Director, Enterprise SEO & Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Employment Type: Full-Time Department: Marketing & Product Development Location: Minneapolis, MN or Columbia, MD Work Arrangement: On-site Compensation: $150,000–$170,000 base salary, plus annual incentive and equity eligibility The Opportunity A large, nationally recognized education organization is seeking a strategic, forward-thinking Director of Enterprise SEO & Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) to define how its portfolio of brands is discovered across the rapidly evolving search ecosystem. This role will lead enterprise strategy across traditional search engines, AI-powered answer engines, AI-generated search experiences, and high-authority platforms such as YouTube and Reddit. The Director will own organic search and AEO strategy from vision through execution, with accountability for organic growth, brand visibility, AI citation presence, and measurable business outcomes. This is a highly visible player-coach position for a leader who can establish the strategic direction while remaining close enough to the work to analyze performance, troubleshoot technical issues, guide testing, and solve complex challenges directly. The Director will also lead, develop, and scale a growing team of SEO and AEO specialists as the organization’s Search Center of Excellence continues to evolve. What You’ll Do Lead Enterprise Search Strategy and Vision Define and own the organization’s enterprise SEO and AEO strategy across multiple brands and complex digital properties. Establish a clear vision for how brands appear across traditional search engines, AI Overviews, large language models, and emerging answer engines. Identify priority programs, services, audiences, and topic areas where the organization can increase organic market share and authority. Develop and maintain an integrated roadmap that balances immediate performance opportunities with long-term search innovation. Establish success metrics that measure traditional organic performance as well as emerging AI-driven visibility. Track changes in consumer discovery behavior and translate them into actionable enterprise strategies. Own Technical SEO and Platform Enablement Partner closely with Engineering, Product, IT, UX, Analytics, and Web teams to embed SEO into digital platforms and development processes. Guide strategy related to crawlability, indexation, internal linking, site architecture, page performance, accessibility, rendering, and user experience. Evaluate how AI crawlers and answer engines access, retrieve, interpret, and cite organizational content. Lead structured data, schema markup, semantic SEO, taxonomy, and entity-modeling initiatives. Influence CMS, platform, and technology decisions to improve discoverability, scalability, governance, and speed to market. Personally evaluate and troubleshoot complex technical SEO issues, identify root causes, and lead cross-functional resolution. Advance AI Search and Answer Engine Visibility Create scalable frameworks for Answer Engine Optimization and AI-search readiness. Improve brand visibility and citation presence across platforms such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and other emerging discovery experiences. Partner with editorial and content teams to develop structured, authoritative, useful content optimized for both human audiences and AI retrieval systems. Strengthen topical authority, entity recognition, semantic relevance, source credibility, and brand association. Define KPIs for LLM visibility, AI citations, share of answer, semantic authority, and brand recognition. Build an ongoing testing and learning program as AI-powered discovery technologies and behaviors continue to evolve. Activate the Full Discovery Ecosystem Connect SEO and AEO strategies with brand marketing, content, product, conversion optimization, UX, social media, paid media, communications, and analytics. Partner with Brand teams to maintain narrative consistency and strengthen authority positioning. Collaborate with Corporate Communications and Public Relations teams to improve earned authority, external citations, reputation, and source credibility. Help Social and Media teams use search intelligence and AI-supported insights to improve content distribution. Expand organic visibility beyond owned websites by considering the role of YouTube, Reddit, social platforms, publishers, and other trusted third‑party sources. Influence and Align the Organization Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across Marketing, Product, Engineering, Analytics, Communications, and Technology. Translate complicated search trends, technical issues, performance data, and AI developments into clear recommendations for executive audiences. Build alignment across a highly matrixed organization where success requires influence rather than direct authority. Move teams from siloed execution toward integrated, enterprise-wide growth. Establish practical governance models, operating processes, standards, and accountability across multiple brands and stakeholder groups. Lead and Develop the Function Lead, mentor, and scale a team of SEO and AEO specialists. Build the frameworks, capabilities, processes, and tools needed to support a growing Search Center of Excellence. Foster a culture of curiosity, experimentation, accountability, and continuous learning. Balance strategic leadership with hands‑on involvement in analysis, testing, prioritization, and problem‑solving. Manage agency partners, technology vendors, budgets, and resource planning. Measure What Matters Own enterprise reporting across SEO, AEO, and AI‑driven discovery. Connect organic visibility and search performance to meaningful business outcomes. Provide senior leaders with regular reporting on KPIs, trends, tests, risks, opportunities, and competitive movement. Develop measurement approaches for areas where industry standards are still emerging. Use performance insights to prioritize resources and guide future investment. What You Bring Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Advertising, Information Technology, Business, or a related discipline required; master’s degree preferred. Eight to ten or more years of progressive experience leading SEO, organic growth, or digital discovery strategies for large, complex websites or digital ecosystems. Deep expertise in technical SEO, content optimization, semantic search, structured data, analytics, and enterprise SEO methodologies. Experience developing strategy across large websites, multiple brands, regulated environments, or complex organizational structures. Strong understanding of AI‑driven search, generative search experiences, answer engines, and the changing role of large language models in consumer discovery. Demonstrated curiosity and practical experience building new capabilities in rapidly evolving areas such as AEO, generative engine optimization, or LLM visibility. Experience expanding search strategy beyond owned websites and understanding how platforms such as YouTube and Reddit influence authority, discovery, and AI‑generated responses. Proficiency with platforms such as Google Search Console, GA4, Semrush, BrightEdge, or comparable enterprise SEO and analytics tools. Familiarity with emerging AI‑search visibility platforms such as Profound, Peec AI, or similar technologies used to evaluate AI citations and brand presence. Experience partnering with Engineering, Product, Web Development, UX, Content, Analytics, Brand, Social Media, and Communications teams. Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive results within a highly matrixed organization. Strong executive communication skills and the ability to make highly technical or complicated subjects understandable and actionable. Experience managing teams, agencies, budgets, vendors, roadmaps, and enterprise‑level programs. Background in higher education, healthcare, financial services, or another highly regulated industry is advantageous but not required. The Ideal Leader You are a builder who enjoys creating teams, frameworks, measurement systems, and processes from the ground up. You understand enterprise SEO deeply but recognize that the future of organic discovery extends well beyond traditional search rankings. You are naturally collaborative and skilled at bringing together teams with different priorities. You can operate confidently with executive leaders, then shift into technical details with engineers, analysts, content strategists, and SEO specialists. You are data‑driven without waiting for perfect data. You experiment, learn quickly, communicate clearly, and remain energized by constant change. Most importantly, you can turn complexity into clarity and help a large organization act decisively in an emerging discipline. Compensation and Benefits The anticipated base salary range for this position is approximately $150,000 to $170,000 , depending on experience, qualifications, geographic location, scope of responsibility, market conditions, and other job‑related factors. The position is also eligible for an annual incentive program and equity participation, subject to applicable program terms and individual and organizational performance. Benefits include: Medical, dental, and vision insurance Life and disability insurance 401(k) retirement plan with up to a 6% employer match Flexible paid‑time‑off program 12 paid company holidays Equity eligibility This is an opportunity to shape the future of search and AI‑powered discovery for a large, mission‑driven organization whose work has a meaningful impact on education, career access, and workforce development. #J-18808-Ljbffr Aquent