Search Engine Optimization Team Lead

Director, Customer Development and Experience SEO and AEO Lead

Contract to Hire

Talento

HC has partnered with a leading company to hire an SEO and AEO Lead. As the SEO and AEO Lead, you will be responsible for advancing the organization's organic visibility across both traditional and emerging search ecosystems, including large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven answer engines. This role will define and execute a comprehensive search strategy that strengthens brand authority, drives high-quality traffic, and supports conversion across consumer and travel advisor audiences.

Working closely with Digital Experience, Content, UX/UI, Analytics, and Brand teams, this individual will ensure that SEO and AEO practices are embedded into all aspects of the company’s digital ecosystem — including website and international web properties. The ideal candidate possesses both strategic and hands‑on expertise in technical SEO, content optimization, structured data, and semantic search, along with curiosity for how generative AI will redefine discoverability.

• Develop and execute a comprehensive SEO and AEO strategy aligned with business objectives, guest acquisition goals, and digital transformation roadmap.
• Implement entity‑based and semantic optimization to strengthen topical authority for river cruise destinations, themes, and guest experiences.
• Develop AEO strategies for visibility in AI‑powered ecosystems (e.g., Google SGE, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT integrations).
• Partner with Brand, Content, and UX/UI to align storytelling and page structure with search intent and user experience.

• Conduct keyword and intent research to identify opportunities across the guest journey (awareness, consideration, conversion).
• Collaborate with Content Managers and Copywriters to optimize metadata, headings, internal linking, and structured content.
• Create an SEO style guide and scalable governance framework to ensure brand consistency across U.S., U.K., and EU sites.
• Identify and fill content gaps to support itineraries, blogs, and promotional landing pages.

• Oversee site architecture, crawlability, and indexation to ensure maximum visibility.
• Manage XML sitemaps, redirects, canonical tags, and robots.txt configurations.
• Implement and maintain schema markup (FAQ, Organization, Product, and Event) to enhance rich results and AI summarization eligibility.
• Conduct regular technical audits using tools such as Screaming Frog, Botify, or Sitebulb; partner with developers to resolve issues.
• Monitor Core Web Vitals and collaborate with the Front‑End and CMS teams to improve site performance and accessibility.

• Define KPIs including organic traffic growth, booking starts, keyword visibility, share of voice, and engagement metrics.
• Integrate SEO performance into GA4, Big Query, and Looker dashboards for holistic insight across the marketing funnel.
• Provide monthly and quarterly insights to leadership, including competitor benchmarking and emerging trend analysis.

• Partner with internal teams and agencies to embed SEO and AEO best practices across all digital projects, including the website redesign, and mobile app.
• Collaborate with Paid Media to maximize organic‑paid synergies and keyword efficiency.
• Lead cross‑functional SEO workshops to train content, design, and development teams on evolving search and AI visibility trends.
• Stay ahead of algorithm updates, AI search trends, and multimodal optimization opportunities.
• Recommend and pilot new tools or methodologies (e.g., AI‑driven content optimization, SERP feature tracking, conversational search readiness).
• Act as the internal evangelist for emerging SEO/AEO practices, ensuring remains a leader in digital discoverability within their category.

• Bachelor’s degree in communications, computer science, marketing, or a related field;
  Master’s degree a plus.
• 3‑5 years of experience in SEO, with proven success driving measurable organic growth and engagement.
• Expertise with SEO tools including Google Search Console, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, and GA4.
• Fami…