Director of SEO & AI Search

At Postali, our work is rooted in a simple belief: when our clients succeed, we succeed. Since 2009, we've helped law firms across the country grow through thoughtful, strategic marketing tailored to real business goals. We're proud to have been recognized as one of Columbus Business First's Best Places to Work, a reflection of the collaborative, growth-oriented culture we've built and the long‑term relationships we've fostered with both our clients and team members. Search is changing faster than it has in two decades. Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, along with ChatGPT and Claude, are reshaping how people find and choose a lawyer. Most agencies are still trying to figure out what that means. We are actively building for it. Our team is investing heavily in AI, automation, and new ways of delivering results for our clients. We believe the future belongs to organizations that combine human expertise with intelligent systems, and we're looking for someone who wants to help build that future. If you're excited by experimentation, systems thinking, and the opportunity to shape how SEO works in an AI‑first world, you're the right candidate. About the Role This is a position based in Columbus, Ohio. We believe collaboration is strongest when our team works together in person, but we are open to a hybrid arrangement for the right senior candidate. The SEO & AI Search Director owns search performance for our law firm clients across three tracks (organic, Google Maps and local, and AI-answer visibility), and leads the design and day‑to‑day operation of the agentic AI workflows that power all three. It is a hands‑on, build‑it role that blends three skill sets: a modern SEO and GEO strategist, an AI‑workflow engineer, and a team leader. You will work alongside an AI agent system that can diagnose a client, analyze competitors, draft on‑site and content fixes, and assemble citation and reporting work. Your job is to engineer those workflows, supply the expert judgment and approvals the agent cannot, and turn the output into rankings and leads. You will also lead and mentor our SEO team and partner closely with content, design, development, and account management. What You'll Do Own performance across three tracks, each with its own workflow and measurement: Organic (Ahrefs and Google Search Console), Google Maps and Local (Google Business Profile, citations and NAP consistency, reviews, BrightLocal), and AEO/GEO (being the cited answer in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Claude, measured by AI share of voice and citation share). Continuously improve our agentic SEO workflows: the step‑by‑step "skills" the AI follows, its connections to our tools (Ahrefs, BrightLocal, Search Console, WordPress, Wrike, Notion), the prompts and quality checks, and the automations and scheduled tasks. You decide how the work should be done, then make the system do it reliably. Be the human in the loop. Review and approve the agent’s recommendations, content, and on‑site changes before anything goes live; authorize link and citation spend against client budgets; sign off on attorney‑advertising and E‑E‑A‑T compliance; and promote changes from staging to production. Run the diagnosis, action, and measurement loop for each client: find why rankings and leads have softened, pinpoint the recoverable money keywords, fix on‑site and content, and prove the recovery. Lead deep competitor analysis in Ahrefs (content gaps, backlink and link‑intersect gaps, domain‑rating trajectory) and turn it into a prioritized plan. Own the link and citation program on a register‑to‑achieve model (legal directories, bar and chamber and association memberships, sponsorships, awards, and citations), managed within budget, with renewals, credentials, and NAP consistency tracked in our system of record. Audit and correct the tracking setup. Reconcile the keywords and configurations across Wrike, BrightLocal, Ahrefs, and our documentation, and fix outdated or incorrect targets rather than trusting what is already there. Define and report the metrics that matter, including new ones for AI visibility where traditional metrics fall short, and tie ranking movement back to client leads. Build clear, refreshable client dashboards. Lead and mentor the SEO team, set standards and SOPs, and collaborate across content, design, development, and account management. Stay ahead of AI search. Test new tactics and tools and adapt the playbook as Google and the AI engines evolve. Why This Role Is Different Most SEO leadership roles are about directing people. This one is about directing people and an AI system. We have already architected an agentic platform that runs the SEO and GEO loop across all three tracks. You will be the expert who owns it, improves it, and provides the human judgment, approvals, and domain expertise it depends on. If the future of search excites you, and you want to build the operating system that wins it rather than just react to it, this is a rare seat. What We're Looking For 5-7+ years in SEO with a track record of results, including hands‑on organic, local and maps, and emerging AEO/GEO work. (Titles and exact years are flexible for the right person. If you've spent your career creating systems, solving problems, experimenting with AI, and figuring things out - even if you've never held a Director title before- we encourage you to apply). Deep, current command of the modern stack: Ahrefs (or equivalent), Google Search Console, Google Business Profile, a local SEO tool such as BrightLocal, and WordPress with Yoast. Real technical and automation ability. You are comfortable working with AI agents and large language models, connecting tools and APIs, writing and refining prompts or reusable "skills," and building automations. You do not need to be a software engineer, but you should be the kind of person who reads the documentation, builds the workflow, and improves it. (Experience with tools such as n8n, Make, or Zapier, with API connectors, or with Claude- or ChatGPT-based agents is a strong plus.) Strong technical SEO and structured data (Schema.org and JSON‑LD) for both classic search and AI comprehension. A measurement mindset, including comfort defining new KPIs where standard metrics do not yet capture AI visibility, and the ability to make data tell a clear story to clients and the team. Sound judgment in a regulated space. You understand, or will quickly learn, attorney‑advertising rules, E‑E‑A‑T, and YMYL (your-money-or-your-life) standards, and you are comfortable being the approver who keeps the work compliant and on brand. Leadership and communication. You can lead and mentor a team, set process, and explain complex AI and search concepts clearly to clients and colleagues. A builder's mindset. You are comfortable with ambiguity, you write the manual rather than wait for one, and you enjoy turning a new idea into a repeatable system. Great to Have Experience in legal marketing or another regulated or service‑based industry. Familiarity with Wrike or a similar project management tool, and with reputation and review management. Comfort reading an API doc or writing light scripts (for example, simple Python). Not required. Strong Excel or Google Sheets skills. The Tools You'll Work With Ahrefs, BrightLocal, Google Search Console, Google Business Profile, WordPress and Yoast, Wrike, and Notion, plus our in‑house agentic AI platform built on Claude (with connectors to the tools above). You will partner closely with our Director of Marketing Technology & AI to design, improve, and operationalize the AI workflows that power our SEO, local, and AI search initiatives. Full‑time Office is in Columbus, Ohio. Open to hybrid for the right candidate. Compensation: $110,000-$130,000 depending on experience in SEO, local search, AI search visibility, workflow automation, agentic development, and team leadership. Benefits: 401(k); health, dental, and vision insurance; life insurance; paid time off; and parental leave. #J-18808-Ljbffr Postali