SEO/AEO Manager

SEO & AEO Manager

The SEO & AEO Manager owns Madison Reed's organic and AI-search presence end to end, across our owned and operated channels: DTC ecommerce and Hair Color Bar locations. This is a hands-on, individual-contributor role that brings our SEO/AEO function in-house, replacing our outside consultant and agency. You will own it directly, from keyword and entity strategy through technical infrastructure, structured data, content development, and performance reporting, across both traditional search and AI answer engines.

You will operate like a product manager for SEO/AEO, writing the requirements and prioritizing the roadmap while Engineering owns the build. You will be the go-to expert on how customers find Madison Reed, whether through Google, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or the next platform that emerges, partnering closely with eCommerce, Hair Color Bar, Engineering, Marketing, and Creative so the right customers find us, however they are searching.

This role is fully remote and full time, reporting to the Senior Director, Digital Commerce - DTC, with occasional travel for company events and team meetings.

The base salary range for this position is between $115,000 and $125,000, plus equity and eligibility for our annual bonus program. At Madison Reed, we aim to pay competitively. Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include geography/market, skills, education, experience, and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

Responsibilities:

SEO & AEO Strategy and Execution

• Define and execute Madison Reed's SEO and AEO roadmap across DTC and Hair Color Bar channels, from keyword and entity strategy to technical infrastructure and link authority.
• Stay ahead of AI search evolution (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and whatever comes next) and adapt strategy to maintain and grow visibility as the landscape shifts.
• Identify and prioritize high-impact opportunities across the site (PDPs, PLPs, editorial content, local pages, and brand storytelling) and drive them to execution.
• Run competitor and prompt-level analysis to understand where Madison Reed is, and is not, being cited or surfaced, and close the gap.
• Serve as the internal subject-matter expert on SEO and AEO, partnering cross-functionally on brand storytelling and site experience and translating search strategy into clear recommendations across the business.

Technical SEO & AEO

• Act as the product owner for technical SEO/AEO: diagnosing issues (site architecture, crawlability, indexation, Core Web Vitals, schema gaps), writing requirements and prioritizing the backlog for Engineering, and validating that what ships matches spec.
• Own structured-data strategy to support both rich results and AI citation quality, and partner with Engineering to get it implemented correctly.
• Optimize content structure, entity coverage, headers (H1/H2), and page formatting to improve visibility in AI-generated answers and featured placements, not just traditional rankings.
• Manage an AI visibility and citation-tracking tool (for example Profound or equivalent) to monitor share of voice, prompt-level performance, and which domains are winning citations against us.

Content Creation and Optimization

• Lead blog content strategy and production: identify topic and keyword opportunities, write posts, structure for AEO, and keep the existing archive current.
• Provide ongoing optimizations for PDPs, category pages, FAQs, and editorial content, flagging what needs to be optimized and why, and partnering with the teams who own that content to get it implemented.
• Build scalable content frameworks and use AI-assisted tools to increase output quality and speed without sacrificing brand voice.
• Develop content briefs and produce first drafts. You are comfortable writing, not just directing.
• Partner with Marketing and Creative to keep content on-brand while meeting SEO/AEO structure requirements.

Local SEO (Hair Color Bar)

• Own local search strategy for our Hair Color Bar retail locations: location pages, Google Business Profile management, LocalBusiness schema, and near-me / local-intent content.
• Partner with the Hair Color Bar team as the subject-matter expert on local discovery, making sure in-market visibility and local-pack performance support appointment and membership growth.

Performance and Reporting

• Own SEO and AEO performance reporting across a defined set of KPIs: organic traffic, AI search visibility and share of voice, citation and appearance rates in AI Overviews and answer engines, featured-snippet appearances, organic conversion and revenue, local search performance, click-through rate, and engagement.
• Diagnose traffic fluctuations, algorithm updates, and ranking or citation changes with speed and precision, looping in Engineering or channel partners as root causes require.
• Run structured experiments and A/B tests to validate hypotheses and continuously improve.

Qualifications:

Required:

• 5+ years of hands-on SEO experience in ecommerce, beauty, wellness, or a consumer DTC brand.
• Demonstrated ability to own the full stack: technical strategy, content creation, and performance analysis, with no agency or consultant to delegate to.
• Strong technical SEO fluency (crawl optimization, site architecture, schema markup, Core Web Vitals, metadata), enough to identify issues, prioritize fixes, and scope them for Engineering. Hands-on implementation is a plus but not required.
• Hands-on experience with AEO/GEO: structured-data requirements, citation optimization, AI visibility tracking tools, and answer-focused content strategy for platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.
• Experience writing production-quality SEO content, including blog posts and PDP copy. You can open a doc and write, not just edit.
• Familiarity with CMS platforms and basic HTML/CSS.
• Experience with programmatic SEO or templated content at scale (for example location pages, shade and variant pages).
• Proficiency with SEO and AI-visibility tools: Semrush, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, GA4, Looker, and an AI citation-tracking platform (for example Profound) or similar.
• Strong communicator who can translate search and AI-search performance into clear business narratives for cross-functional partners.

Preferred:

• Experience using AI-assisted tools to generate or optimize production content (text, metadata, creative assets).
• Experience with local SEO strategies for multi-location retail or service businesses.
• Experience working on homegrown commerce platforms (not Shopify).
• Experience managing or scaling an in-house SEO/AEO function after transitioning it off an outside agency or consultant.