SEO Manager, AI Search & GEO

Job Description – SEO Manager, AI Search & GEO

Division / Department: Marketing
Reports To (Position): Director of Organic Search
Level / Grade: Manager
Location: Remote (US)
Employment Type: Full-Time, Exempt
Work Conditions: Remote Office Environment
Travel: Minimal, as needed
Telecommute: Yes
Minimum Educational Requirement: Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, Analytics, Information Technology, or a related field; equivalent experience considered
Years of Experience: 5+ years of hands-on SEO experience across technical SEO, content optimization, keyword research, and organic performance analysis

Position Summary:

Career Certified is a multi-brand professional licensing education platform serving regulated industries, including real estate, financial services, insurance, and AEC. Our nine brands collectively serve hundreds of thousands of learners annually across pre-licensing, exam prep, continuing education, and compliance training.

Google remains one of the most important ways prospective students find our brands, courses, and educational content. At the same time, platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude are becoming another layer of search and discovery that are branching off traditional SEO. We are looking for an experienced SEO practitioner who can help us grow across both.

The SEO Manager, AI Search & GEO will be a core member of the SEO team and responsible for helping with hands-on technical SEO, on-page optimization, content strategy, competitive research, and organic performance across a portfolio of Career Certified brands. The role will also help build our approach to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and AI search visibility.

This is not an AI-only role, and it is not a strategy-only role. You should be comfortable diagnosing a technical SEO issue, building a keyword and content strategy, reviewing schema markup, analyzing Search Console data, and then applying those same skills to understand why one brand is appearing in AI-generated answers while another is not.

The role reports to the Director of Organic Search and works closely with content, web, ecommerce, analytics, and brand marketing teams.

Essential Functions / Job Responsibilities:

Technical SEO

• Monitor and improve the technical SEO health of assigned Career Certified websites, including crawling, indexation, canonicalization, redirects, XML sitemaps, robots directives, and site performance.
• Identify technical issues that may limit search engine discovery, crawling, rendering, or indexing and work with web teams to resolve them.
• Implement and maintain structured data.
• Review site architecture, URL structure, navigation, and internal linking to improve crawlability, topical relationships, and organic visibility.
• Support website migrations, redesigns, CMS changes, and new site or brand launches with SEO requirements, QA, and post-launch monitoring.
• Diagnose unexpected traffic, ranking, or indexing changes and identify likely causes.

SEO Strategy & Execution

• Conduct keyword research and search intent analysis across Career Certified's industries, products, states, license types, and customer journeys.
• Build and maintain keyword and topic maps that connect search demand to the right pages and content types.
• Identify organic growth opportunities across commercial, category, product, educational, and informational searches.
• Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, headings, page copy, internal linking, and other on-page elements.
• Evaluate existing content and determine where pages should be updated, consolidated, expanded, repositioned, or retired.
• Conduct competitor research using rankings, content, backlinks, SERP features, and topic coverage to identify gaps and opportunities.
• Help grow brand authority through digital PR, partnerships, link acquisition, and content that naturally earns citations and references.
• Monitor changes in Google Search and translate those changes into practical recommendations for Career Certified brands.

GEO, AEO & AI Search

• Develop and continually refine Career Certified's approach to Generative Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization.
• Identify the questions, prompts, topics, and recommendation queries where our brands should be visible across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and other emerging search experiences.
• Analyze which sources, brands, pages, and content formats AI systems are citing for important topics in our categories.
• Determine why competitors are being cited where Career Certified brands are not and translate those findings into specific SEO, content, authority, or technical actions.
• Apply traditional SEO concepts such as topical authority, internal linking, entity clarity, structured data, source authority, and content quality to improve visibility across both traditional and AI-driven search.
• Evaluate content for characteristics that make it easier for search engines and AI systems to understand and reference, including clear answers, factual support, semantic completeness, strong page structure, and original expertise.
• Test GEO and AEO tactics and document what produces measurable changes in visibility, citation frequency, referral traffic, or downstream performance.
• Stay current on how AI search platforms discover, retrieve, summarize, and cite web content without chasing tactics that cannot be validated.
• Develop automation processes and assist with internal education.

AI Search Measurement

• Build and maintain a consistent set of priority prompts and topics for each brand.
• Track brand mentions, citations, source inclusion, competitive share of voice, and changes in AI search visibility over time.
• Evaluate AI search visibility by platform, brand, topic, and stage of the customer journey.
• Use tools such as Profound, Semrush, Ahrefs, Athena, or other emerging platforms where appropriate, while recognizing the limitations of current AI visibility measurement.
• Combine AI visibility data with GA4, Google Search Console, referral traffic, branded search trends, and other signals to understand business impact.
• Develop reporting that helps leadership understand where AI search is creating visibility, where competitors have an advantage, and where we have an opportunity to improve.

