SEO/GEO Specialist

SEO/GEO Specialist

Archer Education is a pioneer in higher education transformation. Founded in 2006 by innovators who brought their dot-com startup expertise to modernize the academic landscape, what began as a proprietary search engine that matched students with educational opportunities evolved into a comprehensive strategic partner for universities navigating the complexities of online learning.

We're driven by a fundamental belief that online higher education needs a more effective and sustainable approach - one that empowers institutions rather than replaces their expertise. At the heart of our work is the Online Growth Enablement (OGE) model, a flexible, scalable partnership framework that helps institutions boost enrollments, expand their team's capabilities, maintain control over their unique mission, and build sustainable growth for the long term.

The SEO/GEO Specialist executes organic visibility work for Archer's partner institutions across both search engines and AI answer surfaces, understanding that ranking and being cited are now distinct outcomes that require separate strategies. The work includes keyword and prompt-level research that drives qualified enrollment traffic, implementing the entity and structured-data foundations that make a partner's content retrievable and quotable by large language models, building the off-site authority and third-party mentions that both search engines and AI models rely on, and tracking citation share, brand mention frequency, and AI referral quality. Working alongside the Senior SEO/GEO Specialist and SEO/GEO Manager, they will carry out optimizations across the full discovery journey, contribute to content recommendations grounded in data, and keep current as search changes rapidly in higher education.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Execute SEO and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) campaign tasks under the direction of the Senior SEO/GEO Specialist and SEO/GEO Manager
• Support ongoing optimization to meet partner enrollment objectives, including technical audits, keyword and prompt research, metadata development, on-page optimization, internal linking, and entity-based content recommendations
• Implement and QA structured data and verify HTML-to-JSON-LD parity so machine-readable claims match what users see
• Maintain entity coverage documentation, including entity signals and topical authority mapping for assigned program verticals
• Monitor AI search visibility (share of voice, citation rate, brand mention frequency, sentiment, and competitor displacement) using AI visibility platforms, and preparing recurring performance reporting
• Run off-site authority campaigns for partner program pages: identify relevant publishers and higher education resource sites, coordinate outreach and placement orders with external partners and vendors, and track each placement through delivery, including target page, anchor text, and status
• Monitor backlink and referring domain health using Ahrefs and Semrush, flag lost or low-quality links, and report how earned placements affect rankings and AI citations
• Structure content for retrieval: answer-first formatting, semantic chunking, extractable summaries, and quotable statistics
• Support partner communication by preparing performance updates, recommendations, and meeting materials, and participate in partner calls
• Collaborate with the content team and subject matter experts on SEO- and GEO-driven deliverables: comprehensive guides, core program pages, blogs (new and refreshed), and multimodal assets
• Follow and help document departmental processes, automation, and repeatable deliverables
• Use AI tooling to scale research, analysis, and QA, with human verification of every output before it reaches a partner

Leadership Responsibilities

• Work with the content strategist and creative team to carry out integrated SEO and GEO strategy
• Stay current on AI search developments and share relevant findings with the team

Required Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

• Understanding of how organic search intersects with paid media, lifecycle, lead generation, and down funnel conversion metrics
• Working knowledge of organic channel best practices across both traditional search and AI answer engines
• Foundational knowledge of technical SEO, content strategy, on-page optimization, and AI visibility
• Working knowledge of off-site authority building and link acquisition, including evaluating a site's quality, relevance, and risk before placement
• Strong organization and attention to detail for managing high-volume placement tracking across multiple partners
• Familiarity with structured data and schema markup, entity SEO, and knowledge graph concepts
• Ability to identify common crawl, render, and indexation issues, including JavaScript rendering parity for AI crawlers
• Hands-on experience with GA4, Google Search Console, Semrush, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog; exposure to AI visibility measurement platforms such as Peec AI, Profound, Semrush AI Toolkit, and Ahrefs Brand Radar
• Applied prompt engineering and AI workflow use, with sound judgment about where automation is and is not appropriate; Claude Cowork experience is a plus
• Clear written and verbal communication for both technical and non-technical audiences

Education, Experience, Licenses or Certifications

• Bachelor's degree or relevant certifications
• 1-2 years of SEO or related digital marketing experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous agency experience
• Exposure to AI search visibility or generative engine optimization work
• Experience with outreach, digital PR, or publisher and vendor relationships
• Higher education or regulated-vertical marketing experience
• Understanding of HTML, CSS, and code structure; ability to read JSON-LD
• Experience with CMS platforms (WordPress, Drupal, AEM)

Working Conditions

• Remote environment
• Travel requirements up to 10%

The Benefits

At Archer, we believe empowered employees have the most fun and do their best work, so we strive to offer a competitive benefits package to allow just that. Our comprehensive benefits package includes medical, dental and vision plans, as well as paid time off and sick days. Here are just a few more of the benefits you'll enjoy as an Archer team member.

Invest in your future: 401k plans and a full contribution match up to 4%.

Prioritize your family: Up to 12 weeks of parental leave with 6 weeks paid, following the birth, adoption, or foster care placement of a child.

Never stop learning: Receive up to $5,250 per year in tuition reimbursement for continuing education.

Balance work and life: We offer a flexible working environment and schedule that empowers you to do your best work. Our teams work across all time zones in the US.

Salary Description $64,000 - $72,000 / Annual Salary