Search strategist

Search Strategist

Chicago

As an SEO strategist, you understand that today's user experience starts at the search results, and that search marketing is at the core of a customer-centric digital strategy. You have a passion for optimizing exceptional site experiences, crafting powerful content strategies, and driving results for the world-class brands we work with.

You're data-driven and detail-oriented, and you bring strong analytical skills to every project. Ensuring that users can find the content they want—and that your client's content is easy to find—can be challenging, but your analyses and recommendations for digital visibility are always on point. You elevate marketing campaigns and user experiences with strategic search data insights and content recommendations, and you're a team player who can work across disciplines to implement search initiatives.

You Will

• Assist in the execution and optimization of holistic search strategy for a major US brand
• Work as part of an integrated SEO/SEM team, aligning paid and organic search strategies to maximize holistic search performance
• Proactively identify SEO and content optimization opportunities
• Analyze search data to understand consumer intent and market trends
• Perform in-depth keyword research and optimizations to increase brand visibility across the holistic search landscape, including Google, YouTube, and other search/social platforms
• Make copy and content recommendations based on search data insights
• Conduct SEO audits and competitive analyses
• Identify and implement technical optimizations related to accessibility, indexability, structured markup, site speed improvements, broken links, and more
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to incorporate SEO strategies and best practices
• Convey SEO concepts to clients in a concise, meaningful, and easy-to-understand manner
• Evaluate and identify opportunities for search performance improvement
• Translate SEO results to business objectives
• Document and communicate project developments, timelines, and action items to Project Delivery and Client Services teams
• Monitor and evaluate search results and performance
• Keep current with the latest digital trends to identify future applications for clients (e.g. omnichannel search optimization, new search ad formats and betas, automation, visual search, etc.)

You Have

• 3+ years of SEO experience
• Proven results increasing search rankings, traffic, and conversions from SEO initiatives/recommendations
• Strong content strategy skills, ideally with editorial content/article creation or blog strategy
• Excellent writing ability
• Knowledge of recent algorithm updates, search ranking factors, and search best practices
• Strong presentation and storytelling skills, including data visualization
• A systematic approach to identifying SEO opportunities and issues, defining solutions, and executing action plans to drive improved performance
• Experience with Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, and Google Search Console
• Experience with SEO tools for crawling, rank tracking, keyword research, and technical auditing, such as BrightEdge, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Screaming Frog, Google Ads, etc.
• Strong Excel skills, including pivot tables, vlook-ups, and comfort working with large data sets
• Experience managing paid search, PPC, or SEM campaigns preferred but not required
• Experience with YouTube search optimization preferred but not required

What We Offer:

• Global maternity and parental leave
• Competitive benefits packages
• Vacation, compassionate leave, sick days, and flex days
• Access to online services for families and new parents
• Extensive winter holiday office closures
• Summer Fridays (off at 3:00 PM local time every Friday)
• Diversity and Inclusion Board with 12 affinity groups
• Internal learning and development programs
• Enterprise-wide employee discounts

Our new hires & employees are the future of our organization, and we want to set you up for long-term success. In an effort to do so, we expect our team to work from an office a minimum of 3 days a week.

We continually review ranges to address skills, experience and markets. Base salaries are determined during our interview process, by assessing a number of factors that include, but aren't limited to, a candidate's experience and skills relative to the scope and responsibilities of the position. For current CM employees, tenure will also be a consideration.

Salary Range

$75,000 - $80,000 USD

Critical Mass is an equal opportunity employer. Critical Mass uses artificial intelligence in our recruitment process to enhance job postings, filter keywords during the review of prospective candidates, and, in some cases, transcribe interviews with our recruiters. Human review remains central to the process, and all hiring decisions are ultimately made by our team.