Content Strategy & Optimization

• Work with content teams to develop pages that are built around real search demand and user questions rather than content volume alone.
• Create content briefs that incorporate keyword research, search intent, competitive analysis, related questions, topical coverage, and AI citation opportunities.
• Improve existing pages so they provide clearer, more complete, and more authoritative answers than competing content.
• Identify opportunities to incorporate original expertise, proprietary data, subject matter experts, examples, research, tools, and other first-party information that competitors cannot easily replicate.
• Develop scalable standards for FAQs, educational content, licensing guides, product pages, comparison content, and other recurring page types.
• Action opportunities for improving sourcing, expert involvement, authorship, accuracy, transparency, and first-hand knowledge where appropriate.

Reporting & Analysis

• Monitor organic search performance using Google Search Console, GA4, Ahrefs, Semrush, and other SEO platforms.
• Track rankings, clicks, impressions, CTR, conversions, revenue, and other performance indicators based on the purpose of each page and brand.
• Identify meaningful changes in organic performance and explain what is driving them.
• Build reporting that connects SEO activity to business outcomes rather than rankings alone.
• Surface emerging opportunities, competitive threats, and search behavior changes to the Director of Organic Search and other stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with web and ecommerce teams to make sure SEO requirements are incorporated into development work before changes go live.
• Work with content and brand marketing teams to align editorial plans with organic search opportunities, licensing cycles, regulatory changes, and enrollment periods.
• Translate SEO and AI search findings into clear recommendations for teams that do not work in search every day.
• Present organic and AI search performance, opportunities, and risks to leadership in straightforward business language.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

What Success Looks Like:

• Career Certified brands improve visibility across both traditional organic search and emerging AI-driven search experiences.
• Technical SEO issues are proactively identified, prioritized, and resolved.
• SEO and content strategies are grounded in measurable search demand, customer intent, and competitive intelligence.
• Career Certified brands increase their presence and citations within relevant AI-generated answers and recommendation queries.
• GEO and AEO initiatives are systematically tested and evaluated based on measurable results.
• Organic search initiatives demonstrate a clear connection to traffic, conversions, revenue, and other meaningful business outcomes.
• Leadership receives clear reporting on traditional organic search performance, AI search visibility, competitive threats, and growth opportunities.
• Content, web, ecommerce, analytics, and brand teams receive clear and actionable recommendations that improve organic performance.

Minimum Requirements:

• 5+ years of hands-on SEO experience across technical SEO, content optimization, keyword research, and organic performance analysis.
• Demonstrated experience diagnosing and resolving technical SEO issues rather than simply identifying them.
• Strong understanding of how search engines crawl, render, index, rank, and surface web content.
• Experience building SEO strategies across large websites, multiple brands, multiple clients, or complex product portfolios.
• Experience using data from Google Search Console and GA4 to identify problems and opportunities.
• Hands-on experience with Ahrefs, Semrush, Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or similar SEO platforms.
• Practical experience testing GEO, AEO, LLM optimization, or AI search visibility strategies.
• Ability to explain what you have tested in AI search, what you measured, and what you learned.
• Comfortable working in an area where best practices are still developing and many industry claims have not been proven.
• Comfortable owning execution on a lean team without requiring a large support structure.
• Able to manage multiple brands and priorities at the same time.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Familiarity with exam cycles, regulatory seasonality, or state-specific licensing content preferred.
• Experience and comfort with BigQuery, Looker Studio/Data Studio, SQL, and log file analysis preferred.
• High level of comfort working with large SEO datasets preferred.

Skills Required:

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and critical-thinking skills.
• Strong understanding of technical SEO and organic search strategy.
• Advanced keyword research and search intent analysis skills.
• Strong content strategy and on-page optimization capabilities.
• Ability to translate complex SEO and AI search concepts into clear business recommendations.
• Strong competitive analysis and research skills.
• Ability to identify and prioritize organic growth opportunities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to collaborate effectively across content, web, ecommerce, analytics, and marketing teams.
• Ability to manage multiple brands and competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Detail-oriented with a high level of accountability and ownership.

Technical Skills Required:

• Technical SEO and crawl diagnostics.
• Google Search Console.
• Google Analytics 4.
• Ahrefs, Semrush, or equivalent SEO platforms.
• Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or similar crawling tools.
• Schema.org and JSON-LD structured data.
• Site performance analysis.
• Keyword research and search intent analysis.
• Content briefs and on-page optimization.
• Internal linking and site architecture.
• Competitive SEO analysis.
• Backlink and referring domain analysis.
• GEO, AEO, and AI search visibility analysis.
• LLM citation and brand mention tracking platforms.
• Excel or Google Sheets for SEO analysis and reporting.
• BigQuery, Looker Studio/Data Studio, SQL, and log file analysis preferred.

Physical Requirements:

The physical demands of this position are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Internal and External Interaction:

This position regularly interacts with the Director of Organic Search, content teams, web and ecommerce teams, analytics, brand marketing, and other cross-functional partners throughout the organization. The role translates SEO and AI search findings into actionable recommendations and partners with stakeholders to improve organic visibility, content performance, technical SEO health, and business outcomes across Career Certified brands.

The incumbent may also work with external SEO platforms, technology providers, partners, and other vendors as needed.

Benefits:

The following benefits are available to eligible full-time employees beginning the first of the month following 30 days of employment:

• Medical Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Short-Term Disability
• Long-Term Disability
• 401(k) Plan Participation
• Additional Ancillary Benefits