE

Dubai

Local service businesses, SMEs, and Business Bay startups.

United States

National + Local

E-commerce, SaaS, and home-service businesses across multiple states.

Canada

Local + B2B

Service businesses and lead-generation projects targeting major Canadian metros.

United Kingdom

National + Local

Small businesses and content sites competing in dense UK SERPs.

Vietnam

Local + Tourism

Local services, hospitality, and emerging-market e-commerce.

What I do for freelance clients

Full-stack SEO that gets businesses found and turns clicks into customers:

→ 60+ point SEO audits with prioritised roadmaps
→ Technical SEO fixes and Core Web Vitals work
→ Google Business Profile and local citation cleanup
→ Content strategy and intent-mapped briefs
→ White-hat link building and digital PR
→ Monthly reporting tied to revenue, not just rankings

What clients usually want

Almost every freelance project starts with one of three needs:

01 Rankings have stalled and they don't know why
02 A new site needs SEO baked in from day one
03 Traffic dropped after a Google update

My job is to diagnose which one is real, fix it, and prove the fix worked with data.

How freelance engagements work

No bloated retainers, no surprise invoices.

→ Fixed-fee SEO audits
→ Project-based technical sprints
→ Monthly consulting retainers with clear scope
→ Ad-hoc strategy calls and second opinions

The first call is always free. You'll know what it costs before you commit.

03 · Agency partnerships

Behind the curtain.

I've also partnered with several digital marketing agencies as a white-label SEO consultant. Agencies bring me in when a client's SEO problem is bigger than their in-house bandwidth or specialist depth.

White-label SEO audits

Comprehensive 60+ point audits delivered under the agency's brand, with the depth their internal team can't always produce on their own timeline.

Specialist technical SEO support

Migrations, JS rendering issues, schema rollouts, log-file analysis. The technical work most agencies don't have a senior specialist to run.

Strategic consulting

Quarterly strategy reviews for agencies whose senior team wants a second opinion on direction, competitive position, or pricing of SEO work.

04 · Side venture

Rank and Rent.
SEO as a product.

Beyond client work, I run a small Rank and Rent (RNR) portfolio. RNR is SEO turned into a product instead of a service: build a niche local website, rank it for valuable search terms, and rent the lead flow to a local business that benefits from the traffic.

The day job pays for the future. RNR pays for the coffee that fuels it.

Build

A niche local site, fully optimised — geo-targeted content, schema, citations, and a fast, mobile-first build. Designed to rank from day one.

Rank

Earn real rankings for valuable local terms (think "plumber in [city]" or "tow truck near [area]") with the same playbook I use for paying clients.

Rent

Forward the calls and form submissions to a local business that pays a flat monthly fee. They get qualified leads; I get recurring income from work I already did.

Why RNR matters for my client work

Running RNR means I'm always testing the latest SEO tactics with my own money on the line. When Google rolls out a new update, I see the impact on my own sites before I see it in client reports. It keeps the playbook sharp.

05 · Sectors I know

Industries I've shipped in.

Ten years across in-house, freelance, and side projects means a wide range of verticals. The principles travel; the playbooks adapt.

iGaming

Casino, sportsbook, affiliate brands in regulated markets.

E-commerce

Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento stores in fashion, retail, DTC.

Real estate

Dubai listings, agency sites, and lead-generation funnels.

Professional services

Law firms, consultants, agencies, B2B services.

Local services

Trades, home services, clinics, restaurants, fitness.

SaaS

B2B SaaS sites scaling content and product-led SEO.

Travel & hospitality

Hotels, tour operators, booking sites across MENA and Asia.

Content sites

Blogs, news, affiliate-driven publishers building topical authority.

The compound effect

Why all this matters to you.

Most SEO consultants have done one of these things well. I've done four — in-house leadership at scale, international freelance across five markets, white-label agency work, and a Rank and Rent portfolio where my own income depends on the tactics I recommend.

That mix means I've seen what works at $500 client budgets and $50,000 ones. I've watched the same Google updates hit my own sites, my agency partners' clients, and my employer's portfolio in the same week. The patterns are clearer when you've seen them from every angle.

References

Voices from the work.

"Haris is one of the sharpest SEO minds we've worked with in the UAE. He thinks like a strategist, executes like an engineer, and reports like a CFO. Rare combination."

Dilwar Hussain Khan

CEO & Founder · Brand Platforms

"Curious, methodical, and refreshingly honest. Haris explained exactly what was broken, exactly what he'd do, and then he did it. Visibility climbed every month we worked together."

Mian Sajid

Chief Executive Officer · Triverce

Work with me

Ten years of work.
Now yours.

Whether you need an in-depth SEO audit, a freelance retainer, white-label agency support, or just a second opinion before you commit to a strategy, I'd love to hear about your project.

Message me on WhatsApp Send an email Connect on LinkedIn

Ten years. Every chapter